Europa's Shadow Part 2

A reprocessing of the Jupiter image has led to this slightly more crisp and better colour balanced image of the passing of Europa's shadow across Jupiter.

Jupiter's Europa Shadow

On the night of the 27th of December the shadow of Europa passed across the face of Jupiter near the Great Red Spot. I was lucky to be able to have some clear skies and access to a large telescope to capture an image of the event.

Conjunction

Another shot of the December 21 conjunction between Jupiter and Saturn.

Conjunction

The great conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn on December 21, 2020. The apparent position of Jupiter and Saturn next to each other (conjunction) in the sky has not been seen this close for approximately 400 years. This was a truly once in a lifetime event. And this photo captures it almost exactly as it looked to the eye through the eyepiece. Taken with a TeleVue 101is at 540mm, with 4x Powermate.

Moon Trails

In this conjunction of Jupiter and Venus the four Galilean Moons, Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto, can be seen shepherding the gas giant across the sky. If you look closely you can see the apparently slightly wavy paths of the moons. This is due to atmospheric turbulence altering the path of light from the moons as it passes through Earth's atmosphere.

Jupiter, Venus, Moon, Action

These lights were up in the morning sky this morning, a near perfect equilateral triangle of celestial conjunction.

Planetary Gear

A photo of this morning's planetary conjunction between Venus and Jupiter just before sunrise. Having the right gear made all the difference to capturing this shot. A narrower lens was too dark, a wider lens too bright, but this one, just right.

Star Trails

Some star trails looking south from near Tromso. You can see the bright light of Jupiter top left, and the constellation of Orion is bottom right of centre, just scraping along the horizon. The trails appear almost horizontal at this point due to the unique geometry of spherical globes.

Battle Mountain Stars

Brightly lit Jupiter sets behind the summit of Battle Mountain at the end of a warm clear day. This is a significant place for the Kalkadoon people of Western Queensland. It was the site of a lengthy battle between the Queensland police and Kalkadoon people in 1884.

A Universe At The Front Gate

This photo was taken from the front gate near the kerb at my home. You can see brightest Jupiter near centre and some stars of the belt of Orion up higher between the cloud. It was taken with my new favourite low light lens, a Tokina 11-16mm f2.8. It is a very sweet lens for astronomical targets.

Astronomical

An astronomical gathering. From left to right are the Seven Sisters (Plieades), bright Jupiter, Taurus (with reddish Aldebaren) and Orion. A wonderful sight under a clear sky.

Conjunction

Another conjunction worth seeing. Get up early in the next few days to catch a glimpse of the planets Jupiter and Venus near the Taurus and Plieades constellations.

Conjunction Birthday

I was at a friend's birthday party doing some photography and I stepped outside to find the planets Venus and Jupiter peering through the clouds.

Celestial Conjunction

A conjunction of four celestial bodies as seen from Mount Isa. They are, from top to bottom, Jupiter, Moon, Venus and Earth.

Conjunction

If you were keen enough to get up early in the last few days you would have seen this dazzling conjunction of the planets Jupiter, Venus and Mercury, and just below, Mars.

Jupiter Impact

Recently a backyard astronomer in Australia spotted what appears to be an impact scar on Jupiter. So, I decided to see if we could see it here too in Mount Isa. I went out with the Mount Isa Astronomy Group to our local observatory and took my little telescope and camera to have a look. The result; we saw it!
The impact scar is the dark spot top dead centre of the disc. The two moons are Europa and Io, left to right.

Jupiter

A fuzzy Jupiter as seen from Mount Isa. This was a stack of frames from a handheld movie afocal, which is why it is not good quality. I was impressed with the simplicity of the stacking program Lynkeos.

Smile

The universe smiled upon Mount Isa last night as this spectacular alignment of the crescent Moon, Venus (top) and Jupiter arranged itself above the horizon.