The Dutch Observatory

Following the partial occultation of Europa by Ganymede, I made some images of Jupiter.  The seeing was very variable during the session and probably peaked at average, but here the best image.

The Clear Sky Clock did forecast bad transparency from 1:00 a.m.  until 3:00 a.m.  However, in reallity at 3:00 am it was clear as a bell, but when I finished setting up, clouds had moved in.  Initially scattered, but soon broken.  so imaging was a challenge.  I ended up taking the red and green channels from one run and combined them with the blue from the previous.  The end result is not too bad.  In addition, I was lucky that at that time the GRS was about to transit the CM and Europa was leaving the preceding limb.  Lots of activity in the NEB with spillovers into the NTrZ, notable 2 dark spots, while two dark interactions with the EZ can also be observed while some light storms in the SSTB seem to reach out in the STZ.

Saturday evening I tried to image Saturn, however, the transparency and stability were so bad that I am not going to post this image.  Instead, I imaged Jupiter on Monday morning.  The transparency and stability was not bad but got worse as time went on.  So here Jupiter with the GRS on June 22, 2009 while the conditions still were good.

This morning I was able to image again.  The Clear Sky Clock misled me again, instead of transparent, stable and good seeing conditions, high cloud bands kept moving in and out, leaving just sufficient time to complete one set, but with reduced IR frames.  This image shows Jupiter with Ganymede on the left and Callisto on the right. 

This morning expectations were great for observing from our location.  Both Ganymede and Io were to transit Jupiter, together with a GRS transit.  However the weather had other ideas.  Light haze at the surface and high cloud bands kept Jupiter moving in and out together with variable seeing.  I only got one complete run to process but with a limited number of frames.  The image shows Jupiter with the GRS just moving onto the planet on the left, Ganymede to the left of Jupiter,  Io just below the GRS and both moon’s shadows on the right.

This morning the GRS was transiting Jupiter.  We had the first clear morning in a few days, but the rain we had made it very humid.  The field accross my house was competely white from the fog.  The GRS looks pale, and the storms in the NEB and the NTropZ seem more organized in this image.

Jupiter on June 2nd.  Today we had a dubble transit with an added feature, the two moons Ganymede and Io were transitting the planet just before Io’s shadow left. I also made an animation with 4 images, with the shadow on two of them.  1 1/4 hours before this image, Ganymede did partially eclipse Io.

I put the 5 images from this morning in a little animation showing the moon Europa approaching Jupiter from the left, while its shadow creeps over the planetary surface on the right side of the disk. Two of the 5 images were pretty bad, so the best images are shown during the movement of Europa. Click on the blank image below to start the animation.

My first Jupiter session of the season.  This morning I did capture 5 filtered images.  This is probably the best of the 5.  It is fun to image Jupiter again and not have to worry about the number of photons coming in like when imaging Saturn at this time.  Jupiter is more than twice the size of Saturn with much light to spare.

Today is the third day I imaged the conjunction of Venus, the Moon, Jupiter and Mercury. I made a special trip to Charlie Elliott to get the same horizon which I had in the previous images and put the three days in one picture showing how the objects moved during the three day period.  The Moon looked spectacular next to Venus with Jupiter and Mercury sitting side by side just above the horizon.  What a way to say goodbye to 2008!!
(Click the image below to see the larger picture. Jupiter and Mercury are in the bottom/right of the images)