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See a rotation movie of the new Jupiter impact site

Karri Ferron — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 18:20:00 GMT

Astronomy contributor John Chumack was finally able to capture the Jupiter impact site with his 10-inch telescope from his backyard in Dayton, Ohio. And he was nice enough to share an image and a Jupiter rotation movie with us. Below is how he put the video together:

There was an incredible amount of work that went into this movie. I captured more than 51,820 useable frames, and each full color RGB set had at least 3,900 frames.

Running through all the separate RGB channels through Registax was an all-day and all-night affair, but now I have a piece of Jupiter history in movie format, plus many very nice still images of the impact site.

I captured images starting about 2 a.m. and ran until 4:30 a.m. EST July 28 — basically 2.5 hours of rotation compressed into about 10 seconds — from my backyard observatory in Dayton, Ohio, using a DMK 21F04 Firewire camera, 2x Barlow lens, and Optec filter wheel attached to a Meade 10-inch Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope.

I used IC Capture software, VirtualDub, Maxim DL, and Adobe for processing and Windows movie maker for the WMV file.

The impact mark is now spreading out. It is at least 3 times the size it was at discovery, and it appears darker and easier to see.

Get out your small scopes to witness a piece of history by getting a peek at the impact mark before it’s gone.

Astronomy contributor images new Jupiter impact site

Karri Ferron — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 15:52:00 GMT

Astronomy magazine contributor and longtime imager John Chumack had some luck spotting the new Jupiter impact site from his home in Dayton, Ohio, July 24, and he was nice enough to share his account with us:

Even though the seeing sucked, and the sky was full of thick haze, I was able to capture the impact mark on Jupiter.

I shot these images with my ToUcam PRO II webcam attached to my 6-inch f/8 cave reflector from my front driveway last night.

Unfortunately, the neighbors’ trees block my view from my backyard 10-inch scope, with little time to capture it between about 11 p.m. and 2:30 a.m., so I dug out a small portable 6-inch scope to shoot it from my front yard.

I Stacked 643 frames out of 1800 in Registax. North is up in the images.

You can see the Great Red Spot (GRS) on the right edge of the first image (above) and the Little Red Spot (LRS) on the second image (to the right), just above the dark impact mark. Surprisingly, it is very noticeable in small telescopes.

I’ll have to try again with my DMK Firewire camera and a bigger scope when the sky is clearer and more stable!

Thanks, John!

Have you spotted or imaged the impact site? Vote in the poll on our home page and share your stories below.

Photos credit: John Chumack

Special Galileo issue web extras for subscribers

Karri Ferron — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 15:56:00 GMT

Now that your May 2009 issue of Astronomy is in hand, we’ve updated Astronomy.com with our newest web extras to give subscribers exclusive complementary information on this special collector’s edition that celebrates the 400th anniversary of Galileo turning his telescope to the sky.

Take a sneak peek inside the May 2009 Astronomy magazine.

If you subscribe to Astronomy, make sure you’re registered with Astronomy.com so you can access these great extras.

Here are the highlights:

Associate Editor Liz Kruesi compares the optics of the first three telescope designs — Gregorian, Newtonian, and Cassegrain — in “The early reflectors.”
Associate Editor Daniel Pendick asks “Experience Galileo’s Italy” author William Sheehan about his appreciation for the great astronomer's life and work.
Senior Editor Michael E. Bakich details a night of galaxy hunting from Animas, New Mexico, in “Observing Ursa Major galaxies through a large scope.”
Associate Editor Daniel Pendick answers the “Ask Astro” question: “What is the difference between an open cluster and a globular cluster?”
Columnist and Contributing Editor Phil Harrington recommends some targets in Hydra and Corvus and offers a tip on holding your binoculars in “More southern-sky treasures.”
And we’ve included a few more Q&As with Geoff Marcy, Jay Gallagher, and Sara Seager in “Astro Confidential: Extending the conversations.”

Of course, we’ve also posted “Bob Berman’s Strange Universe,” “Glenn Chaple’s Observing Basics,” “Phil Harrington’s Binocular Universe,” and “Stephen James O’Meara’s Secret Sky” columns for the May issue, in addition to “The Sky this Month” and “Ask Astro.”

Related:

Blog: "On the road: Galileo's Italy," — Editor David J. Eicher's daily accounts of his experiences on the Galileo's Tuscan Sky tour, March 27–April 3, 2009
Image gallery: "Italy: Galileo's Tuscan Sky tour" — Images from Editor David J. Eicher's trip.
Video: "The day Galileo changed the universe" — Editor David J. Eicher talks about how Galileo turned a telescope toward the Moon
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