The Moon and Jupiter

posted: 890 days ago, on Thursday, 2009 Sep 03 at 05:56
tags: astronomy, astrophotography, Jupiter, Oleg Toumilovich.

The Moon and Jupiter

Contributor: Oleg Toumilovich

Equipment Canon ESO 350, modified 400mm Sigma lens, tripod-mounted. Two exposures combined to show the Moon and the Jovian moons.
Date: 2009 September 02

I've received many queries along the lines of "What is that bright star next to the Moon?" Oleg's photo beautifully reveals that it was, in fact, the planet Jupiter.

At the time the image was taken, the two were 2°54' apart on the sky, and 610 million kilometres apart in space.

Another way of describing the relationship between the two is that Jupiter was 1500 times further away from us than the Moon. This means that Jupiter appears about 38 times (square root of 1500) smaller than the Moon.

The image below is a zoomed-in portion centred on Jupiter, showing the Oleg had captured the four biggest moons around Jupiter as well!

The close pair at bottom-left are Europa (fainter) and Ganymede. To the top-right of Jupiter are Callisto (closest) and then Io.

Io, Ganymede and Calliso are larger than our own Moon, with Europa being fractionally smaller.

Jupiter and moons (crop)

Contributor: Oleg Toumilovich

Date: 2009 September 02

 comments

2011 August 25 at 21:53 by daniel

very neat. very rare you see the moons of jupiter. always a treat

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nothing more to see. please move along.