This is not your father's Jupiter. As Dr. Michael Covington indicated in his article on iReport, Jupiter, which usually sports two reddish belts just north and just south of its Equatorial Zone, is missing its South Equatorial Belt. Astronomers are waiting for, a good old Southern Revival! A Southern Equatorial Belt Revival, that is. When Jupiter went behind the Sun last year, it had its South Equatorial Belt in tact, when it reappeared in the dawn sky in early 2010 the belt was gone. This is not unusual. The belt disappeared and revived 15 times in the 20th century. Several months to a couple of years after the fade there should be a revival and amateur astronomers will be waiting with there telescopes and video cameras to alert the world. Amateur astronomers have become the eyes of the world's professional astronomers, alerting them to interesting events such as objects striking Jupiter or the disappearance or revival of a belt or even the addition of a new feature like a red spot.
The picture of Jupiter that I uploaded will differ from what you may have seen in your high school text books in another way as well. It sports two red spots. The Great Red Spot ,a high pressure storm much bigger than the Earth that has raged on Jupiter for at least the last 400 years, has been joined by a new Red Spot often referred to as Red Spot Junior or just Junior.
This picture was made by me in my front yard with a 10" telescope using the same technique described by Dr. Covington in his report. The technology today allows amateur astronomers using modest equipment to obtain images of a quality which rivals or surpasses the biggest telescopes on Earth just a generation ago.