Astroblog: Mercury, Venus and Jupiter

Sunday, July 17, 2005

Mercury, Venus and Jupiter

Finally, after a beautiful cloudless day the evening sky was clear and the ground was dry enough for me to wheel out the telescope and computer. I set everything up, and got a nice image of gibbous Venus (middle image). Then I turned to Mercury, which was now covered in cloud. I did an image of Jupiter while waiting for the cloud to break (you can barely see Calisto in this version, but Europa and Ganymeade are visible on the original image Io is transiting Jupiter and is too dim to be seen against Jupiter).

I finally got an image of Mercury (top image), but it was very close to the horizon, and turbulence was severe. You can almost see a cresent, if you squint. I wanted to image the shadow transit of Io, but of course Jupiter disappeared under a thick layer of cloud before the transit began. Typical.