Jupiter: Your Opposition Images
A planetary “opposition” happens on the day that Earth and an outer planet line up on the same side of the Sun. For Earth observers, a planet in opposition will rise when the Sun sets and will be in the sky all night. Around the time of opposition, the planet is brightest, practically fully illuminated, and displays the largest angular diameter for the year. Right before, during, and after opposition are prime-time for viewing and imaging a planet!
Jupiter had its opposition on November 3rd but planetary imagers were already working on the planet in October. In this gallery blog, we explore the many recent images of Jupiter taken with Tele Vue’s Powermates and Barlows.
Raul Cantemir
This AstroBin Top Pick of Jupiter with Great Red Spot was created by Raul Cantemir using a home-built 12″ Newtonian with Tele Vue 2.5x Powermate (PMT-2513) to achieve an effective focal length of 3750mm. It is rich in detail and clearly shows festoons, white ovals, belts and zones on the cloud tops of Jupiter. A well done image! “From technical point of view I didn’t reach the limit. So I hope the weather will be better to make more images”, says Raul.
Henning Schmidt
Henning Schmidt found that a Tele Vue 2x Powermate (PMT-2200) and a C14 SCT make a potent combination for imaging the King of Planets. The nearest to the planet of Jupiter’s four giant satellites is the rocky and volcanic moon Io. It is often imaged along with the planet as shown below. It also features prominently in Henning’s AstroBin Image of the Day video for 17 October 2023.
High-Resolution-Animation of Jupiter with rising Io by AstroBin user Henning Schmidt. All rights reserved. Used by permission. This AstroBin Image of the Day for 17 October 2023 is a video of Jupiter rotating over the course of 93 minutes with the moon Io appearing from behind it. You must watch it in full-screen to appreciate the dimensional quality of the motion of the cloud-bands around the planet. Same gear and location as main photo. Imaging run was 93 x 30 sec with 15 ms exposures. 70% of the frames were stacked. Software capture and processing with FantaMorph5, Photoshop, Registax, AutoStakkert!3, WinJUPOS , PixInsight, and FireCapture.
Meet the Tele Vue Line of Powermate Amplifiers
Tele Vue’s Powermate line has some distinct advantages over simpler Barlows for visual and imaging. Powermate™ photo / visual amplifiers increase the focal length of your scope with reduced aberrations, greater magnification potential, and compact size compared to typical Barlow lenses. Also, Powermates™ can be stacked with no adverse impact. Powermates are available in different barrel sizes and powers to meet your mission needs: 1¼” (2.5x & 5x) and 2″ (2x, & 4x) formats.
Imaging with Powermates is easy: the visual tops all unscrew to accept a specific Tele Vue Powermate T-Ring Adapter for use with standard camera T-rings.
Makrem Larnaout
Next we have some great imaging work coming out of Tunisia by Makrem Larnaout using an 8″ SCT amplified with Tele Vue’s 2x Barlow (BLW-2125). These images and videos look like they were taken with a much larger scope. It just shows how dedication, seeing, the right camera settings, and processing can come together in a fantastic way!
Meet the Tele Vue Line of Barlows
Several of the images here were made with our Barlows. Properly designed Barlows do wonderful things: They amplify power, slow the telescope’s f/# (improving eyepiece sharpness), and give designers the opportunity to compensate for eyepiece aberrations.
Tele Vue Barlows use multi-coated high index glasses for optimum aberration correction, and exceptional contrast with virtually no light loss. Observed performance is aberration-free, even when tested with f/4 scopes. They even improve our competitor’s eyepieces and telescopes!
Thomas Williamson
This interesting shot below shows the Jovian moon Ganymede (largest moon in the solar system and the only one with a magnetic field) below Jupiter with it’s shadow just leaving the limb of the planet. Above the limb shadow is another black dot contributed by the moon Io. Io itself is transiting the planet to the left of it’s shadow but hard to see against the cloud belts. “I’ve tried to process this image to match the colors seen in the eyepiece”, says Thomas. Created with a DIY 12.5″ Newtonian amplified with the Tele Vue 3x Barlow (BLW-3125).
More recently, in the image below, Tom was able to “capture some really sharp images of Jupiter under very good seeing (8/10) last night. The seeing was mostly good, but then it steadied for about half an hour just before midnight – that really makes a difference!”
Jupiter oppositions happen a little over 13 months apart. We’ll see Jupiter again in opposition in December 2024 followed by January 2026.
Did you observe, sketch, or image with Tele Vue gear? We’ll like your social media post on that if you tag it #televue and the gear used. Example:
#televue #tv85 #ethos #jupiter
Do you want your Tele Vue images re-posted on Tele Vue Optics’ Social Media accounts? Use this hashtag for consideration:
#RPTVO
