Page 96 - BBC Sky at Night Beginners Guide to Astronomy - 2017 UK

OBSERVING

JUPITER’S MOONS

THE SOLAR SYSTEM’S BIGGEST PLANET ALSO HAS THE
MOST MOONS, FOUR OF WHICH ARE EASY TO SEE

The Solar System is truly an incredible satellites are fairly small and can’t improved by resting the binoculars on a
place, but one world in particular stands be observed from Earth, but the biggest wall or fence, or even attaching them to a
out and truly deserves the title King of four are easy to spot with just a small pair tripod with an inexpensive bracket. With
the Planets: Jupiter. It is grandiose in all of binoculars. binoculars though, Jupiter itself will not
respects. Not only is it the largest of the A minimum size pair for spotting these appear as anything more than a large,
planets – it would take 1,321 Earths to fi ll the four moons would be 7x50s, which magnify slightly oval-shaped disc.
volume of Jupiter – it’s also more than likely what your eyes see seven times and have
that it keeps the largest entourage of moons. front lenses that are 50mm in diameter. MOONWATCH
It’s the massive gravitational effect You can certainly catch glimpses of these The next step in viewing Jupiter is to use a
of Jupiter that does the trick, attracting Galilean moons (named after Galileo, small telescope – one with a front lens 3 to
more than 100 moons into orbit around the who fi rst observed them) with hand-held 6 inches in diameter. As this gathers more
planet at the latest estimate. Many of these binoculars, but your view will be much light, it can magnify the view more, so the

Look at Jupiter through a
telescope and you’ll also be able
to see its four largest moons

Ganymede

Europa

Io

PETE LAWRENCE X 2, SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY Callisto

96 skyatnightmagazine.com 2012