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Jupiter
If you look East and half way up in the sky this month you will see the very bright dot of Jupiter. It is deceptive, looking bright but very small, yet the size of Earth would fill Jupiter 1,300 times and it is more than 11 times wider. This illusion is created by its vast distance from the Earth at nearly half a billion miles away. To date it has 95 moons and a while back I tried to photograph one called Io.
To image a planet close up you need three things:
- A telescope with a long focal length,
- A camera with a small sensor,
- A way to magnify the image on to the sensor.
Believe it or not I used webcam from my computer and placed it on a telescope instead of an eyepiece. Then rather that take a few images, I took a short video, which was effectively HUNDREDS of images. Then selected the best and overlaid them. Here is a sequence of images showing both the Great Red Spot and Io’s shadow transit across Jupiter. The ‘seeing’ was not particularly good the evening the images were taken, but you can clearly see the bands and weather systems on the surface of this gas giant.
There are many ways to taking better images but quite often they involve buying more equipment!
How to photograph the planets | BBC Sky at Night Magazine
How to Photograph Planets | Practical & Easy Astrophotography Tips (astrobackyard.com)
Looking North from Embsay on 1st November at 9pm
(also correct for 7pm at the end of the month.)
Looking North West and almost directly overhead you will see Cygnus and the North American Nebula (marked in green). In the September article I published an image of this. Associated with it is the Pelican Nebula (IC5070). It is an emission nebula, the hydrogen gas is producing the light itself. It is called ‘Pelican’ because if you look for long enough it does have that appearance.
If you find Deneb using the chart above, then through a pair of binoculars you may see a patch just above. This is an extremely active star-forming region.
Pelican Nebula (IC 5070) – Constellation Guide (constellation-guide.com)
Looking South from Embsay on 1st November at 9pm
(also correct for 7pm at the end of the month.)
Looking low in the South East you will see Cetus (the Whale). It doesn’t look much like a whale (and to the ancients it didn’t either) but more like a Sea Monster! It’s very hard to visualise and find. Cetus was killed by Perseus as he saved Andromeda. He confused the Sea Monster by casting a shadow on the water. I’ve marked Andromeda who is higher up in the night sky (marked in red). Perseus, the constellation, is high up in the North West.
Now follow the red arc (going top left to bottom right) you will be able to locate Jupiter and further down Saturn.
Postscript.
Last month I wrote about Comet C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS . Here it is over the skies of Embsay, at just 20-40km across and still 44 million km away. It is astonishing that it is clearly visible. Although it is difficult to establish the length of its tail, it can range between a few to many tens of kilometres long. The tail is actually in front of the comet now as it moves away from the sun. The tail is blown in front by the solar wind from the sun.
Clear Skies
Milan Davidovic
