In the From the Vault series, I feature an older image which hasn’t been seen here before and I talk about the capture and processing and hopefully highlight why this image is special to me.

The feature image in From the Vault this week is an image and animation of Jupiter with Callisto in transit. Captured almost exactly 12 months ago, on the 31st May 2008, I was excited to be imaging on this morning because capturing a Callisto transit is quite rare due to the large and lengthy orbit of Callisto around Jupiter.

Callisto has a low albedo and while transiting Jupiter it actually looks like a shadow, but it’s the Moon itself! In some frames, albedo features on Callisto can be seen – one of the rare times I’ve been able to capture detail on the darkest Galilean Moon.

Click the image below to download and play the 18 frame animation that covers over 3 hours of Jupiters’ rotation.

Jupiter + Callisto in Transit Animation. Click to Play.

Continue reading to see some of the best images from the animation, and to read more about the capture and processing of this series.

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It’s that time of year again, when the emails and powerpoint presentations start going around about Mars being as big or as bright as the Full Moon on August 27th. I’ve received several emails from people asking about it in the last couple of weeks.

It’s a hoax and email spam. You can safely ignore and delete it, and don’t propogate it by forwarding it onto people

Mars, by Hubble

On August 27th 2003, Mars was at its closest to Earth for some time – still a distance of 56 million km, but some communication at the time hyped it up a bit more than necessary (it was never as bright or as big as the full moon).

Every year since then, an email has been circulated around the internet claiming various things like:

• “no human being has seen in recorded history”
• “NO ONE ALIVE TODAY WILL EVER SEE THIS AGAIN”
• “The Red Planet is about to be spectacular”
• “Mars will look as bright as the full moon”
• “It will look like the earth has 2 moons”

and that on August 27th everyone should race outside and look at Mars.

It’s all not true. Mars reaches opposition in late January, 2010, and even then it will still just look like a medium-brightness red star.

So tell your friends it’s a hoax and it’s spam, and wait until this time next year when you start receiving them again

On the weekend of the 22nd – 24th May, the South Pacific Star Party (SPSP) was held at Wiruna, Ilford, about 3 hours drive West of Sydney. The SPSP is hosted by the Astronomical Society of NSW (ASNSW), and is Australia’s biggest star party and usually attracts up to 300 people from all over Australia and some from overseas, to enjoy the beautiful dark skies and great company that the SPSP has to offer.

This weekend was the 17th SPSP, and my 5th. In 2005 I attended my first SPSP and I’ve been hooked ever since. The beautiful skies and the chance to catch up with friends that you might only see once or twice a year, is well worth the trip.

Continue on to read more about this year’s SPSP – the bad weather, the great company and the results from the Astro Imaging Competition.

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