r/ImaginaryStarscapes

Space.......

Digital painting of the giant planet Jupiter as it may have appeared in the 1880s or so in approximately true color. This was based on a number of sources from the 1880s and 1890s, and is sort of a hybridized view of about a decade or two of Jovian sketches and early photography.

At this time, the famous planet-sized hurricane, the Great Red Spot, was a few decades old and very very large. It has been shrinking ever since then, and is now less than a third of the size it was in the 1880s.

The reference used contained, as well as modern imagery, the historical photographs: A.A. Common in London in 1879 and Lick Observatory in 1890. As well, the historical drawings: a cartoonishly exaggerated drawing by Étienne Trouvelot on 1880 November 1, and a more restrained and realistic sketch by Thomas Elger in November 1881.

The positions of the moons and their shadows is based on the evening of 1880 November 1, a few hours after Trouvelot's drawing, although the features depicted are a hybrid spanning the 1880s-90s.

License: CC-BY 4.0. Attribute to Luna Rose Brannon or Whirligig-Girl.

^(As always, this was drawn digitally by hand using a Huion tablet and the software Firealpaca. No a.i. generated imagery was used in this image whatsoever.)