NOTE: Click on the image to view it at its highest resolution.
This picture shows two images of the planet Jupiter taken from the Lick Observatory 120 inch Shane Telescope on May 1, 1994 using the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory speckle imaging camera. The image on the left is the average of 40 1.5-second exposures forming the equivalent of a 60 second long time exposure. The blurring effect due to atmospheric turbulence is clearly evident. By using a computer post-processing technique known as speckle imaging, the image on the right can be formed from the same set of 40 short exposures. The finest detail visible on the processed image is about 0.4 arcseconds which corresponds to 1600 km features on the surface of Jupiter. We hope to use this same technique to view the effects of the collision of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 with Jupiter in mid-July.
Details:
lambda: 850nm bandwidth: 40nm exp. time: 1.5 seconds 40 frames 1024 by 1024 pixels plate scale: 0.05 arc-sec
For more information on these images, contact:
gavel1@llnl.gov -- Don Gavel
Images, Images, Images