skyeye
Jupiter Over the Mediterranean


This vacation included a sight to remember. Pictured above, a picturesque starscape
capped a serene seascape as seen from Turkey this past August. In the above digitally
stitched panorama, the Gelidonya Lighthouse shines in the foreground before a calm
Mediterranean Sea. On the left, Jupiter is the brightest point in the image and since on
the same side of the Sun as the Earth, was near its yearly brightest. Glowing just shy of
magnitude -3, Jupiter was brighter than any star in the sky, and brighter even than Mars
was during its famously bright opposition of 2003 August. On the right, the band of the
Milky Way Galaxy fades into distant atmospheric haze above the Jupiter is nearing the
closest part of its elliptical orbit to the Sun and so will appear even brighter during its
next opposition in 2010 September.

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