Is it? Isn't it?

[Demonperformer]

The fifth Jovian moon to be discovered (E.E. Barnard, 09/09/1892), Amalthea is the third closest moon to the planet and is about 14th magnitude.
The problem of catching it is not that it is particularly faint (for today's instrumentation), but that Jupy is so overwhelmingly brilliant and is never very far away.

This photo was taken pre-dawn on 24 February, 2018, using an 8" SCT with a ZWO ASI224MC color imaging camera.
It consists of 56 "subs", each of 0.5 second duration, binned 2*2.
The main part of the image is the unprocessed stack, showing Jupiter and three of the Galilean moons, horrendously overexposed.
The small square surrounds the area in which Amalthea was located (as shown in the CdC screenprint).
The area within this square was stretched and processed to within an inch of its life, then enlarged and superimposed as the bigger square.
The image was then converted to an 8-bit JPEG for upload.
Is the circled object just some random brighter blob of "glare" caused by Jupiter's over-exposure, or is it Amalthea peeking through the haze?

Thanks for looking.

[jambouk]

I marked the points of the three larger moons, Io, Ganymede and Europa, and the centre of Jupiter from your screen shot of the planetarium software and made a layer which I placed over your capture; positioned everything so they roughly matched. The red dot in the square is where you have suggested you detected Amalthea, and the blue dot is where the planetarium software thinks Amalthea should be. They look pretty close. I suspect it is the moon. You should also pick several random sites around the planet, at the same distance, and equally stretch the data as much, and see if you also generate similar "moons" - it is relatively easy to think there is a relationship when you look hard enough for one. But I think this is Amalthea, but I am no expert. Nice one

James

 

[Demonperformer]

Now that is an intelligent approach - probably explains why I didn't think of it! I have been looking at that image for weeks, sometimes thinking it is obvious, sometimes thinking it is not much brighter than the haze. I will have a go at some other points and see what happens.

Thanks.

[Pete Presland]

Fingers crossed it is Amalthea, it certainly looks possible you have captured it.

[MarsG76]

Might be Amalthea... great work.....