APOD: Jupiter Near Opposition (2011 Oct 22)

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APOD: Jupiter Near Opposition (2011 Oct 22)

Post by APOD Robot » Sat Oct 22, 2011 4:06 am

Image Jupiter Near Opposition

Explanation: On October 29 (UT), Jupiter, the solar system's largest planet, will be at opposition, opposite the Sun in planet Earth's sky, shining brightly and rising as the Sun sets. That configuration results in Jupiter's almost annual closest approach to planet Earth, so near opposition the gas giant offers earthbound telescopes stunning views of its stormy, banded atmosphere and large Galilean moons. This sharp snapshot of Jupiter was captured on October 13 with the 1 meter telescope at the Pic Du Midi mountain top observatory in the French Pyrenees. North is up in the image that shows off oval shaped vortices and planet girdling dark belts and light zones. Also seen in remarkable detail, Jupiter's icy Ganymede, the solar system's largest moon, is emerging from behind the planet (top) while volcanic Io enters the frame near the lower left edge.

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Re: APOD: Jupiter Near Opposition (2011 Oct 22)

Post by Beyond » Sat Oct 22, 2011 4:43 am

Couldn't connect to Pic Du Midi. My IE9 tells me that obs-mip.fr is not responding.
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Re: APOD: Jupiter Near Opposition (2011 Oct 22)

Post by islader2 » Sat Oct 22, 2011 4:50 am

When I first bought my modest telescope, the first celestial item that I looked for was Jupiter==so that I could see its Galilean moons. What an experience. I was hooked, albeit I had to hike to a dark spot. Thanks for the memories, editors.

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Re: APOD: Jupiter Near Opposition (2011 Oct 22)

Post by Ann » Sat Oct 22, 2011 5:14 am

That's a great image! I love it. What sets it apart from so many other Jupiter images I've seen is the delightful configuration of the moons. Note that you can clearly see that Ganymede is considerably larger than Io. Note the large differently-colored (or at least differently bright) structures on Ganymede, which makes the moon look as if a cosmic cat had eaten a mouthful of Ganymede's "cheese" to the upper left! :D

Io, by contrast, is uniformly colored ovarall, although closeups by passing probes have shown it to be highly mottled and multicolored on smaller scales. Note the overall greyish-brown color of Ganymede and the overall yellow-beige color of Io.

The colors of Jupiter are quite different. One of its belts is clearly reddish-brown, with two intensely reddish-brown spots. Another band closer to where Ganymede is has the same overall color, but its color saturation is lower, so that the color is some sort of pale salmon. On the other hand, the white zones (or whatever they are called) close to these reddish-brown and salmon bands seem to contain downright bluish structures.

What a feast of subtle hues! :D

I'm surprised at Ganymede's position in relation to Io, and also in relation to the banding of Jupiter. We apparently see Jupiter so that its equator is "in the middle" - that is, the horizontal bands on Jupter are not seen to form any kinds of "arcs". But Ganymede appears to be far away from this "midplane" of Jupiter. Don't Ganymede and Io orbit in the same general plane? And does Genymede orbit in a plane which is quite different from Jupiter's own rotation around its axis?

Ann
Last edited by Ann on Sun Oct 23, 2011 4:48 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: APOD: Jupiter Near Opposition (2011 Oct 22)

Post by NoelC » Sat Oct 22, 2011 5:16 am

What a STUNNING image of Jupiter from an Earth-bound telescope! Wow!

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Re: APOD: Jupiter Near Opposition (2011 Oct 22)

Post by bystander » Sat Oct 22, 2011 6:17 am

Beyond wrote:Couldn't connect to Pic Du Midi. My IE9 tells me that obs-mip.fr is not responding.
Try http://www.bagn.obs-mip.fr/webcamV2/
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Re: APOD: Jupiter Near Opposition (2011 Oct 22)

Post by Beyond » Sat Oct 22, 2011 6:27 am

So thats where the sun went to. They do have a bit of a view at Pic Du Midi, even though they have a bit of a strange name. :mrgreen:
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Re: APOD: Jupiter Near Opposition (2011 Oct 22)

Post by neufer » Sat Oct 22, 2011 7:28 am

islader2 wrote:
When I first bought my modest telescope, the first celestial item that I looked for was Jupiter==so that I could see its Galilean moons. What an experience. I was hooked, albeit I had to hike to a dark spot. Thanks for the memories, editors.
You had to hike to a dark spot to observe Jupiter & its moons :?:

I would have thought that you could do that even in the middle of New York City.
Art Neuendorffer

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Re: APOD: Jupiter Near Opposition (2011 Oct 22)

Post by neufer » Sat Oct 22, 2011 8:00 am

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganymede_%28mythology%29 wrote: <<In Greek mythology, Ganymede, or Ganymedes (Greek: Γανυμήδης, Ganymēdēs), is a divine hero whose homeland was Troy. He was a prince, son of the eponymous Tros of Dardania and of Callirrhoe, and brother of Ilus and Assaracus. Homer describes Ganymede as the most beautiful of mortals, which led the gods, or according to some, Zeus in the form of an eagle, to abduct him for service as cup-bearer in Olympus.

Ganymede was abducted by Zeus from Mount Ida in Phrygia, the setting for more than one myth element bearing on the early mythic history of Troy. Ganymede was there, passing the time of exile many heroes undergo in their youth, by tending a flock of sheep or, alternatively, during the chthonic or rustic aspect of his education, while gathering among his friends and tutors. Zeus, either sending an eagle or turning himself to an eagle transported Ganymede to Mount Olympus. Later, Zeus compensated Ganymede's father by the gift of fine horses, "the same that carry the immortals": in the Iliad, the Achaean Diomedes is keen to capture the horses of Aeneas:
"They are of the stock that great Jove gave to Tros in payment for his son Ganymede, and are the finest that live and move under the sun."
  • "Here the Phrygian hunter is borne aloft on tawny wings, Gargara’s range sinks downwards as he rises, and Troy grows dim beneath him; sadly stand his comrades; vainly the hounds weary their throats with barking, pursue his shadow or bay at the clouds."
In Olympus, Zeus granted him eternal youth and immortality and the office of cupbearer to the gods, supplanting Hebe. J.A.Edm. Veckenstedt (Ganymedes, Libau, 1881) endeavoured to prove that Ganymede is the genesis of the intoxicating drink mead, whose original home was Phrygia.

Zeus later put Ganymede in the sky as the constellation Aquarius, which is still associated with that of the Eagle (Aquila). However, his name would also be given by modern astronomy to one of the moons of Jupiter, the planet that was named after Zeus's Roman counterpart. Ganymede was afterwards also regarded as the genius of the fountains of the Nile, the life-giving and fertilizing river. Thus the divinity that distributed drink to the gods in heaven became the genius who presided over the due supply of water on earth.

In Shakespeare's As You Like It (1599), a comedy of mistaken identity in the magical setting of the Forest of Arden, Celia, dressed as a shepherdess, becomes "Aliena" (Latin "stranger", Ganymede's sister) and Rosalind, because she is "more than common tall", dresses up as a boy, Ganymede. She plays on her ambiguous charm to seduce Orlando, but also (involuntarily) the shepherdess Phebe. Thus behind the conventions of Elizabethan theater in its original setting, the young boy playing the girl Rosalind dresses up as a boy and is then courted by another boy playing Phebe.>>
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Re: APOD: Jupiter Near Opposition (2011 Oct 22)

Post by nstahl » Sat Oct 22, 2011 10:21 am

Ann wrote:I'm surprised at Ganymede's position in relation to Io, and also in relation to the banding of Jupiter. We apparently see Jupiter so that its equator is "in the middle" - that is, the horizontal bands on Jupter or not seen to form any kinds of "arcs". But Ganymede appears to be far away from this "midplane" of Jupiter. Don't Ganymede and Io orbit in the same general plane? And does Genymede orbit in a plane which is quite different from Jupiter's own rotation around its axis?
Good observation. According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganymede_(moon) Jupiter has an axial tilt of 3.13 degrees while Ganymede's orbit is inclined 0.2 degrees from Jupiter's axis (Io 0.05 degrees). Ganymede's orbital radius is just over a million km so if we're seeing Jupiter's north pole tilted toward us by that 3 degrees that throws Ganymede up just far enough to be peeking out there.

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Re: APOD: Jupiter Near Opposition (2011 Oct 22)

Post by orin stepanek » Sat Oct 22, 2011 1:07 pm

They must have done some pretty nifty construction to set this observatory in the mountain top like they have. :wink: 8-)
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Re: APOD: Jupiter Near Opposition (2011 Oct 22)

Post by neufer » Sat Oct 22, 2011 1:52 pm

orin stepanek wrote:
They must have done some pretty nifty construction to set this observatory in the mountain top like they have. :wink: 8-)
Born on a mountain top in Strasbourgee,
The principal-est city of Alsacee
Raised in the woods so's he knew every tree,
Killed him a bear when he was only three.
Ramond, baron de Carbonnières King of the Wild Frontier.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soci%C3%A9t%C3%A9_Ramond wrote:
Image
Members of the Société Ramond lay the first stone
of the Pic du Midi de Bigorre observatory in 1878.
<<The Société Ramond (Ramond Society) is a French learned society devoted to the study of the Pyrenees. It is named after the French politician, geologist, botanist and explorer Louis Ramond de Carbonnières (January 4, 1755 Strasbourg – May 14, 1827) and is based in Bagnères-de-Bigorre. The society was formed in 1865 in Bagnères-de-Bigorre by Henry Russell (1834–1909), a French-Irish eccentric who made many first ascents in the Pyrenees; Émilien Frossard (1829–1898); and Charles Packe (1826–1896). They first came up with the idea for a society to be modelled on the recently formed Alpine Club in London (1857) and argued that all candidates for membership should have climbed at least one Pyrenean peak of three thousand metres or more.

The society was responsible for the construction of an observatory on the Pic du Midi de Bigorre. The Société Ramond put all of its funds towards the project, as well as organising a subscription from its members. The first stones of the observatory were laid in 1878, but by 1882, as a result of spiralling costs that were beyond its relatively modest means, the society yielded the observatory to the French state, which took it into its possession by a law of 7 August 1882.

The First World War slowed down the activities of the society, although it still continued to publish Explorations pyrénéennes. The bulletin ceased publication around the Second World War and it was only in 1968 that it was again published.>>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pic_du_Midi_de_Bigorre wrote:

<<The Pic du Midi de Bigorre or simply Pic du Midi (altitude 2,877 m) is a mountain in the French Pyrenees famous for its astronomical observatory, the Observatoire du Pic du Midi de Bigorre (Pic du Midi Observatory), part of the Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées (Midi-Pyrénées Observatory). The observatory is located at 42°56′N 0°8′E, placing it very close to the Greenwich meridian.

The 8 meter dome was completed in 1908, and housed a mechanical equatorial reflector. In 1946 Mr. Gentilli funded a dome and 60 cm, and in 1958 a spectrograph was installed.

A 106-centimetre telescope was installed in 1963 funded by NASA, and was used to take detailed photographs of the surface of the Moon in preparation for the Apollo missions. In 1965 the astronomers Pierre and Janine Connes were able to formulate a detailed analysis of the composition of the atmospheres on Mars and Venus, based on the infrared spectra gathered from these planets. The results showed atmospheres in chemical equilibrium. This served as a basis for James Lovelock, a scientist working for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, to predict that those planets had no life - a fact that would be proven and scientifically accepted years after.

A 2 meter telescope, known as the Bernard Lyot Telescope was placed at the observatory in 1980 on top of a 28 meter column built off to the side to avoid wind turbulence affecting the seeing of the other telescopes. It is the largest telescope in France. The observatory also has a coronograph, which is used to study the solar corona. A 60-centimetre telescope (the Gentilly's T60 telescope) is also located at the top of Pic du Midi. Since 1982 this T60 is dedicated to amateur astronomy and managed by a group of amateurs, called association T60.

Saturn's moon Helene (Saturn VII or Dione B), was discovered by Pierre Laques and Jean Lecacheux in 1980 from ground-based observations at Pic du Midi Observatory, and named Helene in 1988. It is also a trojan moon of Dione.>>
Art Neuendorffer

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Re: APOD: Jupiter Near Opposition (2011 Oct 22)

Post by alphachap » Sat Oct 22, 2011 3:14 pm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Picdumidi.jpg why is my image so small? was much bigger when uploaded!
Last edited by bystander on Sat Oct 22, 2011 3:46 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Reason: Replaced <img> tags with <img2>. Smaller image (from wiki) attached to speed downloading.

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Re: APOD: Jupiter Near Opposition (2011 Oct 22)

Post by bystander » Sat Oct 22, 2011 3:36 pm

alphachap wrote:why is my image so small? was much bigger when uploaded!
Images are automatically scaled to a maximum 400 px width. ( http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php? ... 83#p160204 )

Please keep linked images to less than 400 KB. See: How to post images
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Re: APOD: Jupiter Near Opposition (2011 Oct 22)

Post by Wolf Kotenberg » Sat Oct 22, 2011 3:41 pm

If I was Flash Gordon, I would order my crew to " git the ship ready "

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Re: APOD: Jupiter Near Opposition (2011 Oct 22)

Post by neptunium » Sat Oct 22, 2011 4:45 pm

neufer wrote:
islader2 wrote:
When I first bought my modest telescope, the first celestial item that I looked for was Jupiter==so that I could see its Galilean moons. What an experience. I was hooked, albeit I had to hike to a dark spot. Thanks for the memories, editors.
You had to hike to a dark spot to observe Jupiter & its moons :?:

I would have thought that you could do that even in the middle of New York City.
Even I, living in the suburbs of Kansas City, could see at least three of Saturn's moons. That just seems like a waste of time.

Jupiter, though, looks good in that picture, especially with its belts and moons. :mrgreen:

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Re: APOD: Jupiter Near Opposition (2011 Oct 22)

Post by herbraab » Sat Oct 22, 2011 7:57 pm

Unbelievable image! Hard to imagine that this was done with a ground based telescope, and not from space!

Cheers,
Herbert

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Re: APOD: Jupiter Near Opposition (2011 Oct 22)

Post by meto » Sat Oct 22, 2011 10:05 pm

herbraab wrote:Unbelievable image! Hard to imagine that this was done with a ground based telescope, and not from space!

Cheers,
Herbert
For goodness sakes! When I was a boy, ALL astronomical pictures were taken from the surface of the Earth, and all were black and white too. I vividly remember walking down Bloor Street in Toronto, 1957 October, and seeing the Toronto Telegraph boy, with his pile of "Sputnik orbits the Earth" newspapers. Count your blessings!

neptunium

Re: APOD: Jupiter Near Opposition (2011 Oct 22)

Post by neptunium » Sat Oct 22, 2011 11:01 pm

Wait a minute, Art...The Rape of Ganymede?!?! What kind of artist is this guy to title his art like this? (no pun intended on your name, though)

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Re: APOD: Jupiter Near Opposition (2011 Oct 22)

Post by montylc2001 » Sat Oct 22, 2011 11:17 pm

WOW, i didnt think it possible to get such a detailed photo of Io from a ground based scope. You can even make out a volcanoe! (a dark spot on the right) Have they ever tried to "mask" Io in an attempt to make out a eruption plume?

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Re: APOD: Jupiter Near Opposition (2011 Oct 22)

Post by NoelC » Sun Oct 23, 2011 1:15 am

I wonder if the pros are doing what the amateur planetary imagers have been doing - take LOTS of short photos, use software to choose the best, then average the best to reduce noise. I imagine that a well-funded highly sensitive professional grade camera would beat the pants off of the webcams amateurs use for sensitivity and resolution, and thus we see images this good from the ground. Is there more info on the process used for this image somewhere?

On another subject, what is it about the Pic du Midi site that makes one want to change careers and go work there?

-Noel

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Re: APOD: Jupiter Near Opposition (2011 Oct 22)

Post by islader2 » Sun Oct 23, 2011 1:27 am

@ NEUFER==you are correct about being able to see Jupiter telescopically from Gotham, but you missed an import read between the lines. As a neophyte astrogazer, I was under the impression that THAT sort of think should be done from a site of some obscurity. I was new at checking the sky and I wanted to experience a Galileo moment with my inexpensive new toy. Thanks for your discrete notice of my post. :) :)

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Re: APOD: Jupiter Near Opposition (2011 Oct 22)

Post by Chris Peterson » Sun Oct 23, 2011 4:56 am

NoelC wrote:I wonder if the pros are doing what the amateur planetary imagers have been doing - take LOTS of short photos, use software to choose the best, then average the best to reduce noise.
Yes, they invented the technique, called lucky imaging.
I imagine that a well-funded highly sensitive professional grade camera would beat the pants off of the webcams amateurs use for sensitivity and resolution, and thus we see images this good from the ground.
No, not really. The best cameras, used by professional observatories, are scarcely better than good amateur cameras in terms of most specs. Generally, where they differ the most is in pixel count- with a big, long focal length telescope you need a large area sensor.

I'd like to know the details of this image. My guess is that it was made with a rather ordinary camera- probably an Imaging Source model like that used by thousands of amateur astronomers. The resolution here comes from aperture- few amateurs are using meter-class scopes, combined with excellent seeing and lucky imaging (that is, collecting thousands of frames).
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Francois Colas

Re: APOD: Jupiter Near Opposition (2011 Oct 22)

Post by Francois Colas » Sun Oct 23, 2011 8:38 am

Hi guy,

Some informations about imaging planets at pic du midi. for this run we used a Basler Scout camera based on the sony chip ICX285. Most of the image were taken
with the nominal focal lenth of 17.5 m, so the pixel size was of 0.08 arsec. The basic processing is made with registax, not a profesionel software...
You can find a lot of other images on this forum, it is in French, just enjoy the images ;-)
http://www.astrosurf.com/ubb/Forum3/HTML/031780.html

A link for the camera :
http://www.sourcesecurity.com/technical ... amera.html

Francois

Francois Colas

Re: APOD: Jupiter Near Opposition (2011 Oct 22)

Post by Francois Colas » Sun Oct 23, 2011 8:55 am

Re,

Quite the same image than the APOD but just in Infra red at an other time And this crazy one with Ganymede in the shadow of Jupiter Francois

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