A Galilean Night
Credit & Copyright: Jens Hackmann
Posted on 10/23/2009 5:19:14 AM PDT by sig226
Explanation: Driving along on a summer evening, near the small town of Weikersheim in southern Germany, photographer Jens Hackmann had to stop. He couldn't resist pointing his camera and telephoto lens at this lovely conjunction of a Full Moon and planet Jupiter looming near the steeple of a local church. Of course, 400 years ago, Galileo couldn't resist pointing his newly constructed telescope at these celestial beacons either. When he did, he found craters and mountains on the not-so-smooth lunar surface and discovered the large moons of Jupiter now known as the Galilean Moons. Jupiter's Galilean moons are just visible in this photo as tiny pinpricks of light very near the bright planet. Want to see the Moon and Jupiter better than Galileo? Look for local 2009 International Year of Astronomy activities and events during these next few Galilean Nights (October 22-24).
Beautiful photograph.
What is the buildling in the photo? It looks like part of a Russian Orthodox Church.
If you look carefully, he actually got all 4 of the major moons. Two close together on the right side, and two others spread out a bit more to the left.
Excellent photo. Must have been a really dry night, and probably up in the foothills of the Alps, to get such a clear picture with town lights all around him.
Great eye! Here's a screen shot I took after zooming in.
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Jupiter, like all of he large planets, actually has over 50 moons, but only these 4 are large enough to be seen from Earth.
Re: Jupiter, like all of the large planets, actually has over 50 moons, but only these 4 are large enough to be seen from Earth.
BTW: they can be seen through binoculars. 10X or higher would be best, but I think you can just barely make them out with even 8X. In any case, the binocs MUST-BE held extremely steady. You can perhaps rest your elbows on a railing or bench. The best way would be to mount them on a tripod if possible.
Also, Jupiter’s 4 large moons will always appear, more or less, on a straight line. This is because the moons orbit in a flat plane, much like the planets orbit the Sun. And since we’re looking ‘edge on’, the moons appear to move back and forth along a straight line. But don’t expect to actually see them moving before your eyes. They move way too slowly for that. You can detect movement only after a few hours.
Yes, I was referring to light-polluted skies like we have in and near cities.
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