Hubble Space Telescope cruising past Jupiter

[Dennis]

Hi,

Well, my luck was in and Jupiter managed to clear the tree line! Phew!

Here is a 10 sec photo of the Hubble Space Telescope cruising past Jupiter. The visible moons are Io and Europa; Ganymede is “hidden” in the glare of the over exposed Jovian disc.

Canon 40D with 400mm F5.6 lens wide open.
Brisbane, 8th August 2008 at approx 6:11 PM AEST (GMT+10).

Cheers

Dennis

[IanL]

Very nice Dennis, It was quite a site as it passed by even brighter than I imagined.

Ian

[madtuna]

cool pic! at 12 O'clock from Jup and just below the Hubble..what is that object?

[citivolus]

Nice one Dennis. As mentioned in another thread, it looks like you get a transit on the 12th at 18:06. Are you going to try for a lucky shot?

Eric

[Dennis]

With all the activity in Stephen’s post (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=34602), I decided to go for it and I spent a couple of hours planning and setting up. I did the day time polar alignment using my Azimuth and Altitude Protractor jigs, as I figured I wouldn’t have time to polar align before 6:11pm! I slewed to 43° altitude and the very ends of the gum tree branches were swaying into the FOV in the strong SW winds, but when they dropped, the FOV cleared – yay!:D

With the 400mm F5.6 clamped onto the mount I took some preliminary photos of the Moon in daylight to get a good focus – LiveView on the 40D rocks big time, yeah!:thumbsup:

I then had a look at the Heavens Above chart and created a facsimile view in The Sky with a field of view indicator for the 400mm F5.6 and then oriented the 40D accordingly.

After all that, I sat back and waited and was gobsmacked at how bright the HST became as it slowly crawled along the sky to the Moon. I was so mesmerised by the sight, that I almost forgot to press the shutter release on the Canon as the HST passed Zubenelgenubi and Zubeneschamali in Libra. The single exposure was set to 10 secs and I just guessed when to press the shutter release in Canon EOS Utility running on the notebook.

Aesthetically, I like the shot where the HST terminates before it reached the end of the frame, as it makes the photo more dynamic, rather than being cut into 1/3 rds by a white line!:whistle:

Cheers

Dennis

[Dennis]

Thanks Steve – I noticed that when I processed the single 10 sec exposure and a quick look in The Sky 6 Professional did not reveal any faint fuzzies there. Wouldn’t it be nice if I had found a new comet! LOL!

Cheers

Dennis

[madtuna]

yeah..but seeing as I mentioned it first it should include my name in the tittle ;)

It does almost look comet like

[Dennis]

Thanks Eric – I’ll look into that! Great stuff with the Google maps you posted by the way!

Cheers

Dennis

[StephenM]

Nice image Dennis! Glad you enjoyed it.

Cheers,
Stephen

[Dennis]

Yes – it looks like a comet. Here is a 30 sec exposure. I’ll have to chase it down (somehow?) to see if it’s an existing comet.

Cheers

Dennis

[Matty P]

Lovely capture Dennis! Very well done.

That mysterious object does look comet like.

:thumbsup:

[Dennis]

Thanks Matt – I have taken a few exposures now and they show definite movement of what appears to be a comet like object.

Cheers

Dennis

[Dennis]

This comet-like object turned out to be an internal reflection in the lens, albeit a rather realistic one!:eyepop:

See this Post (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=34756) for the heartbreaking story….:doh::(

Cheers

Dennis