Jupiter's Moons in Motion

[iceman (Mike)]

Hi all

Here's an 8-frame animation of Jupiter, including 5-frames showing her moons Europa, Io and Callisto in motion.

Jupiter's Moons in Motion (1mb animated gif) Remember to scroll to the right!

Callisto, moving towards Jupiter, is casting the shadow on Jupiter in the first few frames.
Europa and Io are in a close pairing, moving away from Jupiter.

I was lucky enough that Callisto was *just* close enough to Jupiter so that I could capture a reference frame to pinpoint the Moon's position relative to Jupiter. I could then capture a separate set of avi's with the 3 moons in the same Field of View. This was repeated 5 times throughout the session to get the data for the animation.

Jupiter's 8-frame animation was tricky to align in terms of limbs and colour balance, because the first 4 frames were captured in poorer seeing at 30fps with a decreasing histogram due to the mirrors fogging up. The last 4 frames were captured at 15fps with a much fuller histogram in improved seeing.

Attached is a single frame from the animation - you need to click on the link below to see the full animation.

Jupiter's Moons in Motion (1mb animated gif) Remember to scroll to the right!

Thanks for looking, comments welcome.

[Robert_T]

Mike, that is perhaps one the most amazing bits of astro imaging I've ever seen. The movement of moons, Jupiters rotation and shadow. This is a view that your could only get from a long distance orbit on Jove.

Put this one up on the mantle-piece (or failing that, straight to the pool room)

[Lester]

Well done Mike.

Like the detail and processing and colour is so natural looking.

Even see detail on the moons.

As Robert said one to display on the wall.

[h0ughy (David)]

looks like you have been a busy boy Mike. Fansastic result! Be syndicated any second now......

[theodog (Jeff)]

Fantastic

[matt]

Nice work

[RB (Andrew)]

Fantastic Mike.
A lot of work to produce such a wonderful anim.

[bluescope]

Excellent Mike !

[Matty P (Matt)]

Very cool Mike, you have done a great job.

Amazing!

[Kirkus (Kirk)]

Some of you guys just blow me away. That is so nice!!

[edwardsdj (Doug)]

Hey Mike,

Wow, that is awesome!

The processing and colour is so natural and consistent across all of the frames. I'm in awe of the amount of detail on the planet and Io.

Must have been a mammoth effort both in capture and processing.

You must be very happy with the result

I'm blown away.

Have fun,
Doug

[acropolite (Phil)]

Fantastic animation Mike. I don't know how you manage to fit everything in, family, travel to & from work, imaging then processing. Makes me tired just thinking about your efforts.

[Phil]

Stunning Mike one of your best. Love it.
Phil

[bird (Anthony Wesley)]

Nice work Mike.

cheers. Bird

[xstream (John)]

Excellent job mate.

[iceman (Mike)]

Thanks guys, appreciate your kind words.

It was unfortunate I wasn't able to get Ganymede in frame, it was too far out to the other side of Jupiter.

I captured this one last year, with all 4 moons in frame:

The Galilean Moon Dance

That was quite an effort, but helped with great positioning of the satellites.

[edwardsdj (Doug)]

Hey Mike,

Some awesome detail on the moons from that one last year. I much prefer the detail on the planet in the one in this thread though.

Overall, I prefer this one to last year's even though Ganymede wasn't captured.

Have fun,
Doug

[Alchemy (Clive)]

very impressive, i imagine a lot of effort went into creating that.