August 21, 2007

The Moons of Jupiter


This cluster of blobs in the night sky tonight are the planet Jupiter, the largest in our solar system, and four of the 63 moons that orbit it. Those moons are Io, Europa, Ganymeade and Calista, and were discovered (on Earth) by Galileo. Tonight , it was possible to see Jupiter, the star Antares and the Moon within the same slice of sky, as the somewhat grainy picture below show (taken from Barna Pier tonight)


In the picture above , Antares (which is 10,000 brighter than our own sun - if we were standing closer to it) is the bright star above and to the left of the Moon. Above Anters at the top of the picture is Jupiter. the stars are 'streaked' because the picture took about 5 seconds to expose (at around ISO 1250) and the stars moved slightly (relative to the camera) during the exposure. Both pictures were taken with a Canon 5D and a 100-400 Canon zoom at around 9.45pm tonight.

Posted by Monasette at August 21, 2007 11:10 PM
Comments

Liar!

Posted by: Deirdre at August 22, 2007 09:19 AM

Thank you John for your wonderful pictures and commentry, so full of description and humour. Its always a pleasure to catch up with monasette and it has been on my desktop for several years now where all other picture sites have gone by the wayside. Just so you're reminded that your efforts have been a constant source of pleasure for the many and we dont express our thanks often enough in comments. Ian (Waterfordian in London)

Posted by: Ian Quann at August 23, 2007 12:22 AM

Thanks for the kind words.
/John

Posted by: John at August 23, 2007 09:05 PM