As with any rare astronomical event, the cloud cover is inversely proportional to its rarity. Sunday 23 Dec. was no different, with clouds at various heights plus a high atmospheric moisture content, as the image below shows.
Sun-Jupiter Occultation
An attempt to capture a rare daytime occultation of Jupiter by the sun.
On Sunday 23rd December 2007, the giant planet,Jupiter,was occulted by the sun, something that has yet to be observed and or recorded.
An email from Robert Lucas, an astronomer at the University of Sydney, asked if I would like to be involved in an attempt to record this event. The answer was yes.
I just happen to own the only Baader Planetarium H-alpha Coronoscope in Australasia, an instrument which produces an artificial total solar eclipse. This allows even the smallest & faintest solar prominences to be observed & photographed in great detail.
The instrument is attached to a long focal length telescope, in this case a Sky Watcher 102mm (4") achromat f/10 refractor. With the amplification factor of the Coronoscope, the total focal length was 1500mm.
On the Nikon D300 DSLR it allowed almost the complete solar disc to be photographed.
The Coronoscope is not just an instrument that one just sticks on the end of a telescope, there is a detailed and lengthy procedure to go through .
A work in progress, please come back...
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