New Image: Uranus & satellites
Posted: Sat Nov 11, 2023 10:09 pm
2023-11-10 2139UT
After taking some images of Jupiter I noticed that Uranus was quite close. Of course Uranus is a tiny fraction of the apparant size of Jupiter, and reflects a lot less light. I took around 40 x 2sec exposures at 6400 ISO, and stacked all of them. I then took several 40 sec exposures of the area hoping to capture some of the satellites. Adding the two together produced this image, and found I had all 4 (classical) moons. While Oberon and Titania are always easy to cature, Ariel was only just visible in the glare of the overexposed Uranus. This is only the second time I've managed to image it. Umbriel always seems a bit avasive too, and it was on this occasion! Click on the image to see a larger photo.
Uranus is presently aligned so that we are looking down on the north pole of the planet. Thus, these satellites are (presently) always seen in the correct order - Ariel, Umbiel, Oberon & Titania, and are never lost behind the planet.
After taking some images of Jupiter I noticed that Uranus was quite close. Of course Uranus is a tiny fraction of the apparant size of Jupiter, and reflects a lot less light. I took around 40 x 2sec exposures at 6400 ISO, and stacked all of them. I then took several 40 sec exposures of the area hoping to capture some of the satellites. Adding the two together produced this image, and found I had all 4 (classical) moons. While Oberon and Titania are always easy to cature, Ariel was only just visible in the glare of the overexposed Uranus. This is only the second time I've managed to image it. Umbriel always seems a bit avasive too, and it was on this occasion! Click on the image to see a larger photo.
Uranus is presently aligned so that we are looking down on the north pole of the planet. Thus, these satellites are (presently) always seen in the correct order - Ariel, Umbiel, Oberon & Titania, and are never lost behind the planet.