Jupiter's Moons (Canon, d50, 400mm, lens)

[kdog]

I tried an experiment last night. I put my 400mm lens with a TC1.4X tele-extender on my Canon 40D and pointed it at Jupiter and snapped a couple of shots. Much to my surprise, you can see four of Jupiter's moons. Sure, Jupiter is blown out, but I exposed for the moons.


Then I pointed the rig at the Earth's moon which is a little closer.


Thanks for lookin'.

[mathjak107]

very cool!

[Fuzz]

Nice. If you expose for Jupiter, I'm sure you can get some detail.

This was one of my first attempts of Jupiter and its moons, taken with my D50 hooked up to my 8" telescope (essentially a 2000mm lens):


The biggest problem with shooting prime focus through the telescope (camera body is attached directly to scope sans lens) is focusing -- very hard to tell when the object is in focus.

[TN Tin Man]

Nice shots

[kdog]

Thanks, guys.

Fuzz, if you had a camera with Live View, that would solve your focus problem, right? I focused with Live View, but I used the moon as my focus target. The only way to get the moon and Jupiter exposed well together would be to take two shots and merge them.

I'd love to get a telescope. Just have to figure out which one.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by kdog

Fuzz, if you had a camera with Live View, that would solve your focus problem, right? I focused with Live View, but I used the moon as my focus target.

Partly, yes. The problem is, the telescope focuser is very soft, so it is very hard to be precise. I just got a Bahtinov mask, which is used for focusing in astrophotography -- will have to try it out next week. My D50 does not have LiveView, which is why I'm getting a 40D next week. I'm hoping the 10x LiveView coupled with the mask will help tremendously.

The only way to get the moon and Jupiter exposed well together would be to take two shots and merge them.

Yup, that's pretty much the only way to do it, although you'd be hard pressed to get much detail on the moons since they're so small.

I'd love to get a telescope. Just have to figure out which one.

Be ready for sleepless night! Although it is definitely worth it. There's not much that compares to seeing light that started 50 million light years away. I got the Celestron NexStar 8SE, which was a good compromise between aperture, price, and portability. For a good astronomy/stargazing resource, check out the forums at Telescope Reviews | Cloudy Nights -- lots of experts there.

Even without a telescope, you can shoot so much of the night sky. This was last night, D50 on a tripod in my backyard, pointing straight up at the sky. Six 60-sec exposures stacked with DeepSkyStacker:


This is a single shot of Andromeda Galaxy (113-sec exposure), again with the D50 on a tripod only:

[kdog]

Cool shots there, Fuzz. I thought anything over 10 seconds basically gave you star trails. But here you are doing 1 to 2 minute exposures and they look tack sharp. What's the secret?

Here's a shot I took several days ago, 13 seconds, F2.8, ISO3200 (!).

Of course this is a super-wide angle because I was trying to capture the milky way. I'll have to try some longer focal lengths.

That's a nice scope you have -- I looked it up. There are soooo many to choose from, it boggles the mind.

[Fuzz]

Nice shot of the Milky Way, kdog! My shots at ISO400 of the same part of the sky show way more noise:


IMHO trailing is overestimated. At wide-angle (18mm), I can get shots of up to 90 seconds without noticeable trailing. At longer zooms, trailing will become pronounced at much shorter exposures. At 200mm, I can barely do a few seconds without complete trailing.

For longer focal lengths, you have to track, either by attaching the camera to a telescope (sans lens) or by piggybacking on top of a telescope. The other option is to take very short exposures (to minimize trailing) and stack them (along with a dark frame) with software like DeepSkyStacker. If you took several more 13-sec exposures of that Milky Way shot and stacked them, you'd get a fantastic image.

Also, night sky images respond very well to some Curves adjustments in PS. I took your shot and applied a simple adjustment:

[Fuzz]

kdog, what lens are you using?

Check out this thread on CloudyNights for an amazing picture taken with Canon's 200mm f/2.8 lens.

[kdog]

Fuzz, for my long shots, I'm using the Canon 400mm F5.6. That milky way shot was using the Canon 16-35 F2.8. I have a mid-range F4 lens as well. I guess I should look into stacking. I'm assuming that if you double the amount of frames at any set speed, you effectively increase the exposure by 1 stop. Quadruple the frames, and I can turn my F5.6 into a F2.8. Does it work that way? So the stacking software corrects for the skew between frames? That some pretty trick stuff. I'll have to check it out.

That galaxy shot in that thread you pointed me to is pretty awesome. I'd love to be able to get shots like that. Canon makes a 400 F2.8 that would be killer in for this, but my wife would absolutely kill me. Besides, I should save that money for a telescope which she is encouraging. I'd love to be able to piggyback my camera on the scope, or take pictures through it.

Your noisy milky way shot still looks pretty good. Thanks for the tip on using curves on the star shot. I can't believe I didn't think of that, because I use curves on almost every other kind of shot I take. I did try it, and you can really bring out different aspects of the stars. Thanks again for all the info and advice!!