CHAMÄLEON + ONJALA OBSERVATORY
The planetary parade 2018 - the outer planets
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Special Projects - "all nine", a planetary parade

In the Namibian winter of 2018 (July, August) it was practically possible to observe all 8 planets (+ Pluto and the bright planetoid Vesta) in one night.

Here now pictures of the outer planets and the bright planetoid Vesta.



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The outer planets
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  • Earth
  • Mars
The total moon eclips on 27. Juli 2018

The planetary trail at Rooisand Lodge
The picture above shows the planet Saturn in the vicinity of the field stars together with Messier 8, 20 and 21. Taken on 15.09.2018, 6 x 120 seconds at 800 ASA. Click to load a large image.

 
   VESTA
VESTA

The planetoid Vesta (4), 7.2 mag, taken on 14.09.2018. 6 x 120 seconds with 200mm telescope lens. Additionally the picture shows the planetoids Adorea (268), 13.9 mag and Lilaea (213), 13.2 mag. Top left in the picture the planet Saturn.

Click to load a large image. Click here to load a large image with object labeling.






Below are three animations of the first and last images of the series.
4 Vesta - 7m2 213 Adorea - 13m9 213 Lilaea - 13m2
 
   JUPITER
The following pictures and animations were taken with a Celestron 14 and a 17 inch Planewave astrograph. The used Video modules were a ZWO ASI 224, 290 and a Celestron SkyRis 445 Mono. The focal lengths were partially extended with a Baader Q-Turett Barlow element. A Baader IR pass filter was used for all monochrome images. The quality of the images varies greatly with the local seeing conditions during the acquisition of the raw avi-files.
 
The picture above left shows the planet Jupiter in the the star field, taken on August 10, 2018. The picture can be enlarged by clicking on it. Right: Jupiter with the big red spot, the moons Io (left), Ganymed and the shadow of Io on Jupiter, taken with C 14, focal.
Jupiter on 4. Juli (C 14) Jupiter on 11. Juli (C 14) Jupiter, Io + Ganymed on 26. Juli (PlaneWave)
Jupiter with the four Galilean moons. From left to right: Ganymed, Io, Europa and Kallisto. Picture taken on August 15, 2018 (18:00 UT). Rohavi taken with the 6" Zeiss APQ at 1200mm focal length. SkyRis video module and Baader IR pass filter.
Jupiter on 13. August (C 14)    Rare moon constellation on 17. September 2018. DSLR with Zeiss APQ
Jupiter on 13. August (C 14) Jupiter on 24. August (PlaneWave) Jupiter on 11. September (C 14)
The last picture from September 11th shows a small rotation animation by clicking on it. The time interval is about 15 minutes. The image resolution is approx. 0.5 arc seconds.
 
   SATURN
SATURN

« « The picture on the left shows Saturn with fixed stars, together with Messier 8, 20 and 21, taken on 15 September with a 200mm telescope lens (6 x 120 sec., 800 ASA). Click to load a large image. Click to load a large image. Click here to load a large image with object labeling.

« Saturn am 28. Juli, aufgenommen mitSaturn on 28 July, taken with a ZWO ASI 224 and the 17" PlaneWave astrograph.
« The picture on the left shows the best picture of the planet Saturn, which we have imaged since 2013. Taken on 28 July with the 17" PlaneWave of a ZWO ASI 290 and Baader IR passport filter. The focal length was extended by a factor of 2.2 with a Baader Q-Turett Barlow lens.

The picture shows a dark narrow line in the ring system on the left and right. Here the Encke gap in the Saturn ring becomes partly visible.


For a telescope with only 17" aperture a "small sensation", because the width of the gap is just about 300 kilometres according to measurements of Voyager space probe images. These 300 kilometres roughly correspond to only 0.05 arc seconds.
 
   URANUS, NEPTUN and PLUTO
The three outer planets were only imaged with a telephoto lens. Uranus and Neptune stood in a starless field, Pluto in a rich star field in the constellation Sagittarius. Each 5 x 120 seconds exposed with a 200mm (f/4) telephoto lens at ASA 800. All three images can be enlarged by clicking, the images are labeled with the brightest field stars. Unfortunately, Pluto is not clearly identifiable at this magnification. While the mages were taken, the moonlight was still disturbing and causes the blue sky background.

On this website we show pictures of Pluto, taken in 2015 at 24 hour intervals with a telescope of only 50mm aperture.
Uranus in the star field,
taken on 17.09.2018
Neptun in the star field,
taken on 15.09.2018
Pluto in the star field,
taken on 15.09.2018
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All Images and all Content are © by Wolfgang Paech, Franz Hofmann + Dirk Lucius