Jupiter's moon Europa transits the planet (Movie)

Copyright Benjamin Gomes-Casseres 2011

This movie shows the movement of the moon and the planet's rotation over a period of 3h 45m, in 8 seconds (i.e. speeded up 1400x). Notice Europa moving in front of Jupiter from the right, followed a while later by its shadow; then it exits the face of Jupiter on the left, followed a while later by the shadow. By the end, the Great Red Spot rotates into view from the right.

How to watch the movie: It is streamed from YouTube in High Definition or lesser qualities.The quality of the movie you will see is initially set to your Internet connection speed and software.

Click on Play arrow in the image below. (Another version is here.)

 

 

The movie above was captured and compiled as follows:

  • Lexington, Mass. Suburban skies; 50-45F, low humidity and clear; planet high in the sky
  • Very poor seeing, with lots of turbulence and many images washed out
  • November 25, 2011, 9:15pm to 1:00am
  • 8" F/6 Newtonian with Televue 2.5x Powermate
  • Takahashi EM-200 mount
  • Canon 450D (modified by Hap Griffin) in Liveview, zoom mode (1/100sec, 400ASA equiv)
  • Frames taken every 15min
  • Each frame is processed from 500 images, using about 150-200 of the best images
  • Captured with Mike Unsold's ImagesPlus 4.0; processed in ImagesPlus 3.82
  • The images were imported into Adobe Premiere Elements 3.0, assembed into movie, and converted to MPEG2 before uploading to YouTube.

Return to Astrophotography Table of Contents.