Jupiter

Finally after a few months of cloudy skies and inactivity, I'm now back with new experiences in amateur astronomy. 

Since the season here in the Philippines showcases the planet Jupiter during the evening, I have been taking every opportunity to observe and attempt to photograph the giant gas planet. My most recent observation was at the evening until early dawn of September 10, 2010. A good dose of rain have been falling early that afternoon and when late evening crept in, the skies cleared up like all dirt and dust and smoke were removed by the rain. Visibility that night was very clear and observing conditions were one of the best in my experience.

Jupiter was very clear with its four Galilean moons during that night. One cloud band was prevalent and other soft details were visible at around 100x. Observing at low power was also a joy - the Gas Giant floating about like a brilliant gem in the darkness of space adorned with four gleaming pearls all lined up perfectly with the planet.

I also used the opportunity of good seeing to do some experimental astrophotography using a Nikon Coolpix L16 point and shoot digital camera and a generic camera tripod. Equipment used was a 4.5 inch f/7.8 reflector - equatorially mounted and manual tracking. Images were obtained using a rather weird eyepiece projection technique where I placed the camera's lens right in front of the eyepiece and then secure the tripod where the camera was mounted. The camera's lens were zoomed all the way to its longest telephoto setting in all photos.

Here are some of my photographs of Jupiter

Low Power View

Galilean moons and jupiter at low power

Like brilliant gems embedded in the sky

100x using 9 mm eyepiece

Trying to capture detail at 100x

100x using 9 mm eyepiece

Only three or two of the moons are visible in the photos because the last one is quite far from the other three and my camera has a very limited field of view. Most of the photos are also overexposed because of the camera's lack of sophisticated metering as well as inferior sensor compared to high end CCD equipment and DSLRs.

I also tried getting a video of Jupiter in a desperate attempt to capture some detail and avoid overexposure as well as trails caused by inadequate tracking or camera shake or both. The videos can be viewed below.

I also did a composite of the video and stacked the frames using Registax and came up with the following pictures

1st composite image

2nd composite image (Note two dim specks of light at the northeast part of jupiter, those are two of its moons.)

3rd composite image. If you'll view this full screen (which can be done by clicking on the photo), you can see two tiny specs of light which are moons of Jupiter.

An enlarged crop of the 1st composite image, saturation adjusted in Photoshop to show detail.