Observation by Paul Leyland: Praxidike, aka Jupiter XXVII

Uploaded by

Dr Paul Leyland

Observer

Paul Leyland

Observed

2021 Sep 06 - 22:07

Uploaded

2021 Sep 11 - 13:55

Objects

Jupiter

Equipment

0.4m Dilworth Relay
Starlight Xpress 814 Trius Pro
No filter

Exposure

41 subs of 60s each, stacked on motion of J-XXVII

Location

Tacande Observatory, MPC J22

Target name

Praxidike, aka Jupiter XXVII

Title

Praxidike, aka Jupiter XXVII

About this image

I very nearly didn't get this one as the telescope control system computer crashed after only 41 minutes of imaging and I had planned on taking two hours of data. Consequently the detection is not as emphatic as hoped but the satellite is clearly present as a round dot amongst trailed stars and is located within markedly less than an arc-second from the predicted position. The artifacts in the background are due to contrast-stretched scattered light from Jupiter.

Praxidike was mag V=21.7 at the time of observation. It is very tiny, only 7km across, and was discovered in November 2000. It is a member of the Ananke group, the members of which are believed to be fragments of a captured asteroid.

No more Jovian satellites for this season. The camera's Peltier cooler has since failed and, although the camera is still usable, the dark noise will swamp very faint satellites. At least the TCS is working again!

Files associated with this observation

Praxidike.png (321.1 kB)

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Nick James, Geof Lewis, Peter Carson

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