Jupiter, 2020 Opposition

November 4, 2020. I imaged Jupiter in the evening twilight using the ASI183MC at the f/14 focus of the 7.25" Schupmann. Transparency was excellent, but seeing was below average. Seven 60 second videos were taken between 22:12 and 22:18 UT. AS!3 was used to align and stack the best 25% of the frames of each video and use deconvolution to sharpen the images which were then derotated and stacked in WinJUPOS and lightly sharpened in Registax6 to give the image shown at the right.

September 26, 2020.

We had the combination of poor seeing, some clouds, and high fog giving poor transparency when I observed Jupiter in the twilight around 7 pm, The satellite Ganymede was in transit at the time. See first attachment

September 21, 2020.

Jupiter was not showing its Great Red Spot last night, however the extrememly chaotic NTB disturbance os evident, completely covering the NTrZ and extending into the NEB which was already encroaching on the EZ.

September 19, 2020. I opened up in late twilight tonight. Jupiter was bright in the South a bit east of the meridian. No visible smoke from the fires out west. Set up the Schupmann with the ASI183MC at the f/14 focus and began taking videos at 7:18 PM EDT. I took 32 one minute videos using a shutter of 4.8 ms, normal for a clear sky and a gain 365. I achieved a frame rate of 170 fps giving me 10,200 frames in each video. They were processed as usual in Autostakkert!3 with deconvolution turned on. The resulting 32 tif files were then derotated and stacked in WinJUPOS and the result sharpened with wavelets in Registax6. The result is shown at the left.

All 32 tif files were combined into an animated GIF using GIMP. The result is shown below. Note Ganymede at the left and its shadow transiting the disk of Jupiter.

September 17, 2020. Smoke is thinner tonight and I get less reddening, but seeing is much worse. Clouds coming in later.

September 16, 2020. Last night I imaged Jupiter through the smoke blown East from the West Coast forest fires by the Jet Stream. its selective absorption of short wavelengths was emphasized by the low altitude of Jupiter. Strong reddening was noted on the computer monitor when capturing the videos and a shutter of 13 ms (even with a gain of 397) was requred to get a normal image intensity. The usual values are 5 to 6 ms and a gain of only 350 to 360. I took a set of 11 one minute videos, used Autostakkert!3 to align and stack the best 5% of 4661 frames and then derotated and stacked in WinJUPOS and lightly sharpened in Registax6. The odd result of a pink Jupiter is shown at the right. Compare with the image of September 13, below. Note the presence of one of the NTB disturbances erupting in the NTrZ in the wake of a small white storm. There are three of them now, this is #2. The first is on the other side of the planet and quite long now and the third is still just a small white spot.

September 8, 2020. The ASI183MC was placed at the f/14 focus of the 7.25" Schupmann and used to take a series of 39 one minute long videos, each of about 9100 frames. They were processed in Autostakkert!3 keeping and stacking only the best 5% of the frames of each video, with convolution turned on, finally sharpening in Registax6. All were combined using GIMP to create the animation shown below. The beginning of the animation shows the occultation of Io. The animation shows the transit of the NTB disturbance. Note parallel structure on the other side of the NEB. I wonder if they are connected somehow?

WinJupos was then used to derotate and stack the images from videos taken between 0033 and 0050 UT and the result sharpened a bit in Registax6. The final result is the second image below.

WinJUPOS was also used to prepare a grid overlay shown in the third image below. This shows that the SII longitude of the white storm initiating the disturbance is centered at SII longitude 195.8° East and the trail of disturbance extends at least back to SII longitude 281.8° East.

August 14, 2020. After the Amateur Astronomers Inc. Friday night at Sperry meeting (not at Sperry during the pandemic, but on Zoom), I headed back to the observatory. The sky was murky but mostly cloud free, some scattered thin stuff, but Jupiter was shining through. I opened up and started imaging at 9:40 PM EDT with the ASI183MC one shot color CMOS camera at the f/14 focus of the 7.25" Schupmann medial telescope. I was using a shutter time of 43 ms (i said it was murky) and a variable gain controlled by the Firecapture AutoHisto setting of 50%. My first one minute video was taken at 01:41.8 UT August 15, 2020 and contained 143g frames. A transit of Ganymede was in progress. Seeing was below average. I took a total of 53 one minute videos in rapid succession until a cloud bank overtook Jupiter and ended the session. Near the end of the session, Ganymede's transit was near its end point and the shadow of Io was just appearing on the western limb as the GRS was also coming in to view.

I processed the videos in AS!2 aligning and stacking the best 10% of the frames, sharpened in Registax6 and used all 53 jpeg images to prepare the animated GIF shown below:

I also derotated and stacked nine of the images from the middle of the session using WinJUPOS. The result is shown below:

August 2, 2020.

July 16, 2020. Average seeing but clear skies were predicted for the wee hours of this morning. I opened up the observatory around 1:15 AM and lined up on Jupiter with the ASI183MC (2.4 micron pixels) at the f/14 focus of the Schupmann. I was able to obtain 6 one minute videos before a cloud spoiled my fun. An interesting circular white storm appears on the northern edge of the NEB right on the meridian. See derotated stack of all six images (each an aligned and sharpened stack of the best 5% of almost 10,000 frames of each video) and an animated GIF below.

July 14, 2020. The CSC predicted average seeing for most of the night after July 14. Set alarm to 11:30 PM. Sky was clear and Jupiter bright. Opened up and set the ASI183MC at the f/14 unamplified focus of the 7.25" Schupmann. Seeing was definitely below average, contrary to the CSC prediction. Focus difficult. Used Bahtinov mask on one of the satellites to focus and then tuned out atmospheric dispersion with the field mirror adjustment screws on the Schuppy. 5.125 ms sufficed to achieve a 60% saturated histogram at a gain of 354. The ROI was adjusted to 544x446 and film speed of 150 fps resulted. A set of ten 1 minute videos was taken, the last two being unusable because of rapid deterioration of seeing to awful. Videos processed in AS!2 keeping the best 10% of the frames and the resulting TIF files sharpened in Registax. The first 8 of the resulting images were derotated and stacked in WinJUPOS and again lightly sharpened to give the result shown below. All 10 of the images (including the last two very fuzzy ones) were used to prepare the animated GIF shown below. The satelite is Io.

June 20,2020. Seeing was quite good but transparency low when I took 27 one minute videos of Jupiter with the ASI224MC camera coupled to the 7.25" Schupmann with a 2x Barlow lens. The four images below were prepared from the sharpened stack of eight imges prepared from the best 20% of the 3212 frames of one minute videos. The animated GIF was prepared from all 27 of the images.

June 15, 2020. Seeing was predicted to be good this morning, so I got up at 2:30 AM and set up the Schupmann with a 2x Barlow and the ASI224MC one-shot color video camera. After getting a good focus and tuning out the atmospheric dispersion I obtained a series of 50 one minute videos of Jupiter. Seeing was good at the beginning of the session, but deteriorated gradually. Europa was in transit near the Eastern limb and the Great Red Spot just appearing at the Western limb at the begining of the session. The annotated image below was made by derotating and stacking the images obtained from the first 8 videos. Each of the images was a stack of the best 8% of the 6193 frames taken with a 9.6 millisecond shutter and a gain of 60%. The animation was made from the images from all 50 of the videos. Note how the seeing deteriorated.

June 11, 2020. I took the 21 best images from the 47 videos I took on the morning of June 10 and derotated and stacked them to get the attached result. I used the sharpness of the dorsal fin of the little shark shaped festoon on the north edge of the EZ as my criterion. Came out a little better than the stack of all 47 images. Of course, nothing beats getting better seeing. A storm front just passed through here. No winds, but buckets of rain. Slacking off now. The forecast for the next several days is pretty grim for imaging. Looks like next Wednesday morning is my next chance.

June 10, 2020. Seeing was considerably better this morning than it was yesterday, although a bit variable, as was the transparency. I took 47 one minute videos with the ASI224MC, 2x Barlow and 7.25”, f/14 Schupmann medial. The combination gives an efr of f/26.7. I used a 19.6 ms shutter and a gain of 343. Each video contained 3049 frames. Autostakkert!3 was used to align and stack the best 15% of the frames from each video and the resulting images were sharpened with wavelets in Registax6. WinJUPOS was then used to derotate and stack the images in groups of 7 adjacent-in-time images and also to produce a derotated stack from all of the images. All 47 of the images were then combined using GIMP to produce an animated gif.