Photographer Captures ISS Passing Between Jupiter and Saturn (petapixel.com) 46
During the Great Conjunction event in which Jupiter and Saturn appeared closer to each other in the sky than they have for hundreds of years, photographer Jason De Freitas captured a photo showing the ISS zipping between the two planets. PetaPixel reports: While planning to photograph the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, De Freitas realized that he could also include the ISS in the frame. "I had the incredible luck of figuring out I could see the path of the International Space Station traveling through the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction," De Freitas says. After a great deal of planning, on December 17th, De Freitas drove an hour -- "quite a short distance in the scheme of things," he says -- to a location where everything would be aligned perfectly for his shot.
At around 9:54pm from Jellore Lookout in New South Wales, Australia, De Freitas pointed his Pentax 67 and Takumar 600mm f/4 at the planets and captured a 10-second exposure on Fujifilm Provia 100f film. The tracking was done with a Skywatcher NEQ6 equatorial mount. The photo above is what resulted. Here's a closer crop in which you can more clearly see the planets and Jupiter's moons. De Freitas also used a Nikon D750 and Tamron 70-200mm f/2.8 to capture digital video of the event. "Probably the most unique shot I've ever taken," De Freitas says. "[S]omehow everything on the night worked out. Beyond thrilled with this one.
At around 9:54pm from Jellore Lookout in New South Wales, Australia, De Freitas pointed his Pentax 67 and Takumar 600mm f/4 at the planets and captured a 10-second exposure on Fujifilm Provia 100f film. The tracking was done with a Skywatcher NEQ6 equatorial mount. The photo above is what resulted. Here's a closer crop in which you can more clearly see the planets and Jupiter's moons. De Freitas also used a Nikon D750 and Tamron 70-200mm f/2.8 to capture digital video of the event. "Probably the most unique shot I've ever taken," De Freitas says. "[S]omehow everything on the night worked out. Beyond thrilled with this one.
Once in a lifetime shot (Score:3)
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Yeah pretty cool.
Shot on Medium Format 120 film too....very cool.
It's a hoax! (Score:5, Funny)
It would take thousands of m/s delta-V for the ISS to get to a location between the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn. Its tiny orbital maneuvering thrusters are orders of magnitude too small to achieve this. There are also nowhere near enough provisions on board to supply such a lengthy voyage.
This photograph is obviouslsy fake!
Re:It's a hoax! (Score:4, Funny)
Well, of COURSE this cover story is false. What the photograph REALLY shows is the track of the rocket Trump is taking to Mars to talk to those aliens we've been fighting with up there. You know, the ones who have been helping him keep the Mole People secret, and who have Hunter Biden's real laptop.
You didn't actually believe he just went to Mar a Lago today, did you?
Re: It's a hoax! (Score:2)
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Oh WOW you've broken the code, man!
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AND... that obviously was a capture of a Pong arcade game.
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Looks like a slashdot dot to me.
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Funny.
It should be noted, however, that the size of the maneuvering thrusters has nothing to do with moving the ISS to any particular place. The size of the fuel tanks are the controlling factor. 1mm/s^2 for a year or two would be more than enough....
How To See Jupiter & Saturn Align On Monday Ni (Score:2)
my subjective view (Score:2, Funny)
It is more than a week... (Score:2)
Composited? (Score:3)
I wonder if this picture is actually a composite of different exposures, or at least cut together from one shot.
I took a picture myself on the same evening (from Europe, lucky I had a break in the clouds), and the moon appears further away from Jupiter/Saturn than in this one.
Anyway, to plan this and execute such a shot is beautifully done. I still wonder about why doing this on film, but to each his own I guess.
Re:Composited? (Score:5, Informative)
I still wonder about why doing this on film, but to each his own I guess.
It was taken on a medium format camera, so the negative frame is 6x7cm here. That's a lot of area to capture available light for a lot cheaper than a digital camera with the same sensor size would be.
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You'd have to simply use a shorter focal length with a digital sensor. Film doesn't cut it anymore for this application, that's why in the photo you can't even tell it is Saturn and Jupiter (well, you could deduce the latter from the Galilean moons, but it is not obvious).
I did some film astrophotography in the 90s, when tried to get back in the hobby a bit over a decade ago, I tried out a $3 webcam (literally, I ordered the cheapest one, a tiny Chinese off ebay), it immediately blew away anything any film
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That's a lot of area to capture available light for a lot cheaper than a digital camera with the same sensor size would be.
I'm wondering what it is you hope to gain from this. Even the most sensitive of commercially available photographic films are orders of magnitude less sensitive than modern digital sensors. Throwing a larger medium format at it doesn't come close to compensating for the difference. There is no reason grounded in physics to do any kind of astronomy photography on film in 2020. Hell there was no reason to do it a decade ago either.
To add credence to this: The photographer neither used a sensitive film (hell h
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Not sure about that TBH. A few years ago I got fantastic images on my 6x6 TLR of comet McNaught - worked a treat.
Nothing like a Carl Zeiss lens! But I digress..
I've also got a Pentax67 with some lenses. I haven't used it in ages but I do have an adapter for 67 to
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I didn't say it won't work, I said it would simply be inferior to a digital camera option of the same price range. :-)
I stopped using my Pentax 67 for low light work 12 years ago. A 5D rang rings around it. My girlfriend's little 4/3rds olympus runs rings around it. To say nothing of my cooled astronomy camera that I bought second hand
Actually ... now that we're talking I don't think I even unpacked my Pentax 67 when I moved country 5 years ago. I think it's in my box somewhere with my Nikon FE :(... errr
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The key point to realize is this photo was taken on December 17th and not on December 21st at the time of closest approach.
I was able to replicate the scene in Stellarium from these co-ordinates, near New South Wales Australia:
S 34 21' 30.75"
E 151 4' 54.60"
2020-12-17 10:53:11 UTC
The angular separation between bodies in the photo are exactly correct.
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and the moon appears further away Different time zone mate.
Broken link in summary (Score:3)
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The "a closer crop" link is broken in the summary.
Or maybe they just underlined and changed the color of the text to screw with you?
What is the use of this again? (Score:2)
I'm a lover of anstonomy, but ... what exactly is the use of this photo?
Why is this news? What big information that I can use are you giving me with this?
What's he even improving in the world with this?
Yeah, he did sometbing really well, ... that's totally useless ... isn't it? (Serious question.)
Also, had he captured the ISS in-between Jupiter and Saturn ... preferably with a comically oversized butterfly net ... and brought it back into Earth orbit! ... *That* would've been nice for humanity, and mildly u
Oh, and don't try to downmod me, (Score:2)
just because I redpilled on your shared reality distortion bubble and don't need to act overexcited for something that is not exciting. :)
If you disagree, post a comment to change my mind. I mean you gotta have good reasons, right? So they should be easy for me to see. I like new insights. Downmods without commenting won't do that, but convince me that you agree and externalize that you hate that.
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I'm a lover of anstonomy, but ... what exactly is the use of this photo?
Doing something cool because it can be done?
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I'm a lover of astonomy, but ... what exactly is the use of this photo?
This is not astronomy. This is art. Like a classical symphony, a painting or a sculpture, it is completely and utterly devoid of practical use. If the only things that interest you in life are things that have practical use, you are welcome to move along.
And the reason this piece of art has a place on Slashdot is that this is a particularly geeky form of art. It fulfills the "news for nerds" part of this website's mission statement and I'm sure most of this site's readership appreciate the effort that went
Where are Saturn's rings? (Score:2)
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You are looking at the rings from the side, so you can not see same.
That should actually be obvious.
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You are looking at the rings from the side
Not really. The rings should be visible [cgtn.com]. Even as an elongation of the image of Saturn.
I suspect that De Freitas underexposed his image while trying to include the moon. Which would have washed out completely had he set his shutter for a proper Saturn shot. Also, 10 seconds gave a nice looking ISS track. A longer exposure would have resulted in a line across the entire picture.
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The planet moves in two month 360/12*2 degrees. The "times 2" is the two months, and it moves 360/12 per month as we have 12 months and we by happenstance measure a circle with 360 degrees, I wonder where that number came from. Why do we not use 1000 degrees and be done with it?
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360 / 24 was 15 last time I looked, and 15 is a lot less than the 90 degrees you were previously implying.
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I did not imply 90 degrees, I implied 15 ... ys I wrote the formular there, in case you missed it :D ... so it was likely just the camera, long exposure or atmospheric influences that hid them.
However someone pointed out that a few weeks ago the rings were clearly visible and that the angle did not change enough to make them invisible
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Rings are edge-on to Earth right now?
About twice every Saturn Year, the rings should be edge-on (and therefore nearly invisible) to us. Not a clue whether now is that time, but if it were, that would explain it nicely.
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There's just not enough resolution and/or he had to let in so much light that the rings are washed out. The rings are not, as others are saying edge-on but are actually at a very nice angle for viewing. It's just that you have to have the right optical setup to view them. He literally had *one shot*, so he probably erred on the side of letting in enough light to capture the station.
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You are correct that the rings were clearly visible that night, so I looked a little into it.
Replicating the scenario with Stellarium and comparing the result with the photo, it looks like both planets appear much larger in the photo than they would have appeared through binoculars or a telescope, and that's due to overexposure. In the photo Jupiter's moon Io is obscured by the planet's disc, when in reality they were separated by more than two Jupiter diameters. So I estimate that the discs in the image ar
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Wonderful result (Score:2)