By Hassan Dadashi Arani | 2024-12-11

Jupiter 4 night moon dance
On 12/12/2024 09:30 pm by Tom Tan | Melbourne, Australia
Three of Jupiter's moons dance around Jupiter in a unique way: 1:2:4.
Io takes 1.8 days, Europa takes 3.6 days, Ganymede takes 7.2 days.
I tried to shoot the line of moons over 4 nights to show that pattern.
Io would make a tight wiggle. Europa would orbit clockwise behind Jupiter.
Night 1: C G I Jupiter E (blue on the right)
Night 2: C G E Jupiter I (the little one has moved from left to right)
Night 3: G C I Jupiter Io (red) had completed one round back to the left
Europa had moved behind Jupiter
Night 4: G C Jupiter I E Europa had almost completed one round
William Optics 61 telescope, 360mm
Nikon D7500 APS-C camera, ISO 3200, 1/100 second selected from a bracket
An EQ mount but not tracked
A remote shutter release to shoot a bracket of exposures
One photo per night between December 9 and 12, same camera setting
The four frames were in RAW format with the moons in a diagonal.
To ease comparison the frames were rotated from a diagonal to a level orientation.
The lines of moons were simply pasted together with the December 9th line on top.