Strange colours on Jupiter

Hi guys, yesterday night, there was a scheduled load shedding power cut in the city and the entire sky was clear of light from the city and I could see all the stars for the first time in my life.

Anyway, jupiter was overhead at that time so I took my small telescope out which I got free for subscription to Scientific American and I focused on Jupiter, I saw the trademark yellow colours of jupiter but I also saw green colours on jupiter, jupiter isnt green right.

So, my question to entire ats is did jupiter have any auroral display yesterday or is it a problem with my telescope.

There are quite a few strange color effects that planets and stars make when they are waaaaay out in the distance. But what I think it is, is how the light is reflecting off of Jupiter's atmosphere, depending how far away we are from it, is my guess.

My telescope can see only a twinkling glob of Jupiter, or at least I think it was Jupiter, and yeah it depends how powerful your telescope is too. The more magnification the better.

[edit on 30-8-2008 by Shrukin89]

I think it'll be kinda hard to compare the results between a space based, or observatory based telescope image and a backyard telescope.
Mighthave been something in the way the atmosphere messed with the light, or it may have bee swamp gas for all I know.

reply to post by Shrukin89


Yeah! you are correct, my telescope is a small one maybe it is the less magnification that causes this problem.

reply to post by RuneSpider

It cannot be swamp gas because there isnt any swamp nearby.

Stanfe colors on jupitarer! What does it meaterer what colors eixst on aplanet od gas and tan-colored puke!

plucky kahd hbeen dirninking...

pull it together...

Okay, so, Jupiter is out there. Far away.... Now, tis important to watch...I mean, to watch the celestial cosmos. I, therefore, applaud this thread. This thread is/does watch. ANd we need observant people. There, I did it.

reply to post by peacejet


Is your telescope a refractor? If it's small and cheap it probably has a cheap lens, so my guess is that it was a result of severe chromatic aberration. I just did a 2 hour long time lapse video of jupiter the other night and saw nothing out of the ordinary. Here it is, for comparison's sake to what you saw:
uploadfile2.putfile.com...

[edit on 30-8-2008 by ngchunter]

Any telescope that you got free with a magazine subscription probably isn't worth what you paid for it (which is nothing) so any wierd colors you see are probably caused by the cheap lenses.

Always remember, you get what you pay for ;-)

Like the others say.

Cheap scope, cheap result.

BTW, it isn't the magnification potential of your scope, it is its' ability to collect light that is of the paramount importance.

The bigger the apature of the collecting lens, the better the view, regardless of the magnification power.

Originally posted by moonrat

BTW, it isn't the magnification potential of your scope, it is its' ability to collect light that is of the paramount importance.

The bigger the apature of the collecting lens, the better the view, regardless of the magnification power.

Good explaination. The quality of the lenses do have a lot to do with the clarity. I've tried my Burlow lens and I couldn't see anything, only except the moon, it can't capture the light of any other star.

The magnification of my 20 X lenses work the best with my telescope, even that the stars and planets that I see are still blurry (except for the moon). With the 10 X magnification lenses I still didn't really see anything.

I'm gonna have to start looking for a new telescope pretty soon, it's a Bushnell.