Well this has been a long time coming… It’s been over 4 months since my last planetary image! A combination of bad weather, bad seeing and very low motivation for astrophotography (mainly the latter) has meant I just didn’t have my telescope out for literally 4+ months. I’m trying to force myself back into it, [...]
Posts by Tag: 12″ Newt
Ganymede and Callisto Close Approach Animation
Well this animation has been a long time coming. Back on the 5th July 2009, Ganymede and Callisto had a close approach – no occultation unfortunately, but it was still great to see them so close together. Ganymede, at 5,200km diameter (1.7 arcseconds) and Callisto at 4,800 km diameter (1.6 arcseconds) are both over 635 [...]
International Space Station – 31st August 2009
On the 31st August 2009, we had a reasonably high and bright ISS pass, as the space station passed at about 60° altitude and reaching -2.8 apparent magnitude. Unfortunately the Space Shuttle Discovery (STS-128) was still on its way to the ISS and had not yet docked. The Space Shuttle actually passed overhead about 8 [...]
Jupiter, GRS and Wesley Impact Scar – 24th July
After breaking the news of Anthony Wesley’s discovery of an impact scar on Jupiter on Monday morning (while I was waiting to board a plane to Melbourne), Friday night was my first opportunity to capture an image of the now famous “Wesley Impact Scar”, or “Bird Strike” (Anthony’s forum name is “bird”). The image above [...]
Jupiter and Oval BA from July 5th
It’s been a while between posts – I’m currently up on the Sunshine Coast for a work conference, and have finally had a few spare moments to finish off this image. This image was captured on Monday morning, 6th July local time (5th July UT), in slightly above average seeing. It shows Oval BA still [...]
Jupiter, GRS and NEB Upheaval Animation
Captured on the 23rd June (local time), this animation represents 3 hours of rotation on Jupiter, as the Great Red Spot (quite a bit paler this year) transits across the face of the gas giant. Also visible, down lower on the NEB, is the new “NEB Upheaval” – a series of new spots and disturbances [...]
Venus in False Colour – 23rd June 2009
This image of Venus in Ultra Violet light was captured on the morning of the 23rd June – the same morning that I captured my first Mars of 2009 and Jupiter with the NEB Upheaval. It was a busy morning! The colours reveal some albedo differences in the cloud tops on Venus, and come from a combination [...]
Mr First Mars for 2009 – at a tiny 4.9 arcseconds
On Tuesday morning, 23rd June 2009 I captured my first image of Mars for 2009. It’s still very early in the season, with Mars still 288 million kilometres away, subtending a tiny diameter of a 4.9″ on the sky. Mars doesn’t reach opposition until late January, 2010 when it will be 14 arcseconds in diameter – [...]
Jupiter + Ganymede Animation, 12th May 2009
On the morning of the 12th May, I had some very good seeing – the best I’ve had all year, and I was able to record some images of Jupiter and Ganymede in very good conditions, allowing surface details (albedo features) to be seen on Ganymede – one of the Galilean Moons of Jupiter, 750 [...]
Jupiter and Oval BA, and Venus in False Colour on May 9th
On Saturday morning 9th May we had a beautiful clear morning but only barely above average seeing. I captured Jupiter with Oval BA and the small white spot next to it, and before sunrise I turned my scope towards Venus for the first time this year, and captured the lovely crescent phase in UV light [...]
About Me
My name is Mike Salway and I'm an amateur astronomer and photographer. I'm the co-founder of IceInSpace, and this is my personal blog site and image gallery.
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