First Jupiter Animation

[Mark_Heli (Mark)]

A few months ago, I decided that I would try to create a simple animation of Jupiter showing the rotation of the planet. This was inspired by the many great posts from Trevor (Quark), Asimov, Ivan (Lepton3), Shiraz (Ray) and others.

Finally on Wednesday night, it was clear in Sydney and according to "Gas Giants", the GRS would be visible from around 11PM to 3AM.

I managed to capture approx 10 1 minute movies between 11PM and 12:30AM, each 10 minutes apart. Attached is the resulting animation which shows the rotation of planet. Io is also visible orbiting the planet.

What I found interesting is just how quickly the "seeing" can vary - this is apparent in the middle of the animation where the seeing dropped off before recovering again at the end.

I am pretty pleased with the result. Details below:

* DateTime: 5/12/2012 11:00PM to 12:30AM
* Telescope: Meade LX90
* Mount: Standard Alt/Az
* 10 x 1 minutes movies
* Camera: Canon EOS 550d / Movie Crop mode
* Processed in Registax
* Manually aligned in GIMP (due to alt/az rotation)

Cheers,
Mark

[asimov (John)]

Nice work Mark, & it's great that I'm one of the guys here that has inspired you

Yes the seeing certainly does come & go, which does spoil animations most of the time however we can only do our best with what comes our way. Excellent seeing tonight..With mobs of clouds so I'm not a happy imager but oh well - Maybe tomorrow night!

Keep imaging mate, doing well

[lepton3 (Ivan)]

Hi Mark,

Great result. Animations of Jupiter are more work, but rewarding because of how quickly the planet rotates and the moons swing by.

Getting the seeing to cooperate for a longer that 1/2 hour was always going to be a long shot! The key here is persistence -- you have to be there when the seeing "freezes".

-Ivan

[Shiraz (Ray)]

very nice result Mark. regards Ray

[MGTechDVP (Mariusz)]

Great work, really shows how fast Jupiter rotates... that is quite a movement for 90 minutes.

[Marcus]

Love it! Can never get over the amazing views we get of our planetary neighbous.

Question? How do you get such a BIG image of Jupiter with an SLR??

[EricB (Eric)]

Great work Mark. The simulation is really impressive.

Eric

[DJT (David)]

Well done Mark, thats cool

[Mark_Heli (Mark)]

Hi All,

Thanks very much for the feedback. I have also attached below one of the still images from the same night which shows Jupiter, Io, Europa and Ganymede.

Originally Posted by Marcus

Question? How do you get such a BIG image of Jupiter with an SLR??

Hi Marcus - The Canon EOS has a "movie crop" mode which only uses the central 640 x 480 pixels of the sensor. From what I have read, this results in a 7x magnification when compared with the standard movie mode. This works very well for planetary and lunar images.

Cheers,
Mark