Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system and the 5th planet from the Sun. It’s Galilean moons are visible from earth using relatively basic equipment.
Here’s a picture I took after getting home on Christmas day 2012. You can clearly make out both the moons around Jupiter and the halo around our own moon. The photo is not optically perfect because it was taken out my window, but I thought it looked rather nice.
Last night I went to Scarborough for some Astro Dog Astronomy and took these lovely pictures of the New Moon in March 2012.
This photo was actually taken with a lens borrowed from Annette Newby – thanks! It looks great, and you can see a close up below.
As well ask the new moon, Jupiter and Venus were pretty close by giving us the fantastic view of these two great planets that we have been used to for the last few months. Venus is on top in this photograph…
And how could I resist getting a close up picture of Jupiter with three of its largest moons in view.
I had a great night, and I also managed some firsts. While I had seen the phases of Venus before, I’d never seen them with such clarity, and a definite first was seeing detail on Mars (including ice caps and dark features!) Very impressive.
I took this picture last night at Clifford’s Tower in York, it shows Jupiter, Venus and The Moon in a line from left to right.
As the sun was starting to set this evening, I thought I’d quickly pop out and take a photo of the Moon and Jupiter next to each other. Jupiter is the few pixels of light in the bottom-left of this photograph.
While I was out there I was also on the lookout for Venus – which is a little more tricky to spot so early in the evening, but once you see it it pops right out at you.
Here’s a photograph of Venus with an aircraft flying under it. There’s no way I can get any detail from Venus with just my camera, but it’s a nice sight to behold at sunset.
Venus is the couple of pixels of light in the top-left of this photograph.
Twice a year astronomers head north to Kielder Forest to enjoy the dark sky as part of the Kielder Forest Star Camp. This year was no exception, bringing us the 9th Autumn Star Camp which included talks from a couple of members from our York Astronomical Society, a BBC television crew filming for The Sky At Night as well as some interest from The Guardian.
Unfortunately, as is usually the case with these things, the weather was not ideal, but I did get one good night of seeing on the Thursday.
Even the dark sky of Kielder is subject to light pollution, but here you can make out a very prominent Jupiter, the Pleiades and a rising Orion.
Here I just pointed my camera up towards the Milky Way, where there is far less light polution.
You can see a close up here of the Andromeda Galaxy. This photograph really reminds me of the early pictures I took of Jupiter. Just imagine the detail I’ll be able to get in the years to come! (If I ever get equipment like the very impressive telescope shown below…)
The larger versions of the pictures above have been uploaded to my Flickr page if you want to see the details.
For myself, no trip to Kielder Forest would be complete without a walk up Deadwater, which has some of the most amazing views! *
* and mobile phone signal…
Yesterday there was a rather impressive storm around here, but one of the great things about storms is their ability to really clean up all the rubbish in the atmosphere and make everything super clear.
So I set out to do some stargazing in York and managed to take a couple of snaps of both the Moon and Jupiter.
The moons from left to right are -
While I don’t think it’s the best photograph I’ve ever taken of the moon, it did look rather pretty through one of the telescopes we had out.
I remember the first photo I took of Jupiter – well the first one that mattered anyway. I’d recently got a zoom adapter for my trusty old Canon G9 and I thought I’d try pointing it at Jupiter to see what I’d get. After a lot of playing with the settings, I managed to get this shot -
What you can see here is Jupiter and some of it’s moons in a big mess of light. At first it just looks like some kind of camera movement – but upon checking WorldWide Telescope I confirmed that this was the correct location of the moons from my location at that time of night.
I was hooked, naturally. I thought I’d just share a few of the more recent photos of Jupiter – both of which were taken with my shiny new Canon 7D -
Jupiter’s moons through the clouds.
Jupiter and Uranus (the bluish light at the top left)
You can see more of my photography on my Flickr website.