Jupiter maps 2017

[andyc]

A bit of a challenge for me this year as I've slowly improved my planetary image processing this winter - I wanted to map changes in Jupiter's belts over time, something done much better at ALPO-Japan (http://alpo-j.asahikawa-med.ac.jp/kk17/j170909r.htm). I got lucky enough to have just about enough reasonable imagery to get four maps from May to August, each map spanning about 3-4 weeks of images. Not fast enough to capture all the fine details of the evolution of the big 2017 SEB outbreak (see S.Mizumoto's movie), but you can see it dissipating slowly.

The full-size animation is too large to post here (https://photos.app.goo.gl/d7vUA0vdYZuSF78M2), captures the various large-scale storm drifts and changes over the season.

My full library of 2017 Jupiter images is here (https://photos.app.goo.gl/oAFVWt6KGCT8m0cm1).

[Camelopardalis]

Nice work Andy :thumbsup:

[RickS]

Very cool, Andy!

[blinky]

Great stuff Andy! Thanks for taking the time to post that up. I'm particularly envious of your moons as I haven't been able to successfully stack/ derotate them myself:shrug:. Was the cylindrical projection done with winjupos?

regards
Leigh

[andyc]

Thanks Dunk and Rick!
Hi Leigh, and thanks! The projection was indeed in Winjupos. Very cool software for a spatial scientist to use in leisure time :D.
Moons are a bit of a pain in WJ though, as the derotation is on the planet, not the moons. However as the moons have captured rotation, they don't turn much in an imaging session and so you can just pile images on top of one another in photoshop, centred on the moon or shadow with the right transparency (successively increasing transparency, 100, 50, 33, 25, 20, 17% etc) to stack them and sharpen. Tends to get them a little rounder and occasionally hints of detail (with my aperture). Then overlay the moon-centred stack (or shadow) on the centrepoint of the streak on the Winjupos planet stack, just enough to cover the streak, feathering the edge. If you get lazy like me, pick the best individual moon frame from the Wj subframes and merge that into the final image.

[blinky]

Thanks again Andy for the tips. Great help.