I stayed up late enough last night that Jupiter got above my roofline for me to image and I happened to catch the Ganymede transit as it begin. Visually, I could make out the shadow more clearly than the moon and the camera was able to capture it as well.
September 18, 2010
July 16, 2008
Jupiter on 7/16/08
This view of Jupiter is actually a longer image (to capture the moons) combined with a stacked, shorter image to capture the planet. I combined them in Photoshop and in the end, I think this does a pretty good job of showing just what I see through my eyepiece when I look at Jupiter and its moons. The moons, from left to right are Callist, Europa, Io and Ganymede.
There’s a bit of a clearing now in the sky so I think I’m going to try to get some M13 – Great Hercules Cluster imaging done. It’s bright enough that it should still show up okay.
July 15, 2008
Night of the Planets
Jupiter (Io transit, GRS) on 7/14/08
This evening, which was very clear but had the Moon bright in the sky, I decided to start my imaging by focusing on the planets. Saturn and Mars, which are quite close in the sky, are getting lower on the horizon and harder to see. Soon, they’ll be in the Sun’s glare and I won’t be able to see them for a while. Meanwhile, Jupiter is rising early enough to be seen regularly, shining very brightly in the southern sky.
While I started with Saturn, Mars and the Moon, it’s the shot of Jupiter that is my favorite tonight. This is the first time I’ve captured the Great Red Spot (GRS). I’ve shot several images of Jupiter, but have never had the good fortune to be imaging while the spot is visible until tonight. it’s visible in the lower right quarter of the planet. The next thing that’s neat is that if you look very closely, Io is transiting the planet in the upper left – it’s just barely in front of the planet. The moons to the right were added in from a longer exposure – Gannymede is the brighter one and Europa is on the far edge of the image. I’m really happy with this image.
My image of Saturn didn’t turn out too well. I don’t think that it was quite in focus.
Mars is just really a red spot in the sky now. It’s quite far away and at least with my scope, there’s no detail visble. It will be about 8 or 9 months before I’ll be able to start seeing some detail on Mars again.
Next, I shot one of my favorite sights on the Moon, Sinus Iridum – The Bay of Rainbows.
Sinus Iridum-Bay of Rainbows on 7/14/08
I rounded out the night capturing an additional 6 more Messier Objects, which bring me closer to my goal of completing the entire Messier catalog.
