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See the Slooh Telescope Information tab above for information on the telescopes and cameras used for this program
Steve Boerner
Member-at-Large
sboerner@charter.net
The images below were taken with Slooh telescopes. Information on the telescopes can be found by clicking on the Slooh Telescope Information tab above. Imaging dates, times, and scopes are shown on the images.
When needed the images were stretched with ASIFitsView to bring out dim details.
The images are cropped to an unknown size for display purposes.
Observing Challenge
Each participant in the Challenge must do an Outreach Activity to spread the word about moons of the solar system.
Each participant must observe 12 targets, using your eyes, binoculars, or a telescope where needed, and document those observations. Specific Targets are:
The Earth's Moon (eyes, binocular, or telescope).
Jupiter's 4 Galilean Moons (binocular or telescope): Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto.
7 of Saturn's moons: Titan, Rhea, Tethys, Dione, Iapetus, Enceladus, and Mimas.
Extra Credit - Not required (although we are not sure what this gets you...) for observing these moons:
Mars' two moons: Deimos and Phobos (telescope and occulting bar will be required).
Uranus' 5 brightest moons: Titania, Oberon, Ariel, Umbriel, and Miranda.
Neptune's brightest moon: Triton.
Twenty-three moons were imaged for the challenge. The requirements say Saturn's moon Mimas is required but I've been unable to separate it out of Saturn's glare.
Moons Imaged With Magnitudes ( √):
Earth moons imaged:
√ Luna -11.6
Mars moons imaged:
√ Deimos 13.7
Phobos 12.7
Jupiter moons imaged:
√ Io 5.5
√ Europa 5.8
√ Ganymede 5.1
√ Callisto 6.2
√ Himalia 14.7
√ Elara 16.5
√ Pasiphae 17.5
Amalthea 14.6
Saturn moons imaged:
√ Enceladus 12.6
√ Tethys 12.6
√ Dione 11.2
√ Rhea 10.4
√ Titan 9.2
√ Hyperion 15.2
√ Iapetus 11.8
√ Phoebe 17.2
Janus 15.2
Epimetheus 16.4
Mimas 13.6
Uranus moons imaged:
√ Ariel 13.8
√ Umbriel 14.6
√ Titania 13.6
√ Oberon 13.8
Miranda 15.9
Neptune moons imaged:
√ Triton 13.8
√ Nereid 19.4
Phobos, Amalthea, Mimas, Janus, Epimetheus, and Miranda should all be possible but they are all too close to their planet to separate them from the glare produced even with Slooh's shortest exposure (20 seconds).
To capture those six will require local imaging and adding an occulting bar to my camera. The bar needs to be in contact with the camera's sensor and I'm not too excited about doing that.
Earth -- Luna
Earth -- Luna
Waxing gibbous moon.
Because it is so bright Slooh picked the exposure for the Moon.
The Woman on the Moon shows up pretty well.
Mars -- Deimos
Mars -- Deimos
A 20 second exposure did a good job of bringing out Deimos but not putting it in glare. Phobos is buried in there somewhere.
The image was taken about two hours before maximum elongation.
SkySafari screen shot showing moon locations at the time of imaging
Jupiter -- four Galilean Moons imaged
Jupiter -- four Galilean Moons imaged
A twenty second exposure blows out Jupiter but does a good job on the for Galilean Moons.
Canary Two Wide Field was used here because the 43x43 arcminute field gives room to pick up moons further away from the planet.
SkySafari screen shot showing moon locations at the time of imaging
I was hoping to get Amalthea at maximum elongation but no such luck.
Jupiter -- Elara and Himaliaed
Jupiter -- Elara and Himaliaed
A fifty second images brings out these two Jupiter moons that are further away from the planet's glow in the top right. I've labeled the field with other stars to better show the location of the moons.
SkySafari screen shot showing moon locations at the time of imaging
Jupiter -- Pasiphae
Jupiter -- Pasiphae
A fifty second exposure just brought out this very faint moon.
SkySafari screen shot showing moon locations at the time of imaging
Jupiter -- Ananke (or not)
Jupiter -- Ananke (or not)
Ananke has a magnitude of 19.7 and I really doubt that I'm actually imaging it with only a 50 second exposure (BTW that's Slooh's longest).
The picture below shows a severe crop of my image on the left and and similar crop of the area from http://cdsportal.u-strasbg.fr/?target=HD%20224909. Since the dot is there too at some unknown time it probably isn't Ananke but it shows the difficulty encountered when looking for really dim objects.
AstroImageJ and Stellarium this time for software.
At this point I'll really question whether I'm grabbing moons or field stars. The exposure is showing things in the area but the atlases I use don't go deep enough or have catalogs that show enough to know if I'm grabbing the moon or unknown field star. The best route would be for me to take multiple exposures like I'd do for asteroids and see if the dots move. That's far beyond what this challenge is far.
I also took images for
Leda 19.8
Sinope 18.9
Lysithea 18.6
Carme 18.7
They all present the same problem so there's no point including them here.
Saturn -- eight moons imaged
(but not Mimas)
Saturn -- eight moons imaged
(but not Mimas)
No Mimas but Phoebe and Hyperion show up in this 20 second exposure. I tried a 50 second exposure but then the glare prevented me from seeing Rhea so shorter is better.
Mimas is just about at maximum elongation and is buried in the glare on the right side of Saturn.
Canary Two Wide Field was used here because the 43x43 arcminute field gives room to pick up moons further away from the planet.
SkySafari screen shot showing moon locations at the time of imaging
Strange!!! SkySafari puts Phoebe above and to the left of Saturn while Stellarium puts it to the right and below Iapetus at the time the image was taken...totally on opposite sides of the planet!
I find it interesting that the image shows dimmer stars than those displayed in either SkySafari or Stellarium. I guess they haven't been cataloged or the catalogs are not used in either of the programs.
Uranus -- Oberon, Titania, Ariel, Umbriel
Uranus -- Oberon, Titania, Ariel, Umbriel
A 50 second exposure does a good job capturing Uranus's brighter moons.
Canary Four was used here because it has the smallest FOV (16x12 arcminutes) of all Slooh scopes. The scope has tracking issues that frequently cause problems.
SkySafari screen shot showing moon locations at the time of imaging
Neptune -- Triton and Nereid
Neptune -- Triton and Nereid
50 second monochrome exposures do a good job showing Triton's location agrees with SkySafari's prediction.
Plate solving the image and then doing astrometry on it gives the exact coordinates in SkySafari for Nereid. SkySafari reports Nereid's magnitude is 19.4 so could it be a field star that isn't in SkySafari's or Stellarium's datebases? Sure, but I'm counting it!
SkySafari screen shot showing moon locations at the time of imaging
I was most surprised to see something at the location labeled Nereid.
Outreach Activity
October 7 and October 14, 2022 Friday Night Open House (FNOH) at Brommelsiek Park
I took my daughter-in-law's old 60mm Meade refractor on a manual Alt/Az mount and had visitors find Jupiter, Saturn and the Moon. While on Jupiter I had the visitors look at the Galilean Moons. Saturn's moons were more difficult to find with the scope. Kids really liked the hands on nature of the activity.
November 12, 2022 Astronomical Society of Eastern Missouri (ASEM) November Meeting
I did a 20 minute presentation on the Moon Challenge and the AL's Lunar Observing Program. Note that I am not and ASEM member.
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