This page contains an historical of past alerts and news related with observations of the atmospheres of Jupiter and Saturn.
Recent outbreaks and bright spots in the revived NEB (report at the BAA)
30th October 2012: John H. Rogers from the British Astronomical Association reports on the current events on Jupiter.See the full report on this link: 2012 October 30th Report BAA
The report includes information about the new barges and ovals in the NEB, and the GRS with Oval BA passing it. The 'rifts' in the NEB have continued to develop; Freddy Williams, Christopher Go and Manos Kardasis each pointed out a new brilliant white spot in a rift on Oct.27-28. Outside the rifts, the turbulence is subsiding and the NTropZ is clearing again. Meanwhile, two of the large anticyclonic ovals are rapidly approaching each other now, and should be monitored closely over the next week or two. They are clearly seen in Tomio Akutsu's images on Oct.26, and a compilation showing their convergence is attached. They are WSB (at L2=73) and WSA (at L2=93; still dull grey), converging at ~1 deg/day. Moreover, a smaller white spot (arrowed) is prograding even more rapidly, approaching WSA, and must be in conjunction with it as of now. If WSA and WSB then continue to converge unchanged they could interact from Nov. 1.
NEB and NTB activity and revivals
September 2012: John H. Rogers from the British Astronomical Association reports on the current events on Jupiter.
The NEB is indeed undergoing a full-scale revival for the first time since 1926, and the NTB is indeed reviving via a super-fast jet-stream outbreak as last seen in 2007. See a longer report on: Jupiter Reports on the BAA.
A fireball in Jupiter
10th September 2012: Dan Petersen, an amateur observer, reports about a bright fireball in Jupiter. The event happened this morning on 10th September 2012 at 11:35:30 UT and lasted about two seconds. A video recording of the impact was obtained by George Hall and a nice short report is now available in the Sky & Telescope webpage. Many observers obtained images of the same region in the next and following rotations without finding any trace the object could have left on Jupiter's atmosphere indicating a small size of the impact body.
NEB and NTB activity and revivals
September 2012: John H. Rogers from the British Astronomical Association reports on the current events on Jupiter.
The NEB is indeed undergoing a full-scale revival for the first time since 1926, and the NTB is indeed reviving via a super-fast jet-stream outbreak as last seen in 2007. See a longer report on: Jupiter Reports on the BAA.
GRS and BA interaction
September 2012:Conjunction between the GRS and BA is happening over September. Observers can get good images of the large anticyclones interaction that will allow to study the physics of large-scale vortices in Jupiter's atmosphere.
Possible Jupiter's NTB Disturbance
6th June 2012: Manos Kardasis has obtained one of the first Jupiter images of this season showing an altered state of the NTB that could be representative of a full NTB Distubance. Jupiter is now at 17 degrees from the Sun and, although still a difficult target at this early Jupiter season, observations are requested to characterize the state of the atmosphere. 25th April 2012: John H. Rogers, Jupiter Section Director from the British Astronomical Association alerts:
Manos Kardasis has just obtained a Jupiter image from April 19 (see the image in this link) noting a very dark spot on the NTBs, with a bright spot preceding it. This is very likely a new outbreak on the super-fast NTBs jet-stream. Confirmation is urgently needed! There was nothing there in his image of this longitude on April 12, nor in the few other images (by H. Einaga and L. Zielke). Obviously Jupiter is now too close to the Sun for good-quality imaging but if anyone can get any images of these longitudes, even in daylight, or can send images from recent days, please do so.
On April 19, the bright spot was at approx. L1 =77 (L3 = 337). If on the super-fast jet, it should move with DL1 ~ -5 deg/day (DL3 ~ -13 deg/day); so on April 26 it should be around L1 ~ 42 (L3 ~ 246). The dark streak should by now cover tens of degrees followed by the bright spot. Similar spots might also appear at other longitudes. An outbreak this year has been expected as explained on the following report.
Observers are urged to follow the planet as closely as possible before and after solar conjunction.
Saturn's New Storm outbreak
12th April 2011: Images from Anthony Wesley, Trevor Barry and Christopher Go show the development of a new storm system in Saturn
A new storm feature has been developing in Saturn since early April and now is captured in images by many observers. The RPWS instrument onboard Cassini reports SED discharges linked to this new feature. Apparently the convective active area is located northwards to the Saturn's ribbon. Preliminary position of the current storm is: 311 System III, at a planetographic latitude of 59 degrees (NNTZ). This renewed activity is similar to storms observed in the previous years in the storm alley but now on a different latitude. Storms like this in this latitude have been observed only a few times in historic times and this is the first one observed in the NNTZ since Cassini arrived at Saturn.
10th April 2012: Jupiter's New NEB outbreak
John H. Rogers, Jupiter Section Director from the British Astronomical Association alerts:
A striking new outbreak of bright and dark spots has occurred in Jupiter's North Equatorial Belt (NEB) over March 2012 and early April. This renewed activity is likely to develop to an even larger scale, eventually bringing to an end the recent quiescence and narrowing of the belt. Observers are urged to follow the planet as closely as possible before and after solar conjunction.
More information provided by John H. Rogers is available on the following report (word doc file) and a summary is available in the following figure.
21 January 2012: Galilean satelites: Transits and occultations
Journal Astronomy announces a close view of Jupiter and its four bright moons clustered closely around the planet. Europa will transit the jovian disk starting at 21:30 UTC and Io and Ganymede will be eclipsed by the planet at 21:40 UTC. Transits and eclipses will finish at around 23:55 UTC. Times are only approximative as calculated from the NASA Solar System Simulator. Later next week there will be an eclipse of Io and Europa by Jupiter on 23th January 2012. More details and accurate time of the events will be provided later this week.
29 November 2011: Jupiter Stellar occultation SAO92734
Silvia Kowolik alerts that on Nov. 29, Jupiter will occult the 8.7 mag Star (K2) SAO 92734. Observers with telescopes larger then 8" may be able to capture the star on its reappearance around 18:30 UT+/- 20 minutes. Recommended filters are those that make Jupiter appear dark while the star is bright. Methane band and/or U filters should be able to show the star appearing while not saturating the planet disk.
26 October 2011: A large size and bright feature on Uranus observed with the Gemini telescope
Latest update: The bright feature seem to have dimmed in contrast and is probably not observable with telescopes available to the amateur community being observable only with telescopes with apertures of 1 m or larger.
Original post: Larry Sromovsky from the Univesity of Madison Wisconsin alerts that a very bright feature has appeared on Uranus. Detailed observations from the Gemini 8 m telescope show this feature at least 3 times brighter than the background of Uranus disk. If this is a convectively driven white feature it may evolve to larger size and brighter appearance on the next few days. Images from amateurs are essential to study this feature and precise its drift rate towards a possible observation with other highly-demanded telescopes (such as HST).
If you want to observe a distinct cloud feature on Uranus this is probably a very good opportunity to do it. Uranus subtends 3.7'' and the bright cloud feature is at least 0.33'' making this feature accesible to relatively modest equipments. You can check the Gemini raw image and a preliminar proccessed version here. This image was provided by Larry Sromovsky and Patrick Fry and it includes a photometric cut of the CCD image showing the contrast of the bright feature. The image was acquired on 26th October at 08:06UT. The same spot was present in previous observations run at Pic du Midi on 12th October and mid-august.
Dr. Sromovsky has provided updated (9th November) ephemerids for transits over the central meridian based on observations obtained by Gemini, Pic du Midi and other telescopes.URANUS BRIGHT SPOT CENTRAL MERIDIAN CROSSING TIMES AND LONGITUDE YEAR MM DD HH:MM:SS UT EAST LONG. 2011 10 26 10:21:07 10.0 2011 10 27 3:33:01 9.0 2011 10 27 20:44:38 8.1 2011 10 28 13:56:15 7.2 2011 10 29 7:08:09 6.2 2011 10 30 0:19:46 5.3 2011 10 30 17:31:23 4.4 2011 10 31 10:43:18 3.4 2011 11 1 3:54:55 2.5 2011 11 1 21:06:31 1.6 2011 11 2 14:18:26 0.6 2011 11 3 7:30:03 359.7 2011 11 4 0:41:57 358.8 2011 11 4 17:53:34 357.8 2011 11 5 11:05:11 356.9 2011 11 6 4:17:05 356.0 2011 11 6 21:28:42 355.0 2011 11 7 14:40:19 354.1 2011 11 8 7:52:13 353.2 2011 11 9 1:03:50 352.2 2011 11 9 18:15:27 351.3 2011 11 10 11:27:21 350.4 2011 11 11 4:38:58 349.4 2011 11 11 21:50:52 348.5 2011 11 12 15:02:29 347.6 2011 11 13 8:14:06 346.6 2011 11 14 1:26:00 345.7 2011 11 14 18:37:37 344.8 2011 11 15 11:49:14 343.8 2011 11 16 5:01:08 342.9 2011 11 16 22:12:45 342.0 2011 11 17 15:24:22 341.0 2011 11 18 8:36:17 340.1 2011 11 19 1:47:53 339.2 2011 11 19 18:59:30 338.2 2011 11 20 12:11:25 337.3 2011 11 21 5:23:02 336.4 2011 11 21 22:34:39 335.4 2011 11 22 15:46:34 334.5 2011 11 23 8:58:11 333.6 2011 11 24 2:10:05 332.6 2011 11 24 19:21:42 331.7 2011 11 25 12:33:19 330.8 2011 11 26 5:45:13 329.8 2011 11 26 22:56:50 328.9 2011 11 27 16:08:27 328.0 2011 11 28 9:20:21 327.0 2011 11 29 2:31:58 326.1 2011 11 29 19:43:35 325.2 2011 11 30 12:55:29 324.2 2011 12 1 6:07:06 323.3 2011 12 1 23:18:43 322.4 2011 12 2 16:30:37 321.4 2011 12 3 9:42:14 320.5 2011 12 4 2:54:08 319.6 2011 12 4 20:05:45 318.6 2011 12 5 13:17:22 317.7 2011 12 6 6:29:16 316.8 2011 12 6 23:40:53 315.8 2011 12 7 16:52:30 314.9 2011 12 8 10:04:24 314.0 2011 12 9 3:16:01 313.0 2011 12 9 20:27:38 312.1 2011 12 10 13:39:32 311.2 2011 12 11 6:51:09 310.2 2011 12 12 0:03:03 309.3 2011 12 12 17:14:40 308.4 2011 12 13 10:26:17 307.4 2011 12 14 3:38:13 306.5 2011 12 14 20:49:50 305.6 2011 12 15 14:01:27 304.6 2011 12 16 7:13:21 303.7 2011 12 17 0:24:58 302.8 2011 12 17 17:36:35 301.8 2011 12 18 10:48:29 300.9 2011 12 19 4:00:06 300.0 2011 12 19 21:11:43 299.0 2011 12 20 14:23:37 298.1 2011 12 21 7:35:14 297.2 2011 12 22 0:46:51 296.2 2011 12 22 17:58:45 295.3 2011 12 23 11:10:22 294.4 2011 12 24 4:22:16 293.4 2011 12 24 21:33:53 292.5 2011 12 25 14:45:30 291.6 2011 12 26 7:57:24 290.6 2011 12 27 1:09:01 289.7 2011 12 27 18:20:38 288.8 2011 12 28 11:32:32 287.8 2011 12 29 4:44:09 286.9 2011 12 29 21:55:46 286.0 2011 12 30 15:07:40 285.0 2011 12 31 8:19:17 284.1Ephemerids for previous transits over the central meridian are available in this file and can be used to look for the spot in Uranus images from July-December.
If you get observations of this feature you can send them to this database and also to:
Dr. Larry Sromovsky (larry_dot_sromovsky_at_ssec_dot_wisc_dot_edu).
October 2011: Jupiter opposition on 29th October. Opportunity to measure Jupiter winds with amateur images
Jupiter approaches its opposition offering the best opportunities for imaging this planet. The planet will reach an equatorial diameter of 49.7'' which will result in a new opportunity to obtain magnificent views of the giant planet. We are collecting images from this season close to the opposition to perform a systematic study of Jupiter winds using image correlation techniques. A couple of years ago these kind of studies could only rely on images obtained from spacecrafts or the Hubble Space Telescope but now it is possible to make the same study with the outstanding images provided by you.
Images separated by one or two planetary rotations will be systematically studied to measure the atmospheric winds at cloud level. We need high-quality observations obtained from different longitudes over the Earth (Europe, North America, Australia and East Asia) to be able to observe the same cloud features consecutively after one-two Jupiter rotations.
Saturn's North-Tropical Storm continues to be active more than 6 months after its onset on December 2010
June 2011: The activity of the storm seems to have increased lately and we encourage all active observers to continue providing observations of Saturn as long as it continues to be observable.
Large-scale North Tropical Storm in Saturn
10 December 2010: A large storm in the Northern hemisphere is developing in Saturn and has acquired a size comparable to historical White Spots extending more than 10.000 km in Saturn's atmosphere. Images by Sadegh Ghomizadeh and Teruaki Kumamori showed the storm on December 8th and 9th as a developing unusually bright storm. The storm continues to grow since then. It is the first storm appearing in the northern hemisphere at least since the arrival of Cassini to the Saturn system in 2004. Storms much smaller than this have been developing regularly on the Southern hemisphere on the storm alley but with the new Saturn seasons after the equinox convection seems to have started on the north mid-latitudes. Observations of this storm will be very usefull to study the changing seasons in Saturn.
The storm is located at 38 deg North (planetographic latitude).
Next transits of the storm by the central meridian (UT) (updated 5th January)
DATE UT UT UT 05/01/2011 03:26 14:07 06/01/2011 00:49 11:30 22:11 07/01/2011 08:52 19:33 08/01/2011 06:15 16:56 09/01/2011 03:37 14:18 10/01/2011 01:00 11:41 22:22 11/01/2011 09:03 19:45 12/01/2011 06:26 17:07 13/01/2011 03:48 14:29 14/01/2011 01:11 11:52 22:33 15/01/2011 09:14 19:56 16/01/2011 06:37 17:18 17/01/2011 03:59 14:40 18/01/2011 01:22 12:03 22:44 19/01/2011 09:25 20:07 20/01/2011 06:48 17:29 21/01/2011 04:10 14:52 22/01/2011 01:33 12:14 22:55 23/01/2011 09:36 20:18 24/01/2011 06:59 17:40 25/01/2011 04:21 15:03 26/01/2011 01:44 12:25 23:06 27/01/2011 09:47 20:29 28/01/2011 07:10 17:51 29/01/2011 04:32 15:14 30/01/2011 01:55 12:36 23:17 31/01/2011 09:59 20:40
Disturbance in Jupiter's SEB
12 November 2010: A disturbance is developing in the SEB with an outbreak of a giant storm first imaged in November 9 by Christopher Go and Donald Parker. The disturbance is growing and a lot of activity is developing in Jupiter that will possibly lead to a revival of the SEB and the end of the Fade state. In this outbreak an unprecedent survey of Jupiter is being obtained by amateurs all over the world. These observations will allow to obtain the best time-resolved evolution of this phenomena. If you are an amateur fond of observing Jupiter please consider sending your observations to our database by writing an e-mail to: iopw@lg.ehu.es
Another optical flash in Jupiter
20 August 2010: Amateur astronomer Masayuki Tachikawa reports another optical flash in Jupiter. The optical flash was observed from Kumamoto city, Japan and it appeared on the NEBn (L2 = 140, lat. 21 deg.N), at Aug 20, 18h22m UT and was observable for approximate 2 seconds. This flash is similar to the one observed in June, 3rd by Anthony Wesley and Christopher Go. A survey of observations by different amateurs after the optical flash do not show any presence of an impact debris in Jupiter atmosphere. The video data is available from different web pages and blogs.
Stormy season on Saturn
April-June 2010: The storm alley in Saturn's tropical south latitudes is showing an outburst of storm activity. Images from different observers show an active storm system from early march and active at least till May 15th. A selection of images and ephemeris for the observation of this storm have been compiled by Marc Delcroix from the Societe Astronomique Francaise. Images obtained by the Cassini spacecraft show lightning activity in this storm and electrostatic discharges associated with the lightning.
Saturn Northern hemisphere storm
10 December 2010: A large storm in the Northern hemisphere is developing in Saturn and has acquired a size comparable to historical White Spots extending more than 10.000 km in Saturn's atmosphere. Images by Sadegh Ghomizadeh and Teruaki Kumamori showed the storm on December 8th and 9th as a developing unusually bright storm. The storm continues to grow since then. It is the first storm appearing in the northern hemisphere at least since the arrival of Cassini to the Saturn system in 2004. Storms much smaller than this have been developing regularly on the Southern hemisphere on the storm alley but with the new Saturn seasons after the equinox convection seems to have started on the north mid-latitudes. Observations of this storm will be very usefull to study the changing seasons in Saturn.
The storm is located at 38 deg North (planetographic latitude) and System III longitude 260 deg.
Next transits of the storm by the central meridian (UT) (updated 18 december)
DATE UT DATE UT DATE UT 2010/12/18 08:00 | 2010/12/23 05:30 | 2010/12/28 03:05 2010/12/18 18:40 | 2010/12/23 16:15 | 2010/12/28 13:45 2010/12/19 05:20 | 2010/12/24 02:55 | 2010/12/29 00:30 2010/12/19 16:00 | 2010/12/24 13:25 | 2010/12/29 11:10 2010/12/20 02:45 | 2010/12/25 00:15 | 2010/12/29 21:50 2010/12/20 13:25 | 2010/12/25 10:55 | 2010/12/30 08:35 2010/12/21 00:05 | 2010/12/25 21:40 | 2010/12/30 19:15 2010/12/21 10:45 | 2010/12/26 08:20 | 2010/12/31 05:55 2010/12/21 21:25 | 2010/12/26 19:05 | 2010/12/31 16:35 2010/12/22 08:10 | 2010/12/27 05:45 2010/12/22 18:50 | 2010/12/27 16:25If you are observing Saturn please consider sending your observations to our database by writing an e-mail to: iopw@lg.ehu.es
Date UT 2010 Jun 17 | 06:21 2010 Jun 17 | 16:17 2010 Jun 18 | 02:12 2010 Jun 18 | 12:08 2010 Jun 18 | 22:03 2010 Jun 19 | 07:58 2010 Jun 19 | 17:54 2010 Jun 20 | 03:49 2010 Jun 20 | 13:45 2010 Jun 20 | 23:40 2010 Jun 21 | 09:36 2010 Jun 21 | 19:31 2010 Jun 22 | 05:26 2010 Jun 22 | 15:22 2010 Jun 23 | 01:17 2010 Jun 23 | 11:13 2010 Jun 23 | 21:08 2010 Jun 24 | 07:03 2010 Jun 24 | 16:59 2010 Jun 25 | 02:54 2010 Jun 25 | 12:50 2010 Jun 25 | 22:45 2010 Jun 26 | 08:40 2010 Jun 26 | 18:36 2010 Jun 27 | 04:31 2010 Jun 27 | 14:27 2010 Jun 28 | 00:22 2010 Jun 28 | 10:17 2010 Jun 28 | 20:13 2010 Jun 29 | 06:08 2010 Jun 29 | 16:04 2010 Jun 30 | 01:59 2010 Jun 30 | 11:54 2010 Jun 30 | 21:50
Images obtained by Anthony Wesley from Australia showed a new dark spot in Jupiter’s South Polar Region whose morphology differed from “normal features” in Jupiter, strongly suggesting that it was caused by a cometary or asteroidal impact. This was soon confirmed by other observations from telescopes all around the world. The dark spot was originally located at 303º ± 3º longitude in System III and latitude -56º ±1.2º. The dark spot had initially a longitudinal size of 5º and a meridional size of about 2.2º. The impact site seemed similar to the intermiate size impacts during the SL9. The impact debris evolved in Jupiter's atmosphere dispersed by the winds during July, August and September and was tracked in visible light by amateurs around the world and in the near infrared on that period and later months. Currently (May 2010) there have been different studies of the impact in press in scientific research journals.
IOPW images in a paper in the cover of the Nature issue of January 24, 2008. The mistery of Jupiter jets begins to unveil. Click here for more info.
IJW operations transferred from New Mexico State University to the Universidad del Pais Vasco
Starting on November 3th 2004, the Jupiter images repository of the IJW is held in the hosts of the Universidad del Pais Vasco, as all the other planets images. Submission of images by contributors must be addressed to the IOPW-atmospheres e-mail address (iopw@lg.ehu.es).
