Vern’s Weblog

The distance between Jupiter’s great red spot and the smaller red spot jr. is decreasing.  They will probably be closest around July 4, 2006 according to this Science @ NASA article. Below image shows Jupiter, moon Io in the east, the giant red spot and red spot jr. (southeast of grs). North up and east to left in the image.

Image taken June 5, 2006 at 11:44 pm MDT with Celestron Nexstar11, Televue 2.5X Powermate, and Phillips Toucam 740 webcam. Temperature was 68°F, no wind, turbulence varied between 5 and 6/10, humidity 30%, transparency was very good. Image cropped from 120 sec video at 640×480, 15 fps, 1/33 sec shutter, 25% gain, 80% brightness. Aligned and stacked with Registax3 and enhanced with Photoshop Elements.

Jupiter is a month past opposition, but it is always interesting to observe.  Clear skies finally returned and it was quite nice except for a couple mosquitoes who got an evening snack. Sky was clear, temperature was 58 °F., transparency was very good, and turbulence was good about 6/10. First image of Jupiter and Europa taken with Celestron Nexstar11 and Phillips Toucam 840 webcam at 15 fps, 1/100 sec shutter, 25% gain, 50% brightness, and 640×480 format. Acquired 100 seconds of video, stacked, aligned, and enhanced with Registax3.

Here is closeup with same equipment but with  with 1/50 sec shutter, 60% gain, and 60% brightness.

Below image of Io, Jupiter, and Europa (left to right) at midnight last evening. Very pleasant night in the backyard, 62°F, no wind, no clouds, very good transparency, and fair (5/10) turbulence. Equipment used was Celestron Nexstar11, Phillips Toucam 740K webcam.  Air was too turbulent to try much higher magnification.

Below not so great image of Jupiter taken just after midnight last evening. Turbulence was fair, between 5 and 6/10, sky clear, transparency very good, temperature 55 °F. Image taken with Celestron Nexstar11 telescope, Televue 2.5X Powermate, and Phillips Toucam 840K webcam at 1/25 sec, 10 fps, 60% brightness, 20% gain, and 320×240 format. 

Here is an image of Jupiter from 2:20 am this morning.  Clear skies, transparency was very good, temperature 43 °F but turbulence was only fair (5/10).  I used just the Toucam on the Nexstar11 as I thought it was not steady enough to use a Powermate.