Europa and Io

[cptdavep]

Hi, I'm outside right now looking at Jupiter through my skywatcher 130, and two of the moons currently look close together, I think it's Io which is closer and Europa going behind the planet. Now to me it looks like Io has a noticeably more yellow colour than white Europa. Am I just imagining it as I know that's how they look or can I actually tell the difference in my little scope?

[Kai]

The two moons almost together are Europa and Ganymede , funnily enough im looking at the same

Io and Callisto are the other side (Io being nearer Jupiter)

[cptdavep]

Ha ha! Well I'll put it down to noob error then! So am I imagining a colour difference?

[Kai]

I had to double check in Stellarium

[lukebl]

It's worth having a closer look at Io, though, as I noted a couple of years ago that Io appeared distinctly yellow in one of my images, and posted a thread on it. This isn't surprsing as it is the most volcanic place in the solar system and is covered in active lava and sulphur deposits. Here's the image from 2010, and I'm fairly certain that the colour isn't just an imaging artifact.

[eriss]

It's worth having a closer look at Io, though, as I noted a couple of years ago that Io appeared distinctly yellow in one of my images, and posted a thread on it. This isn't surprsing as it is the most volcanic place in the solar system and is covered in active lava and sulphur deposits. Here's the image from 2010, and I'm fairly certain that the colour isn't just an imaging artifact.

Can I just ask?

what scope and lens do you use to see such detail?

I have Skywatcher 130 and so far, the images I see are not that clear, but then i have only viewed it a couple of times

cheers

[bobglen]

Can I just ask?

what scope and lens do you use to see such detail?

I have Skywatcher 130 and so far, the images I see are not that clear, but then i have only viewed it a couple of times

cheers

Agree - super quality, what is your tool of choice ??

[John]

Imaging can capture far more detail than we can see though scopes with our eyes and the images can be processed and enlarged too.

I think the images we see on the net and in magazines are responsible for a fair amount of anti-climax when folks start looking through a scope and see nothing like them. At least we can manage expectations a bit here.

[lukebl]

Can I just ask?

what scope and lens do you use to see such detail?

I have Skywatcher 130 and so far, the images I see are not that clear, but then i have only viewed it a couple of times

cheers

Agree - super quality, what is your tool of choice ??

You are too kind, as I don't think I'm particularly good at planetary imaging (or any other imaging, for than matter)! That image was taken with a 200P Newtonian, 3x Barlow and SPC900 webcam. As others have said, the imaging process results in a far greater level of detail than can be seen with the eye which, as John as pointed out, leads to unrealistic expectations as to what one can see.

It's quite amazing what detail can be extracted from what looks like a very poor image. Here's the result of a stack of 1600 frames I captured last night. The left-hand image is a single frame, which is closer to the view you'd get by eye, and the right-hand one is the result of stacking the 1600 frames and processing a bit in Photoshop. A slight difference, I think!