King of the sky

Right now, the planet Jupiter is visible in the sky fairly low in the south in the evening. That's a comfortable and convenient time to observe it.

Jupiter is the most massive, and the largest planet in the solar system. All the other planets would easily fit into it's volume, with room to spare for a second set of solar system planets. We have not detected a solid surface on Jupiter yet; it is one of the two gas giant planets orbiting the sun (which one is the other?). It has the mass of over 300 Earths and around 1200 times the volume. with a diameter about 11 times that of Earth. It is a gas ball with a diameter of 143,000 km and consists of Hydrogen (about 90% and 9+% Helium, with traces of Methane and other elements). That's somewhat reminiscent of the Sun's composition; some people are calling Jupiter a "failed star".  However, in order to start the necessary nuclear fusion, Jupiter would have to have about ten times more mass. None-the-less, internal pressures are huge, enough to transmute Hydrogen and Helium into a liquid metallic state. At the centre, there may be an ice/rock core.

At opposition (i.e. now, August/September 2019) it is close to Earth, since Sun, Earth, and Jupiter are positioned almost in a straight line. That means that Jupiter is somewhat more than 4 Astronomical Units away from us (1 AU = 150 million km). Therefore, the light coming to us from Jupiter takes around 35 minutes to get here. Add to that the distance of Jupiter to the sun, and you get about 45 more minutes. Since all solar planets shine by reflected sunlight, we see Jupiter illuminated by sunlight which left the sun around 80 minutes (1 hour and 20 minutes) earlier.

Even though Jupiter is 5 times as far from the sun as Earth, and receives only 1/25th (square of distance law) of Earth's sunlight,  it is, after the Sun, the Moon, Venus, and the space station in orbit around Earth, the brightest object in the sky. That is due to its large diameter and relatively high reflectivity (albedo). It appears large enough from Earth to show some details in even a small telescope, as well as the Galilean moons. Even binoculars will show the dance of the moons around Jupiter. Larger telescopes, i.e. 4", 5", 8" and larger will show many always changing details on Jupiter, including the great red spot, a local storm as large as our Earth, undergoing quite drastic changes at this time. Jupiter turns once in just under 10 hours; constantly showing new features on its surface. The prominent cloud bands (mostly methane, some ammonia, water ice, traces of hydrogen sulfide) move at hundreds of kilometers/hr., they are far more energetic than the worst storms on Earth.

The Galilean moons orbiting Jupiter show relatively fast changes in relative positions. These are easily followed even in binoculars. The moons themselves are very different from each other. In order of increasing distance from Jupiter they are Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. Io is the most volcanically active of any planets or moons in the solar system, Europa has a very smooth, icy surface, possibly about 50km thick, with a vast layer of liquid water suspected underneath; Ganymede is the largest moon in our solar system, and has a quite complex composition; Callisto is the third largest of the moons around any of the solar system planets, after Ganymede, and Saturn's moon Titan. It has a heavily cratered surface. Only the largest of Jupiter's moons' features are visible through earth-based telescopes, and a large telescope is needed even for that purpose.

Look up The RASC's Observer's Handbook; Wikipedia and other astronomical on-line sources to contain more details for Jupiter-related phenomena.

People have spent a lifetime exploring Jupiter's system, and now the latest orbiting probes have sent back very detailed data.

Jupiter is truly the King of the Solar System planets.