Dark streak on Jupiter

[Ted Hauter]

North of the Northern Equatorial Belt is a dark streak of something right now? Comet hit?

SolarGuy

[Francesco Meschia]

I saw this message only now. I just stopped my imaging program and I will now try to image Jupiter.

Thanks for the heads-up!

On Jan 31, 2026, at 20:17, Ted Hauter <thgo...@gmail.com> wrote:

North of the Northern Equatorial Belt is a dark streak of something right now? Comet hit?

SolarGuy

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[Francesco Meschia]

I didn’t have the time to switch to a full planetary setup, but I was able to get some readable images anyway.

This is in green light (S is down):

And here in blue light:

In red light, the contrast is much weaker:

[Francesco Meschia]

Here’s the composite color image. It doesn’t seem particularly different from the Jupiter I saw last week.

On Jan 31, 2026, at 23:38, Francesco Meschia <francesc...@gmail.com> wrote:

I didn’t have the time to switch to a full planetary setup, but I was able to get some readable images anyway.

This is in green light (S is down):

<2026-02-01-0722_4-Capture_G_AS_P50_lapl5_ap13_Drizzle15.png>

And here in blue light:

<2026-02-01-0723_3-Capture_B_AS_P50_lapl5_ap16_Drizzle15.png>

In red light, the contrast is much weaker:

[Francesco Meschia]

I forgot to mention that the color image is de-rotated with WinJupos, and north is up.

[Francesco Meschia]

Scratch that – it’s derotated, but the orientation is the same as the mono images.

[Rajah]

Are you saying Ted needs to clean his optics 😂?

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[Ted Hauter]

Thanks for the posts.

Optics good I kept moving the planet around the field of view. 

Will note next time when I post to put the time because the next day the post sent time changes to Yesterday.

Definitely a dark smear that rotated around. I couldn't stay up for the GRS to come around as I work Sundays and early.

Disappointed at the view on what should have been a steady night given the right conditions going on and mostly steady stars.

The only thing I can think off is one eye binovewing was maybe out of focus and didn't blink check it.

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[Vishal Kasliwal]

Here are Christopher Go's latest Jupiter images - https://astro.christone.net/jupiter/index.htm

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[Ted Hauter]

Well there it is. Odd.

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[Ted Hauter]

Optics best available without a much larger Mak.

[Ted Hauter]

Thanks to all.

[Rory Babb]

Hi TACOs.  I follow you all pretty regularly and have a couple of small scopes but unfortunately am not much of a Jovianite.  Would somebody be willing to mark up one of these exposures and indicate where the streak in question is.  Many thanks for tolerating my lack of experience.

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Rory Babb

[Ted Hauter]

Hi Rory this NEB north equatorial belt (careful, folks like to display south up, especially S&T, but these are up is north) clearly showed a black streak around 730pm at post date that was clearly darker than these images.

Was hoping for Shoemaker Levy 9 part II

Part 10?

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[Mark Wagner]

There are people here who witnessed SL9 occuring in real time.  It was quite surprising.

[Francesco Meschia]

Indeed I remember that well. Big “scars” that lasted for months.

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[Mark Wagner]

My first few years observing:

Comet Hale Boop

SL9 comet strike

Comet Hyukatake

Result?

Addiction.

Mark

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[Ted Hauter]

Heck of a start Mark!

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[Ted Hauter]

Kinda noticed under the NEB two enormous regions appeared to have opened up.

Back in 2010 the SEB southern belt dissappeared for months practically over night on it's decades long removal cycle of uncertainty. 

Is it finally NEB's turn?

[Ted Hauter]

A note on the 2010 disappearance. This happened days before pre purchased time at Mt. Wilson on the 60 inch on my 1st and only 10 out of 10 seeing conditions. The view was completely still only the slightest occasional shimmer confirmed that we were indeed looking at Jupiter in the sky and not an image of it at something like 500x.

There were several telescopes on the mountain as word got out. 

The only comparable view was again at Mount Wilson years later of Mercury between trees that looked like the moon through a small high powered Mak Cass on a tiny beat up tripod. It remains my single finest amateur view. It resides in the mind atop the greatest hopes and dreams.

The view remain 

[Mark Wagner]

I would think 500X on a 60" telescope is not exactly pushing the power (especially on a great night).  Isn't 3,000-3,600X possible with that aperture?  Still, a great view is a great view.

Its got to be fun looking thru a scope in that class.  I always enjoyed hearing about views thru the 82" at Fort Davis (with the damaged primary?).  I guess Jimi's would be my largest aperture viewed thru (for 5 minutes).

[Paul Alsing]

At the MacDonald Observatory it is the 106" that was damaged by a bullet...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlan_J._Smith_Telescope

It used to be 107" before the loss of surface area reduced the effective area to 106"!

The same thing can be said of Jimi's 48". The glass itself is 48.75" but the 3/8" edge is turned and masked off, the result being a 48" instrument.

Paul

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From: sf-ba...@googlegroups.com <sf-ba...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Mark Wagner <itsmar...@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, February 3, 2026 11:26 AM
To: The Astronomy Connection (TAC) <sf-ba...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [TAC] Dark streak on Jupiter

 

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[Ted Hauter]

Wow had not known about that. Definitely bullet/(s).

OK, I'll take it back. South west Texas may be a Bortle 1 😉

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[Rory Babb]

Thanks Ted.  I would never have recognized this without your help.

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Rory Babb

[Ted Hauter]

10 4 👍 and you're very welcome.

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[Ted Hauter]

500x on Jupiter, Mark indeed high powers can be had. It may as well been higher around 800 but lets call it 500x + for our purposes.

Last year got them to bring out the little used 80mm for a focal length of 24,000 so 300x on an otherwise much lesser night, but with Captian Tom blasting and our telescope operators having as much fun as they did, it equaled out 😆