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Mercury at near infrared wavelengths and daylight. The smallest planet of the solar system has been the most difficult to study with groundbased telescopes. Professional observatories rarely succeeded to catch its image and some surface details. The reason for this carency has a double nature: 1) Professional observatories don't have much observative time to focus on a target like Mercury, often invisible, or affected by bad seeing. 2) Professional observatories can observe the planet only during some small visibility windows, when the planet reach the maximum elongation and the geometry of the ecliptic has enough favorable to let observation ad dusk or after the sunset. None professional telescope can observe the planet in daylight, when it reach the maximum elevation above the horizon. On the contrary, amateur equipment, can follow the planet during daylight, when the atmospherical seein is better because the higher altitude of the planet. Amateur astronomers don't have also observing schedule to follow, and can image the small planet whenever they want. As a result, amateur images of mercury can give a valid contribution to know the morphology of this planet, and be a valid supporting intrument to spacecraft like Messenger, by indicate some interesting details to analyze closer. |
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The surface of Venus The nightside of Venus is so hot that emits thermal blackbody radiaton along the near infrared specrum. At the wavelength of 1.01 microns, the dense atmosphere, made for 96% of carbon dioxide (CO2), shows some transparency to the thermal radiation coming from the surface, allowing it to escate into the space. Observing the nightside of the planet at these wavelengths, we can detect thermal radiation coming from the surface. This is the unique way to study directly the surface of this planets. Surface temperature is sensitive to altitude, so thermal radiation coming from the plain is stronger than that coming from mountains and highlands. With a good acquisition technique and an high quality CCD device, it is possible to image the thermal footprint of different altitude details, that is, to show some surface features. Many amateur astronomers catched the thermal emission, but this is the first ever amateur surface map, showing details with a spatial resolution of 2,6" and 3°C temperature resolution. |
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Low clouds in Venus atmosphere Low altitude clouds in the thermal emission of Venus. The transparency windows on the CO2 atmopshere is not totally transparent to the surface thermal radiation. If we delete the contribution of surface details by dividing two images taken on consecutives or close days, the surface details disappear because their rotational period of 243 days is not shows at a resolution of 2,6". The resulting image shows only the variation in atmosphere transparency due to fast mostion clouds at altitudes between 30 and 35 km. |
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Dynamical changes of Venus upper atmosphere. Following the planet's cloud deck dayside at near UV wavelengths, it is possible to study the dynamics of these turbolent layers. this long term work cannot be achieved by the professional observatories, since they don't have enough observative time. the role of amateur equipment is then crucial. The observations will help the astronomers to minitor, study and understand the complex and still unknown dinamics of Venus atmosphere |
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Uranus in infrared Uranus is a planet often forgotten by amateur community. Actually the planet is small, faint and completely lacking of details at visible wavelengths. But in the near infrared specrtum the aspect of the planet changes significantly, especially at wavelenghs greater than 1 micron. In the past years the south pole was brighter than tnhe rest, according to the much more detailed professional images. Following the planets for 3 years it was possible to show also che change in the tilting of its rotation axis respect to Earth. Now the planet's south pole is invisible, but the northern rose up after a 40 years winter. No one observed these regions deeply for a long time. |
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Daylight imaging Maybe this has not a directly science grade purpose, but has an extraordinary glamor. Did you ever wanted to image stars and planets during the daylight? How many times you lost a spectacular event, like a jupiter occultation/transit, a lunar occultation, or a bright comet, just because it was happening while the Sun was above the horizon? Daylight imaging is now possible just with a good planetary or CCD camera. Mercury images presented earlier are just an example of daylight imaging, that can produce very good or excellent results. An infrared filter helps a lot to darken the background, and let you to image all the brightest planets, the galileian moons, some stars untill the 6th magnitude, and also some bright comets impossible to see at dusk since they are too close to the sun. |
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Extrasolar planets Spotting the photometric mark of an extrasolar planet is the greatest achievement of 21 st century amateur astronomy. A small 20 centimeter telescope equipped with a science grade (but still amateur) CCD camera, can reveal planets around other stars that transit in front of their discs.
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Resolving Pluto and Charon Thanks to digital technique acquisition and post processing, the turbolence of Earth atmosphere can be beaten, allowing to reach some very good resolution, limited by the diffraction for telescopes smaller than 50 centimeters. An excellent evidence of amateur equipment is the separation of Pluto and Charon, the dwarf planet and its moon (or a double dwarf planet). The author (Daniele Gasparri) and the amateur astronomer Andonello Medugno, during a 2008 observative campaign succeeded to show, for the first time in amateur astronomy history the two bodies, with a 14 inches telescope and an amateur CCD camera. This is another evidence of the potential and the possible role of amateur equipment in high resolution imagery of relatively bright objects (included, obviously, the planets). |
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