Sharpest groundbased images of jupiter and Saturn

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.© PIC-net team

A team of experienced amateur astro-imagers recently spent a week on the observatory Pic du Midi (French Pyrenees) to work with the observatory's 1 meter telescope. It was built in the 60's of last century. Equipped with modern camera's they've made hundreds of images of Venus, Jupiter and Saturn using lucky imaging techniques and post processing.

The animation shows the best results, which are now considered the best ground-based images ever made.

The PIC-net team is: Constantin Sprianu, Damian Peach, Marc Delcroix, Emil Kraaikamp(*), Gerard Thorin, Francois Colas and Ricardo Hueso

Apart from the incredible skills of the team and the good conditions during imaging, this work is a great tribute to the creator of this 1 meter telescope, Jean Texereau who was one of the greatest telescope makers in the 20th century. Too bad he did not live long enough to be able to see these images himself, he died in 2014, at age 95.

More information about this campaign to Pic du Midi can be found here: http://pic-net.org/

(*) Emil is a gifted Dutch amateur astro-imager who develops his own software. A few years ago he gave a colloquium at ASTRON, and the subsequent AJDI scored the largest number of worldwide hits ever. There are more like him, working away in attic rooms within a 50 km radius around ASTRON.