The planet Jupiter is always one of the brightest objects in the night sky. It’s brighter than any star, and is only outshone by the planet Venus and the Moon, and, very rarely, by Mars and Mercury (when it’s too close to the Sun to observe). Jupiter reaches a position for optimum viewing in a telescope once every 13 months, roughly, and it makes its latest closest approach to Earth on December 7, 2024 at 21h Universal Time when the planet appears in the horns of the celestial bull, Taurus. A couple of months before and after this date, Jupiter is in perfect position for viewing with a small telescope, or even a pair of binoculars. You can’t miss it: the planet is by far the brightest object in the eastern sky as night gets underway in the northern hemisphere from now through March and April of 2025. The visible face of Jupiter reveals so many interesting features in a small telescope that the planet is a favorite target for new and experienced stargazers.
Where to See Jupiter in 2024
This year Jupiter reaches opposition north of the ecliptic in the eastern part of Taurus. The planet has been retrograding westward against the background stars a little each day since October 9. It resumes its eastward (prograde) motion about four months later. At opposition, Jupiter shines close to magnitude -2.9, brighter than anything else in the night sky except for Venus and the Moon and lies about 620 million kilometers from Earth. Its disk spans nearly 48″ as seen from our point of view.
What To See On the Face of Jupiter
Jupiter is the largest planet and, by far, the largest object in the solar system save for the Sun. The planet is 2.5x as massive as all other planets combined. Like Saturn, Jupiter is a “gas giant”, a massive planet made up almost entirely of cold hydrogen and helium gas along with traces of other gases like ammonia and methane. (Uranus and Neptune are also sometimes called gas giants, or, because they are much colder, “ice giants”). Gas and ice giants do not have well defined rocky surfaces like the Earth. Their outer layers are made entirely of clouds; further down the gas turns to compressed liquid, and at the very center of these planets may be a rocky carbon core.
As backyard observational astronomers, we are most interested in the part of Jupiter we can see: the outer layers of the atmosphere. To see any detail on the face of Jupiter, a telescope is required. But even with the smallest telescope, you can see structure in the atmosphere, usually two dark bands surrounded by lighter regions. The dark bands on the face of Jupiter are called belts and the lighter bands between them are called zones. The two prominent belts you see in the image at top are the north equatorial belt (NEB) and the south equatorial belt (SEB) since they each lie just north and south of the equator, respectively. These are the most prominent belts, and they are visible in nearly any small telescope, but there are many more visible in steady sky with larger telescopes at higher magnification.
The belts and zones are caused by churning layers of gas in the atmosphere. The rotating atmosphere has segmented itself into layers that are confined to certain latitudes on Jupiter, much like the trade winds on Earth blow in the same place and same direction throughout the year. The zones are caused by convection regions wherein warm gas rises, cools, and sinks repeatedly in the upper atmosphere. The belts are regions of cooler gas that have sunk lower in the atmosphere. The belts are dark and colorful, with tones of red, salmon, tan and brown. The color comes from phosphorus compounds that are ionized by radiation and lightning in the fast-moving winds. The zones, which are regions of warmer rising gas, are usually pale-yellow or white caused by ammonia gas crystallizing and blocking the view of the more colorful gases below.
The interplay between the planet’s rotation, high winds, and convective rise and fall of gases have resulted in a complex structure of belts and zones, the structure of which is more or less permanent, at least over decades and perhaps centuries. The structure of the observable atmosphere of Jupiter along with the names of the major belts and zones are shown below.
Not all the belts and zones in the images above are easily distinguished, but the most prominent regions visible in small telescopes are the equatorial belts and zones, the temperate belts and zones, and the darker polar regions.
Jet streams of opposite direction on each edge of the belts and zones confine each structure, and as the gases whirl across the face of the planet at speeds exceeding 300 km/h, turbulence occurs at the boundaries. This turbulence leads to intricate and exceedingly beautiful structures called garlands and festoons between and within each belt and zone (again, see image at the top of this page). On nights of steady seeing, you can get glimpses of these structures in a small telescope.
As on Earth, the dynamic atmosphere of Jupiter and the so-called Coriolis force lead to circulating cells of gas that result in cyclonic storms. On Earth, these churning cells are about as high as these are tall, but Jupiter’s faster rotation flattens its cells and stretches the cells longitudinally into flattened ovals. Some of these oval cells coalesce into visible and long-lasting vortices, the most famous of which is the Great Red Spot (GRS). This spot straddles the south equatorial belt and the lighter south tropical zone, impinging on each. The GRS, which is larger than Earth, has been observed for centuries and may be a permanent feature in the Jovian atmosphere. Which is not to say it never changes. The GRS and the SEB both change color at unpredictable intervals. When the SEB turns lighter, the GRS darkens and vice versa. During the past several decades, the GRS was darkest in the periods 1961–66, 1968–75, 1989–90, and 1992–93. No one knows why it changes, or indeed what causes its red color.
The Great Red Spot is visible in amateur telescopes when it transits the meridian of the planet, the line connecting the north and south poles. The GRS transits the meridian once every 9.8 hour revolution of Jupiter, but not every transit occurs at night. You can find out upcoming meridian crossings using many astronomy apps, or with this handy tool from Sky and Telescope magazine.
Tips for Observing Jupiter in a Telescope
At its closest approach to Earth, the planet’s disc spans nearly 50” (arcseconds), large enough to see well in a telescope. Only Venus, which is much closer, occasionally appears larger from Earth. But unlike featureless Venus, Jupiter reveals an enormous amount of detail.
The best telescope for seeing Jupiter is, of course, the one you have right now. But here are a few tips to get the most out of your optics and your situation when looking at Jupiter.
First, you need to pick the right time to see Jupiter, namely, when Earth is closest to the planet. That time is when Jupiter is at opposition, when it is opposite the Sun in the sky. At opposition, the planet rises in the east as the Sun sets in the west. But Jupiter is large enough to look good for a few months on either side of opposition, so there’s still plenty to see.
Next, you need a night with good steady seeing. You can tell if the air is steady and the “seeing” is good if stars exhibit very little twinkling. If the air is turbulent, even a big telescope will show Jupiter as a boiling featureless blob. This is especially a problem this year for northern stargazers since Jupiter is well south on the ecliptic and therefore does not get far above the southern horizon. Southern-hemisphere observers see Jupiter nearly overhead as at 10-11 p.m. local time in mid-July 2020.
Generally, to see the planets, you want a telescope with a long focal length to give you a larger image for a given eyepiece. Refracting telescopes are often best because they have an unobstructed view and so provide the best image contrast. Larger aperture gives more resolution of fine detail, assuming your sky conditions allow it. Newtonian telescopes work fine as well, but if you use a Newtonian reflector telescope, make sure it is well collimated.
With whatever telescope you presently have at your disposal, use as much magnification as it will handle when you look at the planet. This depends on the quality of your optics and on the seeing. Generally a magnification of 30-50x the aperture of your telescope (in inches) works well on nights of average seeing. So if you have a 4-inch telescope, try 120x to 200x. If you have razor sharp optics and steady sky, you can get away with even more magnification. But you should experiment. Start at low magnification and work your way up until you get the best combination of image size and contrast and clarity. The best magnification may change from night to night because of changing sky conditions.
Another tip—make sure you give your telescope time to come to equilibrium with the outside temperature. If you bring a telescope from a warm house to a much cooler outdoor environment, for example, it will take 15-30 minutes for the scope to cool down. During this time, the lenses or mirrors will be somewhat warped from their ideal shape, and there may be moving air currents inside the tube. These effects will cause image distortion until things settle down. A big telescope generally takes longer to come to equilibrium.
With all planets in amateur telescopes, the images, even at high magnification, will be quite small. You may find this disappointing at first. But even small images can present nearly as much detail and color as you see in magazine-grade images of Jupiter (see image below). Wait for moments of steady air and you will see tiny details snap into view, including the smaller belts and zones, festoons, the GRS (if visible) and possibly other smaller spots and shadows cast by the moons. Patience is critical: you might need to watch Jupiter through your telescope for half an hour to get just a few flashes of detail when the air steadies. But these fleeting moments make the effort worthwhile.
In time, as you build your astronomical toolkit, you will acquire color filters which fasten onto the back of your eyepieces. These filters help bring out more detail on the planets. A quick suggestion: try a green filter (#56 or #58) or a dark blue filter (#38A) with Jupiter to bring out the contrast of the red belts and spots.
The Moons of Jupiter
The four largest moons of Jupiter remain are a delight to watch as they change position constantly in their continuous Newtonian dance with the big planet. The moons of Jupiter make for ideal viewing for all stargazers, especially kids or near-beginners with binoculars or a small telescope.
Astronomers refer to Jupiter’s four largest moons as the Galilean satellites, since they were first observed by the great Galileo in 1609. Each of Jupiter’s moons is a distinct world in its own right, and each is influenced by its proximity to Jupiter itself.
From nearest to Jupiter to farthest, the four Galilean moons are:
Io, a red-orange sulphuric hell-hole of a world, where volcanos spray molten lava high into space. Io shouldn’t have a molten core– it’s too small– but the gravitational push and pull of Jupiter kneads the core of this small world, and keeps it perpetually active.
Europa is slightly smaller than our Moon, but it’s much lighter. The surface is smooth and free of craters, but long cracks criss-cross the surface. Fly-bys of NASA satellites suggest Europa has a liquid-water ocean miles under its icy surface, and some planetary scientists think the moon’s hot core may furnish enough energy and minerals to stimulate the formation of simple life forms.
Ganymede also has a smooth, glassy surface with patches of older, cratered material. The moon is the largest in the solar system, outsizing even the planet Mercury and dwarf planet Pluto. The geology of this moon is not well understood.
Callisto, the most distant of the four moons, is geologically dead as a doornail. Like Mercury and our own Moon, its surface is strewn with craters, which means not much has happened here since the early days of the solar system.
When you look at the four Galilean moons through optics, it’s not always apparent which is which. Callisto may appear closer to Jupiter’s disc than Io as it prepares to pass behind the planet, for example. Sky and Telescope magazine provides a useful and free tool to help you find the positions of all four moons at any time.
You can clearly see the moons of Jupiter move over the course of an hour or less. It’s great fun to track them during an evening, especially when the moons pass in front of or behind Jupiter, or when they cast a shadow on the big planet. The above link also gives times of such events.
At 100x or more, you can resolve the discs of each of the moons, which are all brighter than 5th magnitude and would be visible without optics if not for the glare of Jupiter. With large, high-quality telescopes and dead-steady seeing, some amateurs have even reported seeing markings on the moons!
Share This:
