Jupiter has seventy-three known satellites, most of which are small and very dim. Only four of them are big and bright and they are easily visible in my DSLR image above.
Jupiter is over-exposed in order to capture the satellites.
It’s hard to determine which of the four satellites are which, without looking them up. I took a guess and got two right, a success rate of 50%. A bit like flipping two coins I suppose. Plus I got Jupiter right too. 😛
The actual order of objects, from top left to bottom right, is
| Europa | Jupiter | Io | Ganymede | Callisto | |
| Magnitude | +5.3 | -2.9 | +5.0 | +4.6 | +5.7 |
The remaining sixty-nine satellites range from fourteenth to twenty-fourth magnitude.
◽ Canon 60D DSLR Camera. ◽ 0.5 sec exposure. ◽ ISO 100 ◽ © Roger Powell | ◽ Tripod ◽ Canon 135mm fixed lens. ◽ f/2.5 ◽ Image date 2022-09-18 @23.02 |
Several years ago I took two separate telescopic exposures of Jupiter, one to capture Jupiter and one to capture the satellites. I then spent some time merging them into a single image:
Meade LX-90 telescope
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I’m sure there are many sources, but in case you’re looking for a new one, this is the one I typically use:
https://skyandtelescope.org/wp-content/plugins/observing-tools/jupiter_moons/jupiter.html
Nice composite post.
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Thanks, that’s a very useful source.
I don’t plan to image Jupiter this year, despite its excellent viewing opportunity.
I’m looking at a couple of other projects to keep myself busy, just in case there is a break in the clouds.
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Sort of reminds me of Galileo great job
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Thank you!
🙃
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In celebration of its current perigee to Earth, an apt subject. You have caught a rare alignment there. I remember as a child finding all four major moons in a simple telescope I hounded my parents for on my 8th birthday. Skies were dark then — you could see things from your own front yard in suburbia. Amazing that the total is now up to 73! I think back in those days science told us that here were a seemingly staggering ten moons orbiting Jupiter.
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I may even have got that number wrong.
I counted the Jupiter moons listed in a reliable annual publication and got 73 but I now see elsewhere in the same publication that the total is given as 79!
Excluding the Galilean Four, a couple of them are of reasonable radius (85 km and 40 km) but the remainder seem to be mostly listed about 1-2 km, modest asteroid sized.
🙃
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As usual on your posting, some great images.
According to NASA, the count of Jupiter’s moons is now up to 80!
https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/moons/jupiter-moons/overview
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Thanks for the update.
80!
My “reliable annual publication” now seems a little less reliable than I would like to believe.
🙃
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