Pear Tree Observatory

The PTO is still configured for planetary imaging in support of NASA’s JunoCam project. The air was not very steady last night which shows as the focus shifts in and out during the animation. However, this was the first time I have been able to follow one of the moons as it crosses the planet. The first moon visible is Europa, and it remains visible as it starts to cross in front of Jupiter. The second moon that comes in from the left is Io. Io was going to cast a shadow on Jupiter, unfortunately the planet became obscured by my western tree line before it happened.

There is a 19 minute jump in the animation. My capture software hung saving one of the videos and I had to stop and restart the application. Most of the delay was me not noticing the situation.

Last night was again clear enough to get some Jupiter footage. However, there were some high clouds that interfered. Luckily, Jupiter was outside of the ice crystal halo surrounding the full Moon which would have significantly reduced the contrast in the images.

Jupiter is just barely visible tucked right up against the western tree line.

Jupiter with this good a focus shows how steady the atmosphere was.

The Jovian moon visible in this video is Io, the innermost of the four Galilean moons. It orbits Jupiter in only 42.5 hours and is the most volcanic body in the solar system.

According to mythology Io was one of the god Jupiter’s mortal romantic conquests. In fact, quite a few of the named moons are named for Jupiter’s human entanglements.

Last night’s planetary imaging session was better and not. I was able to reduce the time during meridian flip, which was good. But there were high light clouds that did effect the imaging, which was not good.

Additionally, tracking was spotty leading to the planet nearing the edge of the FOV several times. That is evident in the video background. While not effecting the clarity of Jupiter the effect is very distracting.