Moon - Jupiter - Saturn

With another clear night, I wanted to try to get the three main things of interest that were out tonight - the Moon, Jupiter, and Saturn - at the same scale. These three images are cropped horizontally to fit the page, but are full-frame vertically. These were taken with my Nikon D5500 mounted on an extension tube, with a Kenko 1.4x TC, on my Meade ETX 125 Telescope, which I have mounted on an Orion SkyView motorized mount, The extension tube and 1.4x TC give it a focal length of 3234mm (or 10 feet, 7.3 inches). With the 1.5 crop factor of my camera, the combination has a 35mm equivalent of 4851mm! (And that's equal to a 15.92 foot telescope! Wow!) That would be a LONG, skinny refractor, with just a 5 inch diameter lens! It's hard to imagine all that crammed into a telescope that's only 18 inches long, including the extension tube!

Jupiter's four largest moons, Io, Ganymede, Europa, and Callisto, are in the picture with it, listed left to right, but you have to look carefully to see them all. It also includes the Great Red Spot, but I'm not sure you can see it at this scale.

Nice presentation!

By the way, nothing wrong with F25, as long as it's appropriate for your pixel size for best sampling in the context of lunar, planetary, & solar. Sometimes you have to slow the focal-ratio to achieve best sampling.

Very best,

beautiful!

Nice captures Roy ! Very nice to see some planet images .

Thanks, guys - I appreciate the comments.

Roy