Using DeTeCt to detect and image impacts on Jupiter and Saturn
The impact of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 into Jupiter in 1994 was widely observed by amateur and professional astronomers. More recently, amateur astronomers have been successful in detecting impacts on Jupiter using modest equipment coupled with software analysis of video recordings of Jupiter. While the 1994 impacts were from kilometer sized comet fragments, the size of the more recent impacts resulted from bodies between 5 – 500 m. By comparison, the 2013 airburst in Chelyabinsk was produced by a ~20 m object which yielded 400-500 kilotons of TNT.
An understanding of the rates of impacts into Jupiter and their destructive potential will help our understanding of how often such impacts might occur on Earth and what their effect might be.
I use the DeTeCt software written by Marc Delcroix, to detect any possible impacts on Jupiter and Saturn.
You can download the latest version of DeTeCt here.
The site also shows users and the total amount of imaging time that has been analysed.