The Best Jupiter Image this Year, plus more from Down Under

I captured a new Jupiter image this morning (unfortunately in only 4/10 seeing), finally getting to see the GRS for the first time this season. It’s definitely paler than last year!

As I was processing my image, Lester Barnes from South Australia posted his image from this morning on IceInSpace – and it’s easily the best Jupiter image captured by anyone this year so far. I can tell you it discouraged me from finishing the processing on mine! :)

Jupiter with GRS by Lester Barnes

Jupiter with GRS by Lester Barnes

Lester uses a Meade 14″ SCT with a modified DFK21AF04 and captured this image this morning on the 9th April local time. He used Registax 5 and AstraImage for processing.

Read on to see my image from this morning, as well as a new image from Anthony Wesley captured yesterday.

My image from this morning was captured at around 5:44am local time, and Jupiter was nice and high at 50° just before sunrise. Unfortunately the seeing still hasn’t been co-operating.

[image:961:c:l=d:T]

I captured at 30fps for 40 seconds in each channel, and used 150 frames in each channel to stack into the final RGB image.

Anthony Wesley captured a nice image yesterday morning, using his 13.1″ Newtonian and PGR Dragonfly2 camera.

Jupiter with NEB Outbreak by Anthony Wesley

Jupiter with NEB Outbreak by Anthony Wesley

His image shows an NEB outbreak (bright area in the NEB on the left just past the CM), which appears to be spreading. I picked it up in my image from last week, but it appears to have grown since then.

Things are starting to get exciting now and i’m looking forward to seeing more great images from Down Under as Jupiter rises higher.

Thanks for looking.

About Mike Salway

Mike Salway lives on the Central Coast of NSW, Australia and loves amateur astronomy, photography and karate. He co-founded the amateur astronomy website, IceInSpace, has a family with a wife and 3 kids, and is a 1st Dan Black Belt in Karate. In real life, Mike is a Product Manager for a software company.

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3 Responses to The Best Jupiter Image this Year, plus more from Down Under

  1. A April 15, 2009 at 7:23 am #

    Hi, I came across your site while searching on why the moon was strangely low and bigger tonight. I’m sure the moon did not increase in size but it seemed so much nearer tonight that it is so strange and beautiful. I saw it at around 11.45pm in Singapore on April 14 2009. Would be great if you can explain to me why did the moon seem so near tonight.

    • Mike Salway April 16, 2009 at 9:58 am #

      Hi
      Whenever the moon is near the horizon, it appears bigger – sometimes 2 to 3 times bigger. As you correctly pointed out, it did not increase in size or actually get closer to Earth. It’s actually an illusion! It’s called the “Moon Illusion”. If you search for “Moon Illusion” on Google you’ll find heaps of references to it with further explanations.
      It is a beautiful sight!

Trackbacks/Pingbacks

  1. “La plus belle Jupiter de l’année !” / Blog “caméras d’astronomie” - May 7, 2009

    [...] Voici donc la Jupiter de Lester. Si vous voulez la comparer avec celle de Mike, vous pouvez cliquer sur le lien suivant : http://www.mikesalway.com.au/2009/04/09/the-best-jupiter-image-this-year-plus-more-from-down-under [...]

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