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Michael Risch

Michael has been interested in astronomy and spaceflight, since he saw the last moon landing as a child. In 1981, he became a member of the Association of Amateur Astronomers in the Saarland and, as a member of the board, accompanied the establishment of the Peterberg Observatory. As co-founder and first webmaster of www.astronomie.de, he contributed numerous ideas and reports on astronomical and spaceflight topics to the first German astronomy portal. He has been practicing planetary, comets, solar, deep sky as well as TWAN style photography, and has been on many long distance trips, among others to 7 total solar eclipses. As a long-time science editor, he has led "Northern lights and stars" trips to the Arctic Circle. Michael has published many of his own photos and articles in professional journals and has written chapters for the books chapters for the books Fotoschule (Photo School) and Extremfotografie (Extreme Photography) with his colleague Martin Rietze for "Color Foto".

At Baader-Planetarium he is part of the observatory project team and is booked for lectures in Germany and abroad. Furthermore, he is an expert consultant for observatories, domes, high end mounts, telescopes and much more.

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Observe now: Jupiter is changing

Michael Risch
Michael Risch
/
May 24, 2019
BaaderAccessories
6704
For several months now, scientists have been observing that the Great Red Spot (GRS) on Jupiter is changing in an unusual way. On the following photo from 22.2.2019 – taken by the US space probe JUNO which is currently orbiting Jupiter –  you can see that the GRF had already started to change in February and is literally "flowing out".

This development is now so advanced that it can easily be spotted by astro-amateurs on Earth. Our customer Clyde Foster from South Africa provided us with the following images, taken with Celestron Edge HD 14 and Baader LRGB filters. The red material flows like an arc out of the GRS (which is actually a storm area).

The Great Red Spot is a high pressure area and the largest storm in the solar system that has existed for at least 350 years. Changes to the GRF are nothing new. It has shrunk considerably over the centuries (from three times the size of the earth to earth-size), occasionally it even becomes "pale" orange. However, noone has ever seen such a behaviour before and therefore it can't be predicted what will happen.

Calibrated images acquired with C11 XTL f/10 OTA and Baader IR-Pass Filter & RGB-Filter (Thanks you Giovanni Quarra & Maurizio Caponera).

Jupiter mit Baader FilterJupiter mit C11 XTL und Baader Filter

Tips for observation and photography

Even with relatively small telescopes (from about 114mm opening, ) and magnifications of around 200x to 250x the GRS and its new "edge", which looks like an eyebrow, should be visually and photographically visible

For more details, e.g. of the "flowing out", telescopes from 200mm opening (C8) are needed. Our Neodymium Moon- and Skyglow Filter is a great help for observation because it enhances red tones. The spot then "jumps" into your eye.

Baader FlipMirror II

  FlipMirror II (BFM II) Star Diagonal (#2458055 , € 228,- )

If you like to observe and take pictures at the same time, our new Baader FlipMirror II (available from July) not only saves you the constant change of eyepiece and camera, but also helps to center the planet exactly on the camera.

More Infos on the Baader FlipMirror II