Photos of Jupiter

I was outside tonight looking to take a few shots of the comets in the western sky. No luck, but I happened to catch some blurry images of the moons of Jupiter. I saw four moons with only a 200 mm (don't think I had my doubler on).

Have any of you had any luck shooting Jupiter with one of the 400 "L" lenses (or bigger)? Curious how well they work for this kind of photography.

Any chance of a link to these photos? Must say, I have enough trouble with the Earth's moon and 400mm!

I have problems with 3040mm.
Focus is a real pain.

Photo of Jupiter Moons

They're not great, but I thought it was still pretty cool.

http://members.isp01.n​et/snevetsc/photos/jup​iter1.jpg

http://members.isp01.n​et/snevetsc/photos/jup​iter2.jpg

And, dang. I went to bed before the [edit] meteor came through last night.

Chazs wrote:
They're not great, but I thought it was still pretty cool.

http://members.isp01.n​et/snevetsc/photos/jup​iter1.jpg

http://members.isp01.n​et/snevetsc/photos/jup​iter2.jpg

And, dang. I went to bed before the comet came through last night.

That was a meterorite and they think it hit near Chehalis. What scope did you use for that? Too bad the tracking was off.

Jim. I took them with the DRebel, and a 200mm Olympus lens. The exposures were 2.5 seconds and 4 seconds using ISO 100. Tracking? I wish my tripod had tracking! Also, I may have used a doubler (an old vivitar) on these. If so, then it's about a 200(2)(1.6) = 640mm lens setup, or about a magnification of 13 power. I'll try some more tonight with higher ISO so the tracking isn't as noticeable.

You can't get any detail of the planet with regular lenses.. I imagine you'd need over 1000mm to even begin to see anything.

I've never tried with my 10D, but I did take some shots a year ago with my old Canon Pro90IS... It had an effective focal length of 480mm and I did the "digital zoom" thing by resampling the resulting photos X2 The 640x480 image attached was originally 320x240.

I combined two shots. I took a longer exposure to get the moons of jupiter properly exposed. Of course in that shot the planet was blown out.

Then I took a shorter exposure to get jupiter looking nicer.. I erased the blown out jupiter and put the nice one over top of where it was

It was just something to do

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Aaaaw, that's nice Jim. I'll have to try it. I have some photos from 1/30 of a second to 30 seconds. Anything beyond 5 seconds shows too much streaking, but I'll see if I can overlay two if the faster ones together. Looks like another clear night.

hmm, my only experience with a scope was ugly. i couldn't get it to focus at all. i guess that makes Jim's shot pretty good!

eric1

I use at least 7200mm and focusing was a real real pain.

Now I pre-focus using 'DSLR focus V2' plus a Haartman mask on a nearby star, then lock down the focuser and slew it toward Jupiter.
Now it is just a real pain.

Ken

We have a Meade scope and I have rigged a counter balance for the weight of the D60. Now I guess I can try the Mark II. Problem is, I need to rig a camera support. The Meade just isn't strong enough at the t-adapter connection to support a DSLR.
I have not bought the focuser for it, but I don't know if it would help. The Meade scope just has too much slop in the adjustments, slewing etc....

The Meade ETX T-adapter can barely handle the weight of a SLR camera in prime focus. With eyepiece projection (needed in photographing planets) you will end up with a much longer cantilever arm with the full weight of the camera hanging at the end of it all. The result is that T-adapter tends to flex and the fork mount clutch begin to slip. Plus the probability that the RA motor may not be able to handle all this weights and counter-weights. The higher magnification also makes the FOV much narrower. All these make locating and tracking just about impossible.
For photographing planets I use a 6" refractor with a 2" draw tube focuser on a HEQ5. The focuser is driven from a geared stepping motor extracted from an old Epson printer, giving very fine focusing movement. The whole assembly still droops a little after I attached the eyepiece projection tube + D60, but most of the time I can re-acquire a bright planet by nudging the camera around, then the real fun of trying to center and focus begins. Like I said before, it's a real pain.

Ken

You made me laugh..