The largest planet in the Solar System, Jupiter is a good target for almost any telescope. If the seeing is good, even small telescopes will show its oval disk, a few dark cloud bands stretching across the disk, and Jupiter's four brightest moons.

This image shows some of Jupiter's swirling cloud formations and their subtle colors. It was taken just a few weeks after some object (a comet or asteroid) struck Jupiter and left a black scar on its far southern hemisphere. However, that black area was on the other side of Jupiter when I took the exposures that were used to make this picture.

Image details: Stacked from 159 video frames taken with an Orion Starshoot Solar System Imager and a 2x barlow lens with my 12-inch Meade telescope. Image processing with Registax, ImagesPlus, and Photoshop.

August 1, 2009