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My astronomy instructor took a picture of Jupiter from our observatory a few days ago, I had him send me the image to see if I could digitally enhance it and get a better picture. The image on the left is the original, the one on the right is the enhanced picture - click to get the full sized image (damn forum size limitations...)


For reference, the observatory has a 12" Meade reflector telescope, very similar to the one shown here (base setup is different, but this is essentially the same telescope), the thing costs about $4,500 not including the light-blocking motorized dome built around it.

I believe the image was taken with the 20mm eyepiece with a 2x Barlow extension, which is roughly 30X magnification. The three moons shown in orbit are Ganymede (I think that's the top left moon), Io, and Europa (believe Europa is the bottom right moon). Callisto, the fourth Gallilean moon, is not in the image - it would be in the upper-left corner of the picture if the image was expanded.

Interesting fact: Europa has a frozen surface, but is believed to have an ocean of liquid water roughly 100 kilometers deep below the icy terrain. When the voyager probe went past jupiter initially, images allowed observation of the surface ice of europa "splitting", and afterwards liquid water would fill the gap and freeze over. For colonizing the outer parts of the solar system, Europa seems to be our best bet for obtaining water without having to take it with us.

I'd like to care, but i doubt it's going to impact my limited lifetime directly.

Interesting,
I should Have a look in my space, I mean this thing is not totally fictional.

' Wrote:I'd like to care, but i doubt it's going to impact my limited lifetime directly.

And I would disagree, in fact I'll bet you one billion credits that alien contact will be made public on earth within 3 years, assuming discovery is still around at that time.

' Wrote:And I would disagree, in fact I'll bet you one billion credits that alien contact will be made public on earth within 3 years, assuming discovery is still around at that time.

Your on for the one billion.
Alien contact made public to all of this planets inhabitants, confirmed by world leaders.

' Wrote:Your on for the one billion.
Alien contact made public to all of this planets inhabitants, confirmed by world leaders.

At least all of the planet's inhabitants that have television or radio, word of mouth in third world countries tends to spread news a bit slower.

A couple more images, first one is Uranus:


And Neptune:

what 'fixes' are you applying to these images?

Who's your astronomy instructor?

He doesnt have a very good telescope. Quality seems same as the one I got for 400 Deutsche Mark in 1998. Judging by the lines on jupiter, at least.

I predict another "we found water on mars" and/or "look! those things in that rock look like bacteries!" announcement in 3 years.

Whats with the new Order recruiting policy? I didnt know tigers had feet like that. How will you send me my new cat?

Quote:what 'fixes' are you applying to these images?

A few steps...
-Increase contrast of the original image to darken the black surrounding
-Color (black) to alpha (transparency) so that all you have is a transparent background with the planet itself
-Duplicate the planet layer, increase saturation and contrast, then reduce opacity to around 50%
-Replace the original black background with a starmap (the background stars are not part of the original image, just there to make it look better)

On the jupiter image I used a closer photo of jupiter taken by a nasa probe to improve the contrast of the cloud stripes/layers on the original image.

' Wrote:Who's your astronomy instructor?

He doesnt have a very good telescope. Quality seems same as the one I got for 400 Deutsche Mark in 1998. Judging by the lines on jupiter, at least.

It isnt really the telescope that's the issue, the images are much more clear when you're actually looking through the eyepiece yourself. These photos were taken with a standard personal digital camera, which reduces picture quality. We get better images with cameras that can hold the shutter open for extended exposures, which improve light collection - these were just your typical snapshots, so the amount of light collected was very low (hence the lack of visible stars around the planets).

Quote:I predict another "we found water on mars" and/or "look! those things in that rock look like bacteries!" announcement in 3 years.

It'll be much more than that, just wait and see =)

Quote:Whats with the new Order recruiting policy? I didnt know tigers had feet like that. How will you send me my new cat?

We send your cat in a suitcase, what else?