Jupiter is Back!

Jupiter recently had it's closest approach to Earth, but it wasn't visible until the very early morning. I've waited for Jupiter to come to me while I enjoy sleeping in my bed, and it's finally up above the trees around 10pm!

When objects are that low in the sky usually the view isn't very good because you're looking through more atmosphere than if your looked higher up. Tonight was no different, it was like looking at Jupiter through a moving sheet of plastic wrap. The bands of Jupiter we're barely visible with so much atmospheric activity. 

When I over exposed the photo you can see the four major moons of Jupiter.

The internet said to expect poor seeing last night. Even though the night was clear the humidity and temperature made for a very active atmosphere.

In the end I got a sub-par picture of Jupiter, but it was nice to be out for the first night in a long time and see Jupiter for the first time in almost a year! 

I took about 550 individual photos at 5000 ISO, 1/160 second shutter. The photos were aligned and cropped with PIPP, stacked in Autostakkert, wavelets in registax, and some final level adjustments in darktable.

I'll have to hope for some better conditions soon, because Saturn will be up in a few weeks!