On Saturday night 8th August, I was able to capture some images of Jupiter with Io and its shadow in transit. The seeing was just above average – good enough to capture albedo features on Io, including the dark polar regions in contrast against the cloud tops of Jupiter.

The best image from the session is below. Io and it’s shadow are seen on the left, the Wesley Impact Scar is at top left just setting, and Oval BA is on the top right just rising.

Jupiter, Io and Shadow Transit

Please continue reading to see a 6-frame animation of all of the images from the night.

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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 with a darker orange/red ring inside it, and the continuing upheaval of the NEB.

Jupiter and Oval BA

I’ve also got some images of the Ganymede + Callisto close approach that occurred on the same night, but I’m still going through that data and need to create an animation, so it could be a few more days yet before I’ll get a chance to post the final result.

Thanks for looking.

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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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 to reveal albedo markings on the cloud tops.

Jupiter and Oval BA

And below is Venus at around 6am local time, captured in UV and RGB. Venus is currently a 31% illuminated disc, and is shining stunningly bright at mag -4.5!

Venus in UV False Colour

Please read on to find out more about the capture and processing.

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Well it’s been a long time coming. Usually the seeing at my location is best between February and June, but this year it’s been horrible every day – I’ve been out trying to image Jupiter almost every clear morning for 2 months and have been increasingly discouraged at not having anything better than 5/10 seeing all year.

Well finally the good seeing has started to arrive with a high-pressure system overhead. On Saturday morning, 2nd May 2009 I had the best seeing I’ve had this year so far, as it peaked at 7/10 in my last imaging run of the session. Jupiter was at a nice high altitude of 67°, and was reasonably steady on the screen as I captured this image.

Jupiter, Oval BA and Europa's Shadow

Oval BA still appears orange but does appear to be lighter than last year. The resolution still isn’t there yet to see any other structure within it. Europa’s shadow is visible on the Eastern limb.

Continue reading to see two other images from earlier in the session.

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On Sunday morning, I was able to capture my first Jupiter moon transit for the season, with the volcanic moon Io transiting the gas giant. I also took the opportunity to create my first Jupiter animation for the season, hopefully the first of many to come.

It was another busy morning (like Friday morning) with an ISS pass, a lovely crescent Moon and then of course Jupiter. Seeing was quite reasonable, and improved as Jupiter climbed out of the muck, reaching an altitude of about 39° literally 5 minutes before sunrise when I captured my last image. The sky was already blue and by this time I could only just see Jupiter naked eye.

The image below is the best from the session, taken 10 minutes before sunrise and shows Io just about to leave the disc of Jupiter. Oval BA is rising on the right.

Jupiter with Io Transit

Please read on to see the animation and to read more about the capture and processing.

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I had a fairly busy morning this morning – knowing that the skies were going to be clear (well, hoping), the waning crescent Moon was well positioned, a bright ISS and STS-119 Discovery pass was going overhead, and then of course Jupiter which is climbing to a manageable 35° altitude before dawn.

I managed to capture all three objects, and here’s the first one that has been processed. It’s Jupiter in seeing that was very similar to my first attempt for 2009, captured on Wednesday morning.

The resolution isn’t great due to the seeing, but Oval BA is visible just past the CM. I missed the best of the seeing as it deteriorated further as dawn approached. I was busy capturing the Moon and the ISS, and Jupiter was still too low. 

Jupiter and Oval BA

Continue reading for more capture and processing information.

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Jupiter is my favourite planet to take photos of, so it’s getting to the exciting time of the year now when Jupiter is gracing our morning skies again and will soon be high enough to point my telescope at and start capturing images.

It’s currently at about 10° altitude at approx 6am from mid-southern latitudes, and gets higher each day. In 1 months time, it will be at 27° altitude at 6am – still very low, but certainly high enough to capture some early season images and see what shape the GRS and Red Jr (Oval BA) take this year.

Jupiter + Callisto

The image above was captured in late May 2008, and shows the GRS, Oval BA and the Little Red Spot (LRS) which was destroyed by its encounter with the GRS in early July.

Continue reading for a preview of Jupiter season 2009!

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New images of Jupiter are always news-worthy, and this is no exception. I received an interesting link on the ALPO_Jupiter yahoo group the other day – it’s a pretty fascinating animation showing Ganymede being occulted by Jupiter.

Here’s a still from the movie:

(NASA, ESA and Erich Karkoschka - University of Arizona)

Read on to see the animation and to see one of my own images taken just a couple of hours later after the Hubble image above!
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