Jupiter Apparition, 2021

Augist 13. 2021.

August 3, 2021.  Seeing was fairly steady with good transparency this morning when I took a set of 32 thirty second videos of Jupiter.  The stacks of 25% of the frames were used to prepare the animation shown at the left and the stacks of 10% of the frames were derotated and stacked to give the annotated image shown above.

August 1, 2021.  Seeing better this morning.  Took 16 thirty second videos of Jupiter with the ASI183MC at the f/14 focus of the 7.25" Schupmann.  At the left is the animation prepared from 16 images obtained with AS!3, stacking the best 25% of the 1127 frames from each of the videos.  Above is the derotated stack of all 16 images, each the best 10% of the frames from the 16 videos.

July 31, 2021.  Here are the results I obtained from 53 thirty second videos of Jupiter taken with the ASI183MC at the f/14 focus of the 7.25” Schupman between 1:45 and 6:14 AM July 31, 2021.  I obtained 53 images by aligning and stacking the best 25% of the 1063 frames of each video in Autostakkert3.  All 53 were derotated and stacked in WinJUPOS for the first attachment, and only the first 14 for the second, and lightly sharpened and color balanced the final derotated stacks in Registax6.  The earlier stack of 14 images showed the GRS better.  I also combined all 53 images in GIMP to give the animation of the third attachment.  No sharpening or color balancing done for the images used in the GIF.  The sky was clear with good transparency but poor seeing and the results show it in the poor resolution obtained.

July 29, 2021.  Seeing was average with a bit better transparency than the last two imaging opportunities.  Perhaps the smoke from the Oregon fire has dissipated.  I got 38 videos of 30 seconds duration and processed them with Autostakkert3, keeping the best 25% of the frames and selecting the deconvolutive sharpening provided by the program.  The resulting images were combined in GIMP to give the animation shown to the left and then derotated and stacked in WinJUPOS and finally sharpened a bit more with wavelets and the color balanced in Registax6.  This result is shown below.

July 20,2021.  Sky was very hazy this morning at 2:15 EDT when Chewie and I went out to observe Jupiter.  When I lined up the Schupmann and got an image from the ASI183MC on the computer screen, it was quite dim and had a reddish cast.  Had to tweak the exposure up to 15 ms and the gain up to 403 to get a decent histogram reading.  I took a set of 38 videos of 30 seconds duration and processed them with AS!3 keeping 50, 25 and 10% of the best frames of the 333 frame videos, with deconvolutive sharpening turned on.  I then used WinJUPOS to derotate all 38 images in the 25% folder.  The result was slightly sharpened and color balanced in Registax6 and used for the annotated image above.  I then used Registax6 to lightly sharpen and color balance all the images in the 50% folder and then combined them using GIMP to create the animation shown here.  The blue layer needed a lot of boost to get reasonable color values.  A suggestion was made by one of the AAI members, Steve Kozma, that the blue absorbing haze could be smoke drifting East on the Jet Stream from the forest fires in California.

July 10, 2021. The sky was of average transparency and seeing this morning when I got 36 thirty second videos of Jupiter wht the ASI183MC at the f/14 focus of the 7.25” Schupmann. Above is the derotated and stacked image prepared from the aligned stack of the best 25% of the frames from each video and at the left I show an animated GIF prepared from all 36 of the images.

July 8, 2021.  This morning I went out to a slightly murky sky with average seeing and a bit below average transparency.  I took 38 thirty second long videos of Jupiter with the ASI183MC at the f/14 focus of my 7.25” Schupmann medial and FireCapture.  I aligned and stacked the best 25% of the frames of each video using AS!3 and then derotated them all to a common central meridian and stacked them in WinJUPOS, and finally sharpened up the resulting stack a bit using Registax6.  The result is shown below.  There is a prominent white spot at latitude = +20° and System II longitude=+ 226.2°.  I thought at first it might be Europa in transit, but no satellites were transiting at the time.  The brown smoggy looking layer partially coverning the EZ and the NEB is still here.  Perhaps the Jovians need to pass some emission control regulations for their cloudmobiles.  Looks like LA in the 60’s.

July 7, 2021. We had a bunch of thunderstorms go through last night, however, the sky had cleared up by the time Chewie (my canine night assistant) and I went out to the observatory at 2:30 am.  I obtained a set of 8 thirty second videos of Saturn and 13 thirty second videos of Jupiter using the ASI183MC camera at the f/14 focus of the 7.25” Schupmann.  The derotated stacks prepared from the images from these videos, as well as an animated GIF of Jupiter are attached below.  Although it had cleared up after the storms, the air was not as steady as it was on the morning of July 5, but much more transparent than it was yesterday.

July 6, 2021.  Seeing was only average this morning and transparency was poor.  Got 21 thirty second videos of Jupiter with the ASI183MC at the f/14 focus of the 7.25" Schupmann Medial.  Images stacked from the best 35% of the 482 frames in each video were derotated and stacked to give the image below and also combined in GIMP to give the animation shown at the left.

July 5, 2021.  Skies were clear and reasonably steady when I went out at 2:30 in the morning to image Jupter and Saturn with the Schupmann.  I obtained 21 thirty second videos of Jupiter using the ASI183MC at the f/14 focus of the little Shupmann.  Processed in AS!3 keeping 25% of the 781 frames from each video.  The deconvoluted stacks were slightly sharpened in Registax6 and the histogram adjusted and finally al 21 images were assembled into the animated GIF shown at the left using the program GIMP.  All of the images were then derotated to a common central meridian in WinJUPOS and stacked to give the result shown above.

June 30, 2021.  Seeing was quite good when I obtained 20 videos of Jupiter based on 30 second exposures with the ASI183MC attached to the f/14 focus of the 7.25" aperture Schupmann medial.  Autostakkert3 was used to align and stack the best 25% of 702 frames of each video.  The resulting images were derotated and stacked in WinJUPOS and then lightly sharpened in Registax to give the annotated image above and then used to prepar the animated GIF at the left.

Here is an animation prepared from all 22 of my images obtained this morning, June 24, 2021.

June 16, 2021.  Thanks to my recent lumberjack activity, I have a clear shot at the summertime ecliptic from about 2 hours before meridian crossing to an hour after. I started imaging Jupiter at 3:30 this morning and captured 5 one minute videos with the ASI183MC at the f/14 focus of the Schupmann. I processed the files in Autostakkert3, Registax and WinJUPOS. The final derotated stack is shown at the left.

      The normally white Equatorial Zone of Jupiter is covered with a brown layer extending from latitude -5 to +10.6 degrees and the entire region from the south edge of the South Equatorial Belt to the north edge of the North Equatorial Belt is very unusual in appearance.  The northern edge of the Equatorial Zone from which the festoons emerge is a nearly continuous dark band now and the North Equatorial Belt is reduced to a thin tan band from +11 to +16 degrees latitude.  The shadow at -5 degrees latitude is that of Europa which is seen off the eastern (following) limb.

June 7, 2021.  My first image of the current apparition.  What is that tan colored transparent layer covering the EZ and parts of both the SEB and the NEB?  Who ordered that?