2003-2004 Apparition

April 27, 2004, 02:29, 02:40 UT. eeing was Fair (3-4/10). 203 mm f/7 newtonian with ToUcam Pro Webcam @f/35. 

March 30, 2004, 03:41, 03:51 UT. These images capture a double transit of Io (left) and Europa (to the right of Io) and their respective shadows. Seeing was Fair (3-5/10). 203 mm f/7 newtonian with ToUcam Pro Webcam @f/35. 

March 28, 2004, 06:14UT. This image captures Europa to the left of Jupiter, Callisto's shadow near the Jupiter's meridian, Ganymede in transit to the right below Jupiter's North Equatorial belt and Io to the right of Jupiter. Poor to Fair seeing (3-4/10) with gusting winds. 203 mm f/7 newtonian with ToUcam Pro Webcam @f/35. 

March 19, 2004, 04:42, 05:02, 05:14, 05:31, 05:40, 06:03, 06:12 UT. Fair to good seeing (3-5/10). 203 mm f/7 newtonian with ToUcam Pro Webcam @f/35.

March 10, 2004, 04:28, 04:47, 05:11, 05:51, 06:20, 06:31 UT. Fair to good seeing (3-5/10). 203 mm f/7 newtonian with ToUcam Pro Webcam @f/35. The first four images show the "new South Equatorial Disturbance" that has been active since mid-February.The preceeding edge of this disturbance is visible near the right limb on the February 26, 2004 images below.

March 08, 2004, 05:31, 05:41 UT. Fair to good seeing (3-5/10). 203 mm f/7 newtonian with ToUcam Pro Webcam @f/35.

February 26, 2004, 07:05, 07:33 UT. Good seeing (5-6/10) through clear skies (transparency: 9/10). Io is to the left. The preceeding edge of the "new South Equatorial Disturbance" is visible near the limb at right. 203 mm f/7 newtonian with ToUcam Pro Webcam @f/35. 

February 18, 2004, 09:49, 09:59 UT. Good seeing (5-6/10) through variable high, thin clouds (transparency: 5-7/10). Io appears to show some of its polar darkening. 203 mm f/7 newtonian with ToUcam Pro Webcam @f/35.

February 15, 2004, 06:48 - 07:42 UT.

January 28, 2004, 08:32 - 10:42 UT. Seeing was good (5-7/10) with good transparency (8/10). 203 mm f/7 newtonian with ToUcam Pro Webcam @f/35.

January 24, 2004, 09:03, 09:07 UT. The Great Red Spot (GRS) and a South Temporate Belt (STB) dark spot. Seeing was good (6/10) with good transparency (8/10). 203 mm f/7 newtonian with ToUcam Pro Webcam @f/35.

January 13, 2004. Note Ganymede appearing from behind Jupiter's limb (to the right) and moving to the right. Seeing was fair (4-5/10) with good transparency (8/10). 203 mm f/7 newtonian with ToUcam Pro Webcam @f/35.

December 30, 2003, 11:25, 11:35, 12:05 UT. Jupiter has rotated about six degrees. This allows the pair to be used to create a "pseudo stereo" pair. Seeing was fair (4-5/10) with falling transparency (6-8/10). 203 mm f/7 newtonian with ToUcam Pro Webcam @f/35.

December 20, 2003, 12:04, 12:14, 13:04, 13:13 UT. Two pairs of images taken about 1 hour apart. Each pair consists of images taken about 10 minutes apart. During this interval, Jupiter has rotated about six degrees. This allows the pair to be used to create a "pseudo stereo" pair.  Seeing was very good (8/10) for these images. 203 mm f/7 newtonian with ToUcam Pro Webcam @f/35.

December 10, 2003, 12:55, 13:01 UT. Two images taken about 5 minutes apart result in Jupiter rotating about three degrees. This is enough to allow the two images to be used to create a pseudo stereo pair. Better results would be obtained if the two images differ by about six degrees (about 10 minutes of rotation; see above). A color balance adjustment with increased color saturation has been applied to create the bottom two images. Seeing was excellent (9/10) for these images. 203 mm f/7 newtonian with ToUcam Pro Webcam @f/35.

November 30, 2003, 11:53 UT. Oval BA is near the meridian. Europa (0.79 arcseconds in diameter) is to the left of Jupiter. 203 mm f/7 newtonian with ToUcam Pro Webcam @f/35. Good seeing conditions (6/10) despite low altitude (51 degrees).

November 6, 2003, 12:37 UT. 203 mm f/7 newtonian with ToUcam Pro Webcam @f/35. Poor seeing conditions (3-4/10).

October 23, 2003, 11:04 UT. 203 mm f/7 newtonian with ToUcam Pro Webcam @f/35. My first Jupiter image of this apparition. This was made when Jupiter was less than 20 degrees above the horizon under poor seeing conditions.

2002-2003 Apparition

June 11, 2003, 1:06 UT. 203 mm f/7 newtonian with ToUcam Pro Webcam @f/29.This image is probably my last of the 2002-2003 apparition and was obtained about 1 hour and 15 minutes before sunset. I didn't notice Io or Europa through the eyepiece at the time. Jupiter was only 33 arcseconds in diameter.

April 21, 2003, 3:34 UT. 203 mm f/7 newtonian with ToUcam Pro Webcam @f/29.This image was obtained under poor to fair seeing conditions.

 April 10, 2003, 2:04 UT. 203 mm f/7 newtonian with ToUcam Pro Webcam @f/29.This image was obtained under poor to fair seeing conditions. Io is to the upper right.

March 31, 2003, 5:22 UT. 203 mm f/7 newtonian with ToUcam Pro Webcam @f/29.This image was obtained under poor to fair seeing conditions.

 February 17, 2003, 5:24 UT. 203 mm f/7 newtonian with ToUcam Pro Webcam @f/29. This image was obtained under fair seeing conditions.

January 27, 2003, 8:10 UT. 203 mm f/7 newtonian with ToUcam Pro Webcam @f/29. Ganymede is to the left. This image was obtained under fair seeing conditions.

January 14, 2003, 8:20 UT. 203 mm f/7 newtonian with ToUcam Pro Webcam @f/29. Europa is about to cast its shadow on Io. This image was obtained under fair but rapidly deteriorating seeing conditions.

January 5, 2003, 8:51 UT. 203 mm f/7 newtonian with ToUcam Pro Webcam @f/29. First Jupiter of the New Year under average seeing conditions. Jupiter was 44.5 arcseconds in diameter.

2002

 November 13, 2002, 12:27 UT. Jupiter, Io (on Jupter's limb and casting shadow on Jupiter), and Europa. 203 mm f/7 newtonian with ToUcam Pro Webcam @f/27. 288 of 602 frames from 1 minute AVI clip. Aligned and stacked in Registax. Processed with Registax and Adobe Photoshop 7.0. Jupiter was 38.4" in diameter at the equator. Europa and Io were 0.84" and 0.98" in diameter, respectively.

  November 13, 2002, 11:56 -12:08 UT. A sequence of 8 images compiled from 8, 1 minute AVI clips showing Jupiter rotating beneath the shadow of Io (closest to Jupiter). Click on image for a larger view. Europa is on the far side of Jupiter and is moving to the upper right. Note the Field rotation over the 14 minute interval.

2001 - 2002 Apparition

January 9, 2002, 6:48 UT. A night with very good seeing (8-9) allowed me to obtain a series of images of Jupiter with an 8" f/7 newtonian and an Intel PC CS430 (Intel Pro Video PC Camera) Webcam with an Edmund IR cutoff filter. These images were obtained at about f/70 by stacking frames obtained from a 320 x 240 video clip. The frames were aligned and stacked with Registax and then modified slightly (level adjust, gauusian blurring, etc.) in Adobe Photoshop.

January 9, 2002, 5:57 UT. Same setup as the image immediately above.

January 9, 2002, 4:12 UT. 203 mm f/7 newtonian and PC-23C video camera @ about f/70 with wratten #25 filter. 122 frames stacked and aligned with Registax.

2000 - 2001 Apparition

DOUBLE SHADOW TRANSIT ON JUPITER. On January 8, 2001 UT, the shadows of both Io and Ganymede were seen on Jupiter at the same time. The shadow of Io is over the southern equatorial belt. Io is near the northern and preceeding edge (to the upper right) of the Great Red Spot. The larger shadow of Ganymede grazes the southern polar region. Ganymede is visible in the thumbnail image as a small dot to the right of Jupiter (click on the thumbnail to see two larger images). The larger images were obtained at 3:42 (left) and 4:01 (right) UT. The are shown inverted so that the viewer can see a pseudo stereo image (relax the eyes as if looking at infinity until the two images overlap). Viewed in "stereo," Jupiter takes on a 3-D appearance due to its rotation over the intervening 19 minutes (ideally, this should be only about 10 minutes to give about 6 degrees of rotation). Many subtle details of the Jovian cloudtops become more readily visible and Io and the shadows of Io and Ganymede appear to hover above the planet. Note that Io (1.16" in diameter) shows a slight phase affect. The left image is from 166 stacked frames; the right image from 148; both taken through a Wratten #25 filter (no IR block).

January 1, 2001 UT, at over a month past opposition, Jupiter shows a pronounced phase affect and Io (on the left image) casts a shadow on the Jovian cloudtops. far from its own disk.

  MY IMAGES VERSUS CASINNI'S. The left image is my best image from December 22, 2000, 5:13 UT. The right image is a high resolution simulated view of Jupiter made by the Casinni spacecraft on December 7, 2000. The red channel of the originally released true color image was isolated to create this view for comparison with my "red" image, taken through a Wratten #25 filter without an IR block. About wo weeks separate the two images, although many of the same features, including interesting cloud features near the Great Red Spot, can be identified in both images.

  December 22, 2000 UT. Each is the product of 80 stacked frames and were taken through a Wratten #25 filter. The image on the right is from 4:56 UT, the middle image is from 5:13 UT, and the left image is from 5:23 UT.

  JUPITER AND GANYMEDE (@f/73 using eyepiece projection through a Wratten #25 Red filter) obtained on November 26, 2000 at about 8:20 UT and is an average of 57 frames. At f/73, the PC-23C camera has a field of view (FOV) of about 1.1' x 0.8' (based on the chip size of 5.12 mm x 4.92 mm. At that focal length, Jupiter has a size of just less than 3 mm on the CCD chip and therefore occupies about 2/3 of the horizontal frame and about 4/5 of the vertical frame. 

  JUPITER ROTATION.This animation was created using a series of 13 images of Jupiter obtained between 4:43 and 6:30 on December 7, 2000 UT (1 hour, 47 minutes). Each image is the result of 80 stacked video frames made with my 203 mm f/7 newtonian @ f/73 using eyepiece projection (a Sirius 7.5 mm Plossl projecting 86 mm) and a PC-23C B&W CCD video camera (with a Wratten #25 Red filter). The moon that appears from the left is Io.

  JUPITER AND IO image (through a Wratten #80A Medium Blue filter) obtained on November 14, 2000 at about 8:20 UT and is an average of 57 frames.

1998

  Panasonic Camcorder image of Jupiter. This image is the result of about 30 frames captured on September 17, 1998 with the Panasonic Camcorder. This was among my first video astronomy images and revealed to me the potential of video imaging the planets.

1997

  The best photograph I've ever taken of Jupiter. August 19, 1997 at about 7:00 UT. This is an image obtained with Kodak Gold 400 film showing the GRS, Callisto (on limb at right) and Callisto's shadow. Compare this to my recent webcam images taken using essentially the same telescope - an 8" f/7 newtonian.

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