planet jupiter

[mrs p]

I'v ejust returned from Xi'an, China, where I paid a few pence to look through a telescope at what was supposed to be Jupiter. It had vertical rings, & 4 accompanying stars; 2 above it and 2 below. Was this really Jupiter, or was it a commumication ****-up?

[bernardo]

That sounds right. The four other things would have been the four main moons of Jupiter (Io, Gannymede, Callisto and Europa) and they would be roughly in line with the line of the rings. It was by watching the moons over successive nights that Gallileo realised that they were going round Jupiter in a regular cyclical way.

[Pomp]

I went on a star gazing evening, when recently in New Zealand, and they said that we could see Jupiter and three of its moon's. They had a pretty powerful telescope

I was expecting to see an Orange planet, with a large red spot, and swirling gases.

What I actually saw through the telescope was 4 specs of light, which were no bigger than a pin-prick. It could have been anything.

[Loosehead]

yeah sounds right, suprised it had "2 accompanying stars" though, they where not stars but the main Satellites as Bernardo says. Jupiter is a regular for planet gazers and very easy to find so ideal for tourists. The rings of jupiter ar not as prominant as those of Saturn so you did well to see them.

[mrs p]

Thanks, everyone. I am thrilled to know it was the real thing. The (substantial) telescope was mounted on the back of a bicycle and the vendor could only say "Jupiter" and "Gallileo" in English. However, he showed me a pic on his mobile phone - a round blob with a hazy red halo all round it, which he assured me by sign language was taken 2 units of time ago - weeks, days?? Miming "bye bye, Jupiter" got an excited, positive response, so I gather the planet is moving further away from us. I feel privileged to have seen it, & thanks for filling in more details.