Two months ago a young couple showed up at one of our meetings with their 4 year old son, and one set of parents. Turned out that they are from Sea Cliff! So I told them when we got a clear night, I would set up my telescope in the park, and show them the first quarter moon. So tonight there were six of us and we had a small observing session and they got to see the Moon, Saturn, Venus, Mars and Jupiter! When I first saw Jupiter and it's four moons through my telescope I was stunned. Normally there are a couple of moons on each side of Jupiter, but tonight I saw this jumble, and I have never seen the moons arranged like this before! An hour later when I got home I took another look and then decided it was so unusual I would try and take a photo with my iPhone. I can't believe I got this! It is not a great photo but it is a photo of what I saw.
So I used the astronomy program on my computer to show what the moons actually looked like when we observed them. Isn't it interesting how the moons moved so much in an hour and a half. It was a stunning sight.
So this is another image from my astronomy program so you can see what Jupiter's moons look like, some times. See how organized they are and basically their orbits put them in a straight line. Now you can see why the jumble in the first photograph was so surprising to me! End of my astronomy lesson, class dismissed! :-)
5 comments:
This is just incredible for me to see. I had no idea! Thank you for posting several photos to see the amazing changes. Betsey
Amazing photographic sequence of the Moons of Jupiter.
I enjoyed seeing the progression of the Moons and Jupiter and my lesson. So happy that you invited new people from Sea Cliff to the park to share the sky and your telescope with, Joan
Thank you all for your comments. Perhaps you can begin to see where my fascination with the stars and planets and nebulae comes from. What a fascinating universe we live in! And what a joy for me to share it.
Incredible! Well done Ken😘
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