The King of the Planets and his Lovers.

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'The King of the Planets and his Lovers.'

The King of the Planets and his Lovers.

[Public Domain] 16 May 2016 Dylan O'Donnell
CATEGORY : Astrophotography
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If you looked up last night (and tonight really), you would see a very bright star passing close to the moon. But if you whipped out your binoculars, telescope or took a photo and zoomed in, you would see the star has a bunch of little stars next to it.

That’s because its not a star at all, but Jupiter and his moons which are all named after his lovers in greek mythology. Apparently the king was a lousy husband. I told this to a group of schoolchildren recently and one of them asked “So how many um.. moons.. does Jupiter have?”. “67” I told her. “Wow.. he was popular.”

In two months time, July 2016, a satellite that was launched in 2011 will reach Jupiter so check on the big planet. NASA called this spacecraft “Juno”. What’s Juno? Jupiter’s wife. Hopefully she will shed some light on the situation.

Pictured here, a composite of 2 images taken immediately after each other at different exposure times 1/125s and 1/4s (ISO 100 / f8) with a standard Canon 70D DSLR and 18-135mm kit lens.

As a bonus, here is a small animation of Jupiters rotation in 30 minutes also captured last night during the conjunction.