Jupiter at oppositon

Doesn't look like much - until you realise the spots are moons! From left to right we have Ganymede, Io (hidden in Jupiter's glare), Jupiter, Jupiter again reflected off the camera lens, Europa and finally Callisto

So with Jupiter at its shiniest this evening, and the sky at its clearest I dragged my flatmates out to have a quick look through the telescope. One of them had his phone with him and managed to get this picture through the eyepiece! It is no Hubble image - but it does show the moons (three of them anyway).

Visually, the view was rather good, the banding was obvious, either the Southern or Northern Equatorial band (depending on how the image was being flipped in the telescope) was particularly prominent. The gradual upgrades to the 'scope are becoming obvious, the view is now far steadier than before which finally means that the view will stay still long enough to allow me to focus properly and to take advantage of any short periods of good seeing.