Jupiter & Ganymede and Saturn (02 Jul 2020)

 Jupiter, Planet, Saturn, Solar System  No Responses »
Jul 062020
 

Almanac data shows we are entering the cloudiest part of the year with clear skies only about 12% of the time. This makes it almost impossible to spend an hour taking a series of images necessary for asteroid position analysis. This means the PTO is left configured for planetary imaging with a temporary reconfiguration to cover a random occultation when necessary. On the night of the 2nd I was able to get several RGB sets of Jupiter but only 2 sets of Saturn before the clouds closed back in.

Jupiter & Ganymede
[(V)TR:1254×0.91ms;
TG:1252×1.45ms;
TB:1252×2.18ms]

Saturn
[(V)TR:1743×2.89ms;
TG:1301×7.70ms;
TB:909×13.07ms]

The dark spot on the lower left of Jupiter is the largest moon in the solar system – Ganymede. In fact, Ganymede is larger than the planet Mercury. Clouds prevented an earlier set of images that would have shown the Ganymede’s shadow as well as the GRS. As soon as Jupiter rotated the GRS out of view and the shadow left the planet, the clouds cleared.

Currently, Saturn rises only 23 minutes after Jupiter putting them close to each other in the sky as viewed from Earth.

For an explanation of caption information see exposure data.

 Posted by at 14:17

Jupiter & Io (29 Jun 2020)

 Jupiter, Planet, Solar System  No Responses »
Jun 302020
 

Jupiter kept peeking out between large fluffy clouds last night just long enough to get a few image streams. This is the best of what I was able to capture. If you think the yellow moon just to the left of Jupiter is Io, you are right. It was on the far side of the planet heading left to right. If the clouds would have held off just 12 more minutes I would have been able to watch the moon disappear into Jupiter’s shadow.

Jupiter & Io [(v)TR:1249×0.74ms; TG:1254×1.09ms; TB:1255×1.50ms]

 Posted by at 00:50

Wild Ducks and Jupiter (11 Jun 2020)

 DSO, Jupiter, Open Cluster, Planet, Solar System, Wide FOV  No Responses »
Jun 132020
 

While waiting for Jupiter and Saturn to clear my tree line, I did some more testing with my wider FOV scope that has a simple DSLR mounted on it. I am still manually focusing the system but it doesn’t take too long to accomplish. The recently installed flattener corrects the distortion apparent in the stars at the corners of each image.

The target for tonight’s testing was Messier 11 (The Wild Duck Cluster). Legend has it the cluster was given its name by British Admiral William Henry Smyth (1788-1865). When describing the cluster, the Admiral, a very accomplished astronomer and avid hunter, commented the V-shaped group of stars looked like a flock of wild ducks.

Classified as an open star cluster, the flock is located in the constellation Scutum (The Shield). The constellation is right in the middle of the plane of the Milky Way and towards the center of the galaxy. That is fairly apparent by the sheer number of stars in the image. North is to the right putting M 11 right on the northern edge of the Scutum star cloud. The dark area towards the bottom right side of the image is not a lack of stars. It is a large area of dust and gas dense enough to block the light of more distant stars. Several of these areas were individually cataloged as dark nebulae by American astronomer E. E. Barnard, hence the B numbers on the matching chart.

Wild Duck Cluster (M 11) [M:11x120s]

As can be seen on the constellation chart, Scutum is in the southern sky located between Aquila and Sagittarius. The image and matching chart are rotated 90° to the constellation chart.

Chart generated by Cartes du Ciel

Chart courtesy of the IAU and Sky&Telescope

Once Jupiter and Saturn cleared the trees I switched over to planetary equipment and was able to get a couple of series of both planets before wispy clouds moved in from the south. As usual, the best Jupiter image was uploaded to NASA’s JunoCam web page for mission planning.

Jupiter [(V)TR:2506×0.74ms;TG:2501×1.1ms;TB:2505×1.7ms]

 Posted by at 15:32

Early morning planets (30 May 2020)

 Jupiter, Planet, Saturn, Solar System  No Responses »
Jun 012020
 

Jupiter and Saturn now clear my tree line around 0130(L) so I don’t have to stay up too late (early?) for now. Both, for the time being, will be low on the horizon for years to come but we deal with what solar system geometry gives us. It takes Jupiter 12 Earth years to orbit the Sun, so it will be several years before Earth’s tilt puts Jupiter at its highest in the sky again. Saturn takes 29 years to orbit the Sun, we will need to wait a even longer for it to peak in altitude.

Jupiter
[(V)TR:2500×0.89ms;
TG:2490×1.41ms;
TB:2436×2.24ms ]

Saturn
[(V)TR:4436×3.78ms;
TG:4342×6.77ms;
TB:2195×13.55ms]
 Posted by at 11:23

Last chance Jupiter (20 Sep 2019)

 Jupiter, Planet, Saturn, Solar System  No Responses »
Oct 232019
 

As the Earth leaves Jupiter behind, the largest planet in the solar system sets earlier and earlier. So, as the last Jovian image of this apparition, I caught Jupiter a full hour before sunset just before it hit my western treeline. This, of course, is the reason the background is so light and the picture has such low contrast. The moon visible is Europa just before it starts crossing the face of the planet.

Jupiter & Europa
[(v)R:750×2.5ms; G: 750×1.6ms; B:750×1.3ms]

Jupiter will come back into view over my eastern treeline an hour before sunrise late March next year, so this was the last chance to get a marginal picture this year. I will NOT be submitting this image to NASA’s JunoCam project.

Saturn sets about an hour and forty-five minutes after Jupiter so the Sun had set and the sky was darker for this image.

Saturn
[(v) R: 1357×43.3ms; G:1253×47.0ms; B: 646×92.1ms]

 Posted by at 18:17
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