Well, I now say "Eppure Egli Ruota" inspired by this...
I took a picture of Jupiter; not a normal picture, though!.. In between the telescope and the sensor there was a weird light-wasting gadget capable of spreading wavelengths of light along one direction of the focal plane.. Science guys refer to it as a "Spectroscope"!..
The thing is it has enough resolution in picking out different wavelengths to actually reveal the Doppler effect on "stuff" moving at sufficiently fast speeds and in adequate directions. Here is what you get when pointing the slit spectrograph to Jupiter:
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The inclination of the lines is intrinsically related to the speed at which the planet is turning. Calculating it only roughly, gives me a value between 8 km/s and 10 km/s that is a bit below Wikipedia's mentioned speed of 12.6 km/s. I did not have a special care in aligning the slit with Jupiter' equator, so this is well expected!
So, this Ziggy-zaggy picture is, actually, one other way of "seeing" Jupiter from Earth.. Here, Jupiter is not round-looking, it seems quite still.. Yet, "he" turns!
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