Jupiter 2-1-17

Finally, Jupiter is back in the night sky! Oh, how I have missed this beautiful gas giant of a planet. As much as I enjoy imaging deep sky objects, my first love will always be planetary imaging. There is just something about imaging our local neighbors that puts me in a wonderful mood. Watching Jupiter rotate throughout the night is a sight to behold, and for such a large planet it does so about every 10 hours as opposed to our 24 hour Earth rotation. This means I can watch the great red spot on Jupiter slide across the surface in a matter of hours, and I can even see the movement of its 4 brighter moons. The black dot you see in the image is a shadow transit of Europa, one of Jupiter's larger moons.

P.S. This is my best image of Jupiter...so far

Technical details:
9,000 frames de-rotated in Winjupos
Stacked in Autostakkert2
Sharpened in Avistack2 and PS
Celestron Nexstar 6se telescope + 2x Barlow + 24mm eyepiece and extension tube
Celestron AVX Mount
Asi120mc-s camera

Jupiter 2-26-16 Europa, Io Transit and Great Red Spot

I've been going over the data that I captured on February 26, 2016 and have finally had the time to post about it. I captured a first in my personal astronomy book. There was a double transit of Europa and Io, and I was able to catch the shadows of both along with Io itself and the famous Great Red Spot! This was the first time I've been able to actually capture a Moon transit of Jupiter. I have previous images of shadow transits, but could never quite capture the Moon itself. The seeing was 4/5 for some the night and near the end of my session it dropped to a 2/5 and a few thin clouds. The images start out great and get a bit worse as the transition was ending. So, unfortunately the best pictures of the night were before the best parts of the transits. I'll take what I can get thought, right?

To be honest, I was sadly disappointed with the weather here in the Coachella Valley during Jupiter's March 8 opposition. I had hoped to capture some data that night and post them, but had to settle for my last viewing opportunity which is what you see here.

Images taken with a Celestron Nexstar 6se + Phillips spc900nc webcam 2x barlow. The first 3 I used a little digital zoom from the webcam.

Europa shadow

Europa shadow

Europa shadow

Europa shadow and GRS

Europa shadow and GRS

Io + shadow and GRS

Io + shadow and GRS

Io + shadow and GRS

Jupiter in the Coachella Valley, CA night sky 2-4-16

Jupiter just keeps getting bigger and brighter as the days pass, inching its way to opposition on March 8, when it will be at its closest approach to Earth and its face will be fully illuminated by the Sun. It will be brighter than any other time of the year, peaking at an apparent magnitude of -2.49, and will be visible all night long. This is a great time to get outside and observe Jupiter and its Moons, as the weather here in the Coachella Valley has been lovely, and seeing conditions have been favorable.

These images were taken on 2-4-16 and the seeing was excellent that night. Equipment used was a Celestron Nexstar 6SE + Phillips spc900nc webcam and a 2x barlow

And lastly, I would like to congratulate the @LIGO team for directly detecting Gravitational Waves today #einsteinwasright

Jupiter and the Great Red Spot 1-21-16

Jupiter is putting on an amazing show during the winter months here in the Coachella Valley. The gas giant is currently at an apparent magnitude of -2.30, and gaining in brightness each day until peaking on March 6th with an apparent magnitude of -2.49 for the year. These sets of images show the great red spot and storm bands of Jupiter as it rotates across the night sky. My goal for the evening was to really capture the movements of Jupiter's surface in the span of a night. I think it went quite well, for an amateur astronomer.

The Moon is currently in a waxing gibbous phase, which means its almost a full Moon. The Moon played a small negative factor in last nights observing, but overall didn't affect the images too badly. After this months full Moon, which occurs on January 23rd, I recommend a wonderful opportunity to pull out your telescopes and cameras and view the largest planet in our solar system, as well as 4 other bright planets (Mars, Saturn, Venus, and Mercury) all in our night sky at the same time!

Stay tuned for a future post on exactly when and how to spot Mercury here in the Coachella Valley in the coming weeks. It is currently very low on the horizon at dawn and hard to catch with the mountains and palm trees in the way.

I have pieced together a GIF of this evenings Jupiter pictures showing the planetary rotation and movement of the great red spot. This was a really fun project to put together and I could not be happier with the end results.

Next, we have the images that make up the GIF above. These are all stacked images with Avistack, 1800 frames to produce the final images. Taken with a Celestron Nexstar 6SE and a Phillips SPC900NC webcam. 

Here are my final images of Jupiter for the night. I wanted to catch the moons Io and Ganymede, as well as a close up of the great red spot and a bit more of a magnification on Jupiter in general, enjoy!

The Great Red Spot

Jupiter and Io

Jupiter and Io

Jupiter, Io and Ganymede

That is not all we have for today! My next few posts will be about imaging Mars, Venus, and Saturn! I hope you enjoyed my post and I look forward to your comments and feedback via social media and the likes. Clear skies!

Jupiter Ganymede Shadow Transit and Great Red Spot 1-11-16

The seeing here in the Coachella Valley was excellent last night, so I had the opportunity to spend the night outside with clear skies, and my trusty telescope. It was quite cold outside, for the valley anyways, so hot cocoa was flowing like water. These are definitely my personal best images of Jupiter, so far! I was actually speechless while processing the videos, but that was more than likely the cold temps outside. I am quite satisfied with the results and I hope you enjoy viewing them. Clear Skies!

Image details - Each image is a 1600 frame video stacked in avistack with minor wavelets adjustments at the end. The first image is actually a composite of two, one for Jupiter and another with high gain to show the moons Ganymede, Europa and Callisto.

Ganymede, Ganymede Shadow Transit, Great Red Spot, Europa, and Callisto

Nexstar 6SE + Phillips spc900nc + tube extender

Ganymede Shadow Transit, Great Red Spot

Nexstar 6SE + Phillips spc900nc + tube extender

Ganymede Shadow Transit, Great Red Spot

Nexstar 6SE + Phillips spc900nc + tube extender

Ganymede Shadow Transit, Great Red Spot

Nexstar 6SE + Phillips spc900nc + 2x barlow

Ganymede Shadow Transit, Great Red Spot

Nexstar 6SE + Phillips spc900nc + tube extender

Io, Ganymede Shadow Transit

Nexstar 6SE + Phillips spc900nc + tube extender

This last image actually shows Io popping out from behind Jupiter

An amateurs view of Uranus 12-17-15

All jokes aside, Uranus is a beautiful planet. It was once considered a gas giant like Jupiter and Saturn, but is now more commonly referred to as an ice giant, much like its nearest neighbor Neptune. Uranus has the coldest atmosphere of all the planets in our solar system, and has an estimated 27 satellites orbiting around it. Uranus also has its own set of rings, but unfortunately they are not nearly as noticeable as Saturn's famous rings.

This picture was taken on 12-17-15 with a Nexstar 6se and a Phillips spc900nc in Cathedral City, California.

Jupiter, Europa, Io, Callisto and the great red spot

This picture is a stacked 3 minute video of Jupiter and 3 of its moons, Europa, Io, and Callisto. The software used includes Avistacks, Astra Image, and Photoshop. I recently came across the "holy grail" of telescope webcams, the Phillips SPC900nc and was blessed with near perfect seeing on  12-18-15 here in Cathedral City California. This webcam is amazing! The amount light it draws in, and the contrast is fantastic. My previous webcam was a Logitech HD c310, and I have to admit that the SPC900nc does a much better job.

As for Jupiter itself, it was shining at an apparent magnitude of -2.07. Europa is the top moon, followed by Io nearest to Jupiter, and Callisto is near the bottom. The great red spot is clearly visible in the image, as are the storm bands. The telescope used was a Celestron Nexstar 6SE.