A VLT snapshot of Jupiter

The image is of the giant planet Jupiter, obtained through a narrow optical filter with the VLT Test Camera at UT1 Nasmyth Focus A on October 31, 1998, at 02:06:01.0 UT in the morning. It looks somewhat different from most other published images because of the special passband. Just before the observation, Jupiter's large inner moon Io had begun to pass in front of Jupiter's disk (bright spot at the lower left). The bands in the atmosphere are well visible, also in this narrow-band image and the "Great Red Spot" is at the right edge in the main southern band. At this time, Jupiter was 636 million km from the Earth and the angular diameter was about 45 arcsec.