Sunday, February 7, 2010

07/07/2008 Jupiter is Near Opposition


Jupiter, the king of the solar system, is only about 2 days away from opposition. This means that it is basically 180 degrees away from the sun as viewed from Earth. When planets are at opposition, they are usually also roughly closest to the Earth and thus have a larger apparent size.
Here's a webcam image that I took on July 1st with the 14" RCX. I'm no expert at webcam imaging, and it was a work night so I was taking the images too early in the evening - Jupiter was only about 20 degrees up in the SouthEast when I shot it. I took several 2 to 3 minute .avi videos, then used Registax freeware to split it into frames and process them. I also didn't get a perfect focus. So the details are a bit rough, and I had to overprocess it to bring out the minimal details visible here. On nights of good seeing, it would not be unusual to see more detail using a high-power eyepiece than this image shows.
I may try to image it again soon, but that depends on the weather - we are in the midst of monsoon season so there is not much hope for clear skies most days.

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