Jupiter and Io Transit Animation - 21st March 2009

[iceman (Mike)]

Hi all

On Sunday morning, I was able to capture my first Jupiter moon transit for the season, with the volcanic moon Io transiting the gas giant. I also took the opportunity to create my first Jupiter animation for the season, hopefully the first of many to come.

It was another busy morning (like Friday morning) with an ISS pass, a lovely crescent Moon and then of course Jupiter. Seeing was quite reasonable, and improved as Jupiter climbed out of the muck, reaching an altitude of about 39° literally 5 minutes before sunrise when I captured my last image. The sky was already blue and by this time I could only just see Jupiter naked eye.

The attached image is the best from the session, taken 10 minutes before sunrise and shows Io just about to leave the disc of Jupiter. Oval BA is rising on the right.

I captured 8 frames to create an animation, and you can see the seeing improves as Jupiter gets higher in the sky over the 1 hour of capture time. The first frame shows Io’s shadow just leaving the disc.

To read more and see the animation, click here:
Jupiter and Io Transit Animation - 21st March 2009

Thanks for looking.

[Lester]

Very nice Mike, the contrast you still got so close to sun rise is remarkable.

I imaged Jupiter this morning just before sun rise in steady conditions, but couldn't get any where near the contrast to bring out the detail that you have achieved.

Well done.

[bird (Anthony Wesley)]

Thanks Mike, nicely done.

cheers Bird

[Quark (Trevor)]

Nice image Mike,

The cloud features are becoming a lot better defined.
Top effort.

Regards
Trevor

[mexhunter (César)]

Hello Mike:
Tremendous animation, very good seeing and fantastic colors.
Many greetings
Cesar

[Miaplacidus (Brian)]

Cutting it fine, aren't you Mike? 10 minutes before sunrise.

Nice animation. (Again. Of course.)
What is the longest animation you've achieved? When do we get to see an all-nighter?

Thanks for sharing.

Brian.

[Paul Haese]

Nice image, but again despite your 30 second run I seem some odd blurring in your images. Yes seeing makes a huge impact here but it looks like either coatings or collimation. I figure you are using cats eye collimation kit, so that is unlikely. What are your thoughts. Are the coatings degrading on the mirror? Do you see any slight bubbles on the surface?

Could you show us a raw frame?

Animation is very smooth and the last frame does show more detail.

[iceman (Mike)]

Thanks all for your comments.

Originally Posted by Lester

Very nice Mike, the contrast you still got so close to sun rise is remarkable.

I imaged Jupiter this morning just before sun rise in steady conditions, but couldn't get any where near the contrast to bring out the detail that you have achieved.

Well done.

Thanks Lester - the background was definitely quite bright. In the last frame, I had to raise the threshhold parameter in Ninox to 60 so that it recognised Jupiter from the background noise.

But adjusting the levels in Photoshop fixed it up. Can you post your image? I'd love to see it.

Originally Posted by Miaplacidus

Cutting it fine, aren't you Mike? 10 minutes before sunrise.

Nice animation. (Again. Of course.)
What is the longest animation you've achieved? When do we get to see an all-nighter?

Thanks for sharing.

Brian.

Thanks Brian, the last image was at 6:55 and sunrise was at 6:59 that day. I could barely see Jupiter naked eye at that time.

I think 2.5 hours has been my longest animation, I'd have to look back through my old images. I can never really do long long ones because I can't see Jupiter once it's gone past overhead thanks to trees in my backyard.

Originally Posted by Paul Haese

Nice image, but again despite your 30 second run I seem some odd blurring in your images. Yes seeing makes a huge impact here but it looks like either coatings or collimation. I figure you are using cats eye collimation kit, so that is unlikely. What are your thoughts. Are the coatings degrading on the mirror? Do you see any slight bubbles on the surface?

Could you show us a raw frame?

Animation is very smooth and the last frame does show more detail.

I've definitely been noticing something and have been blaming it on mirror coating or seeing, but Damian Peach suggested today it could be high frequency vibrations from the EQ6 when imbalanced. He said that Bruce Kingsley experienced this with his C11 on an old EQ6 and got the high speed blurring when it was imbalanced.

It could definitely be the cause, as I was imbalanced that morning after taking the cooling system off (I needed to take it off so the newt could fit back in the dob base to image the ISS). I also don't usually pay much attention to the balance when I'm not properly drift aligned as I'm always using the hand paddle to re-centre the planet anyway.

I hope it's just balance - my main concern is that it's the EQ6 showing signs of wear and tear after having a 12" newt and 25+kg of counterweights on it for several years. Then it would need a major overhaul, and sending it away is definitely not something I want to do at this stage of the Jupiter season.

Thanks for prompting me to investigate more.

[Lester]

That is interesting regarding the vibration. I had a similar problem a few years ago with the motor drive on the Goliath mount. It is nearly 30 years old. I had never lubed the small gear box in all that time.

I drilled a small hole into the side of the metal casing so I could get the plastic tube from chain lube spray into it. Gave it a few seconds spray and the vibration has never came back.

Just a thought, that may help.

ps. I will post my Jupiter from yesterday.