Recently, on a night of exceptional seeing and using a Bokglob Grössblürter 10x Barlow and one MM Kellner eyepiece on his 25 cm dobsonian recorded amazing views of Io after sketching the great red spot one autumn evening.
Two volcanoes were observed in simultaneous eruptions while a sulphur flow from these was seen extending for nearly 200 km across the moon's surface. Indeed, the eruption of the larger volcano was so violent that Mr Burnt speculates that some material may have completely escaped Io's gravitational field and may yet fall on our planet as meteors.
In the course of observing IO, Mr Burnt also identified several hitherto unsuspected double stars between mag 11 and 13 as components were eclipsed in sequence by the moon's motion.
His mentor, Mr Emmanuel Snodgrass expressed great excitement at the news and has urged Mr Burnt to continue these observations as the finer details on Jupiter's moons are just beyond the reach of his Telrads, which are optimised for cometary and solar work. Mr Snodgrass theorises that the Great Red Spot is actually Metallic sulphur, expelled from volcanoes on Io and captured by Jupiter's gravitational field, and has asked Greg to attempt spectral analysis of the filaments of gas he believes he can see extending between the two bodies.
Mr Burnt has also been asked to check for methane volcanoes on Pluto's moon Charon, but he has not yet had night when the seeing was quite good enough. He will try at SPSP in 2004.