the launch put on a good show with the setting sun lighting up the contrail
cell phone:
brief video clip (click for full size):
during the day, falcon-9 launches are visible for 100 miles. at night, they can be visible for hundreds of miles, and just after sunset, the backlit plume can be seen from even further away.
having failed to spot daylight falcon-9 launches from my office at 150 miles away and home (175 miles), i was pleasantly surprised to catch this shot through a window at work during relatively bright daylight, 15 minutes before sunset:
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| Falcon-9 1/23/24 5 pm pacific 15 minutes before sunset Long Beach, CA |
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| Falcon-9 1/23/24 |
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| Falcon Crossing Trees at Night |
lastly here are two short video clips of the launch at night:
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| prominence 1/10/2024 21:11.3 UTC (1:11 PM local) |
working from home thanks to covid, saw a medium size prominence with a thick short/wide T-shaped structure below it, very bright in the morning. knew something dynamic was happening...brought my grab and go out at lunch and saw this huge prominence. later looked like medium prominence with an extension shooting out. happy to catch a glimpse of what was obviously a very dynamic process.
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| Sun Ha 1/10/24 composite (exclusion mode) |
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| Sun Ha 1/10/24 composite |
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| Sun Ha 1/10/2024 21:17.4 prominences |
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| Sun Ha 1/10/2024 21:15.6 full disk double stacked |
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| Sun Ha 1/10/2024 21:19.9 late prominence |
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| Prominence 1/10/24 21:10.0 to 21:20.4 short animation of arch 10 minute pause short animation of linear extension |
Warning: boring details regarding planetary image processing ahead.
Planetary imaging is best done these days with a web cam capturing short video segments with as many frames as possible. software then combines the sharpest frames, discarding frames distorted by atmospheric turbulence. the "stacked" image is that further sharpened. too much sharpening produces unsightly artifacts enhancing noise inherent in the imaging process, rather than fine detail. too little sharpening leaves a blurry image. recently "AI" techniques have been used to sharpen images or "denoise" sharpened images. the results have been very impressive, but controversial.
Here's an image of jupiter with very conservative sharpening. the image is nice and smooth, but blurry:
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| Jupiter 12/16/2023 05:20 UTC |
next up is an image with aggressive sharpening applied. fine details are more evident, but there are clearly sharpening artifacts, sometimes referred to as "noise":
next a conventional "denoise" has been applied, removing the artifact, blurring the image slightly, but preserving some of the sharpening for a smoother sharpened image:
here's what topaz denoise AI did to the sharpened image:
the image is far more aesthetically pleasing than the others, both silky smooth and razor sharp. this is what has generated the controversy. there are 2 main objections:
Image Details:
i'm submitting images to ALPO so now include image detail in the frame for the submission.
Renowned amateur astronomer Christopher Go appealed to the OCA for images of Jupiter so I've been cranking them out and working on my technique.
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| Jupiter 11/26/23 05:53.3 UTC |
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| Jupiter 11/26/23 and Io |
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| Jupiter 11/29/23 05:51.9 UTC |
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| Jupiter 12/6/23 07:10.6 UTC RGB "chimney open" |
Jupiter is the fastest rotating planet in our solar system, with a day lasting only 10 hours. thus Jupiter's Great Red Spot (aka small salmon spot) is only visible for a few hours each day. so if you see it one night, it will be visible 4 hours earlier or 6 hours later the next (multiples of 10 mod 24). this makes it tough to catch night over night. it's visible for about 2 hours and can be followed rotating across the face of the planet during that time.
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| Jupiter 11/22/23 05:22 UTC 2023-11-22-0522_5 CM1 60.8, CM2 59.9, CM3 102.6 |
a planetary frame of reference was created, roughly defined by the position of the great red spot. however, the great red spot's rate of movement across the surface varies with time, so it's position has to be intermittently updated relative to the planetary reference system.
the following is largely verbatim from references listed below:
Because Jupiter is not a solid body, its upper atmosphere undergoes differential rotation. The rotation of Jupiter's polar atmosphere is about 5 minutes longer than that of the equatorial atmosphere (wikipedia).
Three systems are used as frames of reference for tracking planetary rotation, particularly when graphing the motion of atmospheric features. System I applies to latitudes from 7° N to 7° S; its period is the planet's shortest, at 9h 50 m 30.0s. System II applies at latitudes north and south of these; its period is 9h 55 m 40.6s. System III was defined by radio astronomers and corresponds to the rotation of the planet's magnetosphere; its period 9 h 55 m 29.710s is Jupiter's official rotation (GJI).
"most (but not all) higher-latitude atmospheric disturbances including the Great Red Spot and the three white ovals move only slowly in system II." (GJI)
the Red Spot was at Jovian System II longitude 46° in November 2023 and continues to drift 1.75° per month, based on historical trends noted by JUPOS (sky and telescope)
note the planetary image above is annotated with 3 different central meridian (CM) positions, one for each system.
historical trends and recent observations are listed at JUPOS the organization associated with winjupos, a sophisticated planetary mapping program designed for advanced amateur astronomers to track planetary features. ironically the GRS position in the winjupos planetary surface texture is way off.
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| GRS longitude (Sy. 2) JUPOS database |
in the image above and my 11/12/2023 06:45.8 UTC image, i measured the GRS longitude at 46 in winjupos. sky safari lists it at 50, accounting for the difference in the image and planetarium software.
references:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter
https://skyandtelescope.org/observing/interactive-sky-watching-tools/transit-times-of-jupiters-great-red-spot/
Jupiter put on a nice show for west coast observers last weekend: Jupiter's moon Io and it's shadow transited the planet's surface just as the great red spot (GRS) was rotating into view.
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| Io and shadow transiting Jupiter's great red spot 11/12/2023 06:45.8 UTC CM1 331.7 CM2 46.6 CM3 86.7 CLat +3.8 Winjupos combination of 4x90 sec captures with independent processing of Io |
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| Io and shadow transiting Jupiter's great red spot 11/12/2023 06:35.7 UTC CM1 325.5 CM2 40.5 CM3 80.6 CLat +3.8 |
Animation of Io transit (larger version below):
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| Io and shadow transiting Jupiter's great red spot 11/12/2023 05:19-8:05 UTC |
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| Io and shadow transiting Jupiter's great red spot 11/12/2023 05:19-8:05 UTC |
