Jupiter and 5 moons

Well the viewing tonight in Minnesota is/was possibly the best I have seen in 2 years. Steady skies, very transparent and dark. With my Mewlon 180 and a UO Ortho 12.5 and 25 I was able to see considerable detail in the banding on the planet. The 4 large moons were tight to the planet. Using the 25 a 5th moon was revealed about 2/3rds. of the way across the field of view. Did anyone else see this as well?

Kent

Was it fainter than the 4 moons? It's possible it may have been a field star. According to my software it looks like it was SAO 138991 at Magnitude 8.99. I didn't have my scope out tonight. Too windy

We saw 6 moons a week ago around Jupiter with the Mt Wilson 60", but seeing was not great, though I did get moments of clarity where the bands showed details.
But Tuesday I got great views with 4 moons from my backyard and the 14.5" Starmaster.

Kent- If I'm not mistaken, the 5th brightest moon of Jupiter is Amalthea at magnitude 14.1. I think Keith is right, it was a field star. Gerry

What was the time of your observation? I think Amalthea was only 1 Jupiter radius away from the planet when you were observing Jupiter. At mag 14 Amalthea would have been very hard to see.

Mike,

I agree that there is no way it was Amalthea. The position for one was in the area of 138991 and the second would be the brightness. The relative size I would estimate to be about one quarter of the disc size compared to the average size of the 4 largest moons. The thing that sticks in my mind though is the illuminated look of a moon as opposed to the point source of light that stars tend to exhibit. This object had that look. I did find a couple of resources on the internet that displayed the orbits of many of the Jovian moons. None seemed to be as distant as the object I observed.

I wish that I had better skies last night. Hopefully tonight. The change in the relative positions of the objects involved are going to make things more difficult or impossible as time goes on.

I appreciate everyones interest in helping to identify this.

Thanks,

Kent