One night, three planets....

[geoflewis]

Taking advantage of the recent long run of clear nights, mostly with fair to good seeing, I decided to try for all three of Jupiter, Saturn and Mars on the same night. All three planets are at low altitudes from the UK with Jupiter the highest at 20° at time of capture from my location and Mars a mere 14° altitude, which is about as high as it will get this year. I thought a collage of the 3 final images would be a nice record of the nights work.

NB Images are not to scale.

Best regards, Geof

[Scooot]

A lovely collage and I’d guess a very satisfying nights work  Looks like you’ve captured Io’s shadow as well? 

[MarsG76]

Excellent results...

 

[Davey-T]

Very nice Geof, just hanging around waiting for Moon and Saturn to stop hiding behind the trees to catch them both in the same frame, Moon might be a bit bright though.

Dave

[geoflewis]

33 minutes ago, Scooot said:

A lovely collage and I’d guess a very satisfying nights work  Looks like you’ve captured Io’s shadow as well? 

Thanks Richard

Yes, that is Io's shadow and if you look very closely Io is just visible against Jupiter's bright disc pretty much on the meridian.

Cheers, Geof

[geoflewis]

14 minutes ago, MarsG76 said:

Excellent results...

 

Many thanks, Geof

[geoflewis]

7 minutes ago, Davey-T said:

Very nice Geof, just hanging around waiting for Moon and Saturn to stop hiding behind the trees to catch them both in the same frame, Moon might be a bit bright though.

Dave

Thanks Dave,

Good luck with the Moon and Saturn. I did set up earlier for another run at the planets, but starting with Jupiter the seeing was poor compared with recent nights, not helped by hazy cloud moving in from the east coast, so I decided not try for Saturn or Mars tonight and catch up on some processing backlog instead.

Cheers, Geof

[Davey-T]

So much for that plan, after waiting hours clouds arrived like last night so no hope of Mars either, now all I've got to show for tonight is a dodgy JPEG Moon mosaic 

Dave

[Sunshine]

Impressive considering those planets are hugging the horizon from your position!

[geoflewis]

6 hours ago, Sunshine said:

Impressive considering those planets are hugging the horizon from your position!

Thanks, I’ve been pleased and very surprised what is possible with them so low, but I can’t resist having a try....

[geoflewis]

8 hours ago, Davey-T said:

So much for that plan, after waiting hours clouds arrived like last night so no hope of Mars either, now all I've got to show for tonight is a dodgy JPEG Moon mosaic 

Dave

Very frustrating Dave, it’s been the same here the past two nights, clouds moving in from the East soon after 10pm (BST)

[jock1958]

Lovely images Geof and much more detail than what I have seen. 

I was out again in the early hours but still struggling to see any features on Mars, I think I will have to pick the right time, atmospheric conditions and factor in very low altitude  

[geoflewis]

4 hours ago, jock1958 said:

Lovely images Geof and much more detail than what I have seen. 

I was out again in the early hours but still struggling to see any features on Mars, I think I will have to pick the right time, atmospheric conditions and factor in very low altitude  

Thanks Jock,

I think Mars is pretty featureless currently due to the global dust storm that's been raging the past week or so. I was only able to tease something out with the IR filter, even the red filter showed very litte and green and blue were blank discs. Hopefully it will clear before opposition and closest approach the end of next month.

Cheers, Geof

 

[si@nite]

Very nicely done Geof!?

[geoflewis]

1 hour ago, si@nite said:

Very nicely done Geof!?

Thanks Simon

Geof