Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Conjunction of Moon and Jupiter

On the drive home tonight, noticed a nice conjunction of Jupiter and the Moon.  I quickly snapped a picture with the iPhone ... pretty washed out.


The grouping was tight enough that I was able to get both in a single frame of a Canon 450D with a 400mm lens ... much better.  The star Epsilon Tauri was also close to the moon forming a triangle with Moon and Jupiter but I was not able to get all three in one frame.

Moon and Jupiter - 2012.11.28 ~20:00 CST - Georgetown, TX - Canon 450D f/5.6 1/4000sec, 400mm

Zooming in on the image of Jupiter, I was please to see that some of the banding detail was visible confirming it was, indeed, Jupiter.  Also indicates that the sizes of the two disks in the image above are correct.

Details of Jupiter
I then checked my 1/60sec exposure of the scene and found that I could also see the Galilean moons of Jupiter as well, though I am not able to see them on all monitors.  From a planet looking at a moon, next to which is a planet, around which are other moons.   Almost recursive!


Checking my ephemeris, it looks like Europa is at the bottom of the frame with Io above it,  Callisto is faint near the top of the image and possibly Ganymede just peaking out at the top right of the disk of Jupiter.

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