Month: May 2017

C/2015 V2 Johnson – My first comet

I was lucky and in the skies visible from my terrace appeared comet with poetic name C/2015 V2 (Johnson). Right now (2015-05) is slowly moving through the constellation Bootes not far from bright star Arcturus and it is “only” 120 million kilometer from Earth.

Because the comet moves differently compared to the background stars, one has two options how to photograph it. Either the telescope is pointed on stars and the comet is slowly drifting from the field of view or the telescope is pointed on the nucleus of the comet and due to the longer exposures the stars are trailing. I picked the second variant, in order to have the comet sharp. 3 minute exposures the stars are trailed into the oval shapes, but the comet is focused:


Jupiter

Jupiter is the biggest planet in Solar System, therefore it’s called giant – gas giant. It has 2.5 times mass of all the other planets in the Solar System combined. It has more than 60 moons and one of them (Io) I managed to capture. The picture also shows Great Red Spot, which is a storm larger than the Earth.

Few days later I tried to compose an animation, this time without Great Red Spot and the moon is Ganymede: