Posted on 11/01/2013 9:40:35 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Explanation: This webcam and telescope image of banded gas giant Jupiter shows the transit of three shadows cast by Jupiter's moons in progress, captured in Belgian skies on October 12 at 0528 UT. Such a three shadow transit is a relatively rare event, even for a large planet with many moons. Visible in the frame are the three Galilean moons responsible, Callisto at the far left edge, Io closest to Jupiter's disk, and Europa below and just left of Io. Of their shadows on the sunlit Jovian cloud tops, Callisto casts the most elongated one near the planet's south polar region at the bottom. Io's shadow is above and right of Jupiter's Great Red Spot. Of course viewed from Jupiter's perspective, these shadow crossings could be seen as solar eclipses, analogous to the Moon's shadow crossing the sunlit face of planet Earth.
(Excerpt) Read more at 129.164.179.22 ...
[Credit & Copyright: Leo Aerts]
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Oh yeah, for NASA, muzzie outreach is more important, and globull warming.....
How far we have fallen since a "somewhat" democrat president sent this country on a mission. Who knew that might have been our finest hour, to be briefly resurrected by Reagan.
Hussein has been true to his word to transform the US into just another mediocre, oversize nation.
I don't think I've ever seen that discussed... just wondering if you know or have an opinion. Thanks!
About as good of a space pic one will see. Amazing!
Yes the shadows would be more sharp edged, and very noticeably so. You can get this effect here on earth if you’re in a glass lined hallway above a parking lot to the south ( in the northern hemisphere, ) and you get a bright windshield reflection from a car. The convex windshield will produce an angularly small sun, and you may even see edge diffraction if you look at a shadow closely.
“The amount of penumbra” is subject to interpretation. In general, an object which “just covers” the sun, as the moon does from earth, will have a similar effect in eclipse from a given viewing point, except that the eclipsed disc will be smaller in appearance.
... Good question! ... and excuse me for butting in.
This is amateur work, and I think there are a number of amateurs operating at this level, which I can’t even aspire to, I might add. I don’t find anything about “Leo Aerts” with Google search, but I did track down some similar images by some other guy in Britain once, and read his whole story. It requires total devotion, but not a huge amount of expensive equipment. I think you can do this kind of thing for less than $10k if you really want to.
Of course, this kind of image surpasses what I was familiar with as a boy in the ‘50s and ‘60s as state of the art from the most prominent observatories. It is amazing!
Beautiful picture! It’s a shame that the politics of today overwhelm it...
... or during solar eclipses - just before totality. Shadows cast are much sharper, and those objects still illuminated by the tiny sliver of sun take on a granular texture, as though lit by laser light.
Excuse me for also "butting in."
Regards,
Thank you both for excellent information!
This movie sucked, in case anyone's wondering.
Yeah, it looked like it stunk. Sci-fi movies are actually in the horror genre, and horror movies have escalated the level of violence (action over suspense) to the point that there’s rarely anything good. The other directions are dystopic (”Blade Runner”, “The Running Man”, “12 Monkeys”, “Brazil”) and comedic/sendup (”Fifth Element”). Anything based on Philip K. Dick at least has a chance.
Thanks!
Amazing.
Until we’re able to supersede chemical propulsion systems, our best option for increasing the amount of human spaceflight (and we’ll have to have a much larger presence in space if we expect to, for example, reach, explore, and colonize Mars) is to use the materials already up there in the asteroids to produce shuttle-type reentry vehicles, built of nice sturdy lightweight metallic foam, and coated with ablative shielding, then loaded with (for example) processed precious metals from the same sources, and surfed down unmanned for unloading and recycling.
Viewing Jupiter through a scope is still a thrill, and a great first light experience for young astronomers, imho.
I wish there were a larger image version for wallpaper, but it’s still cool.
I’m gonna butt in too.
Another reason the shadows are fuzzy is that Jupiter’s moons have an atmosphere, and, what we see as a surface on Jupiter is not solid, but, clouds that are not solid at all.
We were out that night and watched Jupiter come up out of the ocean. Didn’t get a very good view of any of the shadows as the air was not very transparent. The larger shadow in the bottom right was easy to see, but, the other two were problematic at best. The Red spot was visible and helpful to find the shadows. Had Jupiter been higher up, it would have been less a problem.
We did our viewing from the salt flats next to the bridge going to Ft Pulaski here in Savannah. We would have been on the causeway itself, but, this was during the government slowdown and they had guards on the causeway keeping folks away. The bridge going to the fort is a popular fishing spot, and, they didn’t want folks out there. Wouldn’t you know, right at Midnight, the guards fired up their engines and left.
Thanks C the L.
cool
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