Saturday, September 11, 2010

Jupiter: Sept. 12, 2010 0720 UTC

Tonight the sky was nice.
There were some high clouds earlier, but they disappeared, only some puffers lingered and passed overhead.
Here's tonight's image:



I've been lucky so far, catching all the Galilean moons when they are all visible. Sometimes one or two of them are hidden behind Jupiter and it's difficult to tell who is who.
Continuing on with the moons, tonight let's look at Callisto:




Thank you to NASA for the large image.
You can also find the Jupiter moon thingy here.
Callisto is the outer most of the Galilean moons and is slightly larger than our own Moon. It orbits Jupiter once every 16.7 days.
Like our Moon, it is in synchronous rotation, meaning the same side faces Jupiter all the time. It's orbit is far enough out there that it does not affect the other Galilean moons.
It's mostly ice, not a very nice place. Take your cold weather gear if you plan to visit. There is the possibility that there are oceans under all the ice, but the chances of any life are remote.
Interesting fact: Callisto is about the same size as the planet Mercury, though not as dense.
I also tried to capture a better image of Jupiter:



Now you can clearly see the northern equatorial band. It's still not that clear, I haven't had a chance to set up the tripod for the camera so it's still a hand held shot. Next I'll try to shoot through some filters to see if I can get more contrast.
Jupiter factoid: Jupiter's atmosphere is made up of mostly hydrogen, helium, ammonia, methane and water.

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