Side by side, these giants stalk the night
2 Sep 2010, 15:54 UTC
The name of Anthony Wesley, an amateur astronomer from Australia, often comes up in this blog because of his remarkable discoveries of two meteoroid impacts on Jupiter over the past two years. He also takes some of the best pictures … Continue reading →
Jupiter (left) photographed by Anthony Wesley and by the Hubble scope (right). Larger version of the Hubble image. Credit: Anthony Wesley, NASA/ESA
The name of Anthony Wesley, an amateur astronomer from Australia, often comes up in this blog because of his remarkable discoveries of two meteoroid impacts on Jupiter over the past two years. He also takes some of the best pictures of the planet. One of his most recent, made on August 30, when the atmosphere was exceptionally calm, show details that compare well with images made by the Hubble Space Telescope.
It’s rare when the air is calm at both ground level and high up in the atmosphere. To see fine details on a planet, you need high magnification. On most nights, even the seemingly serene ones, the air higher up is roiling and shifting about enough to degrade telescopic images. Everything looks OK at low power, but jump up to 150x – 200x ...
