My Best Jupiter Images Yet

I was busy yesterday.  I rebuilt the optical tube on my 127mm because that home made focuser just wasnt aligned and I could not improve on it.  The optical tube was also too short, which I made up the difference using a piece of 2 inch pvc.  I had another piece of 5 inch tube that was a little bigger than the correct size, so I cut the tube, and it is now the perfect length.  I have also aquired those 2 114mm reflectors.  I removed one of the focusers from the worse of the 2 scopes and epoxied it to a new end plate made from a piece of raw electronic printed circuit board material.

Everything is nicely aligned now.  I started photographing Jupiter around 0400 local (0800Z).  I finished the session taking a sequence of 7-1000 frame AVI's to be used to make this animation:

As you can see, the detail that you can see on the planet is real and not noise due to sharpening.  I actually was a little conservative on the amount of sharpening that I did on the image.  The GRS is visible, as well as a barge in the NEB.  Note that the NNTeB and the NTeB are both resolved and rotate.  Detail in the EZ is resolved.  Going to the south, I am resolving a north and south component in the SEB with white spots seperating the 2.  The STeB & SSTeB are there, but poorly resolved, however you can see rotation there.

This is my first attempt at an animation.  I havent quite figured out how to make an avi animation, but this animated gif worked out.

The following images are images I had taken earlier in the evening, testing the changes made to the scope.   I could see right away from the images on the screen that I had made progress.  My most detailed still image I believe is to the left.  I have never been able to get this much detail before.  Also, the red spot is more yellowish in this image, which approximates the color I have seen in other recent photos.

I took quite a few AVI's this evening, and if I posted everything, this would be a rather long post.  I will, therefore, put up only the best images I took this morning.

This last image is a tossup between the "best" image at the top of this post.  This image shows more detail in the white areas than the other, but the other shows a bit more contrast.   The 2 images were taken about 5 minutes apart.  The difference between the 2 are mostly post processing differences.

This morning's conditions seemed quite good, transparency was excellent because of the lower humidity, and seeing wasnt half bad, better than average.

I am still having trouble finding the optimum focus.  It is difficult to tell on the screen .  Basically, I have been shooting for sharpness on the fully lit side of the disk, as well as best contrast in the belts.

Also, I was able to see (but not photograph) Mars.  I believe it is still quite small.  The next morning I do this, perhaps I'll take an AVI or 2 of Mars, just to see if I can see anything with it so far away.  I doubt i will be able to, which is why I didnt attempt it this morning.