Once every year the Earth overtakes Jupiter on the inside track and as Jupiter is opposite to the Sun in the sky this is known as Opposition. As the planetary orbits are not circular, the inter-planetary distance varies each year and this year Jupiter is the closest it’s been since 1963. Additionally, for Northern hemisphere observers it’s also higher in the sky than it’s been for many years and this results in a clearer view as there’s less of our atmosphere in the way. To add additional interest this year, the southern equatorial cloud belt has disappeared although it’s just beginning to make a comeback.
Also in this picture, the moon Ganymede has just re-appeared from behind Jupiter.
This image was taken on Tuesday evening with the club 9.25? Celestron SCT with a 2.5x PowerMate and modified Phillips SPC900 camera. It’s a stack of about 1000 frames processed in Registax.