West Seattle scenes: The Mountain, and the moons

Two great photos just landed in the WSB inbox – first, Rolly Francisco shares the view of Mount Rainier as seen from 40th/Andover around 5 pm (you just never know how many more times this year we’ll see it!) – second, Trileigh was out star/planetgazing last night and captured multiple moons:

Trileigh explains:

Although in the photo you can see three moons surrounding Jupiter (the bright white spot near the middle of the picture), with a spotting scope you can actually see four.

And I don’t know what that funny blue thing is to the lower left of Jupiter. It was in each picture I took, several minutes apart, and appeared to move first further away to the lower left each time and then back closer. Could it be a satellite, I wonder?

Tonight should still be clear, I believe – people with binoculars or a spotting scope should get out and see five moons at once, including Earth’s!

Thanks for the photos!

Rod Clark September 25, 2010 (7:38 pm)

Trileigh,

A very nice photo.

It looks like a reflection from within the camera’s lens, or possibly it’s bouncing off surfaces in both the telescope’s and the camera’s lenses. Those symmetrical geometric patterns, aligned very nearly along and perpendicular to a line to Jupiter, are optical abberations and not an object in the sky.

Kurt K September 25, 2010 (8:28 pm)

Assuming up is north, the bluish dot in the upper left could very well be Uranus, which is in conjunction with Jupiter now. Hard to tell from the picture.

Alice Enevoldsen September 25, 2010 (9:44 pm)

Hi Trileigh,

Beautiful. I agree with Rod – it’s an optical artifact in the lenses, a reflection of the light from Jupiter.

If it were Uranus it would look very similar to Jupiter, albeit dimmer, and you’d have to be using a powerful enough telescope to easily discern all four of Jupiter’s largest moons, perhaps even a fifth.

A satellite (good guess!) moves very quickly through the field of view (unless it it geostationary), and always looks approximately just like a star. Again, you’d need a little more magnification to make out more detail.

The apparent change in distance between the object and Jupiter is due to one of two things – changing the exact setup you have for the photo, perhaps by zooming in or out. Or it is possible that the motion is an illusion. When we look at the stars we’re at the limit of our vision, we’re seeing some of the dimmest objects it is possible for us to detect. The center of your eye is less sensitive to light than your peripheral vision, so as you move your eye around, looking away from a dim object it an appear to fade, pulse, or even disappear.

Rod Clark September 25, 2010 (10:30 pm)

And Kurt is right that the object at the top left is Uranus. That’s exactly where it should be now, and there’s nothing else near it at the moment that’s bright enough to show up on your photo. (You can look up tonight’s planet positions with planetarium software, lots of which can run on practically any PC made in recent years.)

Uranus is about magnitude 5.7 now, so you could barely see it with the naked eye from a really dark location, not from anywhere around here.

To give you some idea of which stars on a star chart that you might expect to turn up on one of your photos, the brightest star in the far lower left corner is magnitude 5.1, the star in between Jupiter and Uranus is magnitude 7.6, and the fainter one up to the right of that (forming a nearly equilateral triangle with it and Uranus) is magnitude 8.6.

Trileigh September 25, 2010 (10:33 pm)

Thank you all for the suggestions and comments!

Kurt – you were suggesting Uranus for the little blue dot near the top of the photo just left of center, right? (Not the big blue thing below Jupiter.) I also wondered whether that might be another planet – thanks for the Uranus idea.

Alice and Rod – About the optical-aberration idea for the big blue splotch – my partner, who’s done some serious telescope work, suggested that as well. What made me hesitate about that idea is that I had the camera on a tripod in fixed position and used a timer to take the photos, so they were all taken using the same zoom and position. But perhaps some other secondary light source moved from photo to photo and shifted the internal reflection, or perhaps the camera shifted very slightly when I pushed the button.

Wonderful sky times!

nulu September 26, 2010 (3:31 pm)

Trileigh,
What kind of set up did you use for the photo?
Did you shoot through a spotting scope? Was there a filter (UV) on the front of your lens?
If you have some filter on the front of the lens, try removing it, or attaching it at a angle.
The next time you observe this phenomena, try panning or tilting the camera. If the two “objects” do not maintain relative distance, that confirms that the “objects” are in the optics and not the heavens.

Trileigh September 26, 2010 (9:37 pm)

Nulu,
The picture was taken with a Nikon SLR w/400mm lens. I did have a UV filter on – good idea about removing it. I’ll try that next time.

B Peloquin September 27, 2010 (4:57 am)

It is Uranus. I saw in the paper that it would be a blue disc near Jupiter as others have stated above. I live in Charlotte NC and for some reason could not see Uranus as well (was looking for it). Thanks

Sorry, comment time is over.