Jupiter | Three Galilean Moons | 7 May 2017

The clear evening sky offered a view of our Moon with Jupiter nearby as shown at left. Near sunset we set up the telescope and camera on tripods for closer looks. Good seeing allowed a photograph of Jupiter showing a few cloud bands as well as 3 of the 4 Galilean Moons. Ganymede was at the upper right. Europa and Io were to the lower left. Callisto was visible farther to the lower left in the telescope view. But, it didn’t show in this photo.

Usually, setting the exposure for Jupiter detail underexposes the Galilean moons and makes them not visible. Setting exposure to show the Galilean moons overexposes Jupiter. This time was a compromise.

Canon PowerShot SX60HS, ISO = 100, Shutter = 1/25s, Raw

Screenshot view via Stellarium

 

4 thoughts on “Jupiter | Three Galilean Moons | 7 May 2017

  1. Interesting post Jim and great shots. It is always amazing to see our moon and Jupiter close together, but it is very difficult to get a good shot of them. Regarding, photographing Jupiter and it’s moons; you could take several exposures. For example, one of Jupiter and other exposures for the moons. They then could be layered in photoshop to reveal both Jupiter and it’s moons properly exposed. Kind of an HDR effect. I have done this to reveal several meteors in a single photo over a time lapse, although I am certainly no expert. Great post! Bob

      • I’ll second the suggestion. I’ve occasionally used the technique not for exposures but in cases where I can’t get all the important details in focus at the same time. For example, the other day I photographed a bug on a flower. In one frame I got the bug clearly in focus while in another frame the bug was a bit out of focus but the flower was sharp. I manually copied the sharp bug from one frame and pasted it onto the blurry bug in the other the frame, adjusting the size and position of the pasted piece to fit as closely as possible onto its out-of-focus counterpart.

  2. Great capture of the Moon and Jupiter together. I had the same idea as you Sunday night, with similar pictures. Hoping to post the best one later in the week.

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