Jupiter and the four Galilean moons last night

StewartR

StewartR

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Stewart
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From left to right: Callisto, Io, Ganymede, Europa.

I really don't know what it's possible to achieve without a telescope, but I'm pretty happy with this as a first attempt.

18670818_1677514935607078_1649389246605395462_n.jpg
 
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Like WOW! Fantastic stuff, does your comment mean you did that without a telescope, if so do you mind me asking what kit you used?
 
Good stuff.

I tried it with my Sigma150-600 on my 7d2 and could not focus it at all, sat on a Manfrotto 055 and 410 Geared head, the vibrations from trying to manually focus were epic.

Going to try it with the EOS Utility and see if that can drive the focus over the USB.
 
sirch said:
Like WOW! Fantastic stuff, does your comment mean you did that without a telescope, if so do you mind me asking what kit you used?
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Nawty said:
Without a telescope? Wow!
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Byker28i said:
Wow Stewart, thats good. One of your big lenses and teleconvertors?
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Thanks guys.

Equipment:
  • Canon EF 600mm f/4 L IS II USM
  • Canon EF 2x Extender III
  • Canon EOS 7D Mark II
1200mm actual focal length, 1920mm full-frame equivalent. But it was still a tiny speck in the viewfinder. (The disc of Jupiter was <200 pixels across.)
 
AndyB1976 said:
I tried it with my Sigma150-600 on my 7d2 and could not focus it at all, sat on a Manfrotto 055 and 410 Geared head, the vibrations from trying to manually focus were epic.
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Yeah, focusing is hard. Fortunately at 1200mm the planet was large enough for me to be able to use autofocus - if/when I could get it onto the centre AF point, which was hard! But at 600mm I don't think it would be possible at all.

This won't help you for the next few days, but when the moon is out you can use it as an AF target. The difference between 400,000 km and 600,000,000 km is within the depth of field.
 
Wasn't there someone on PetaPixel a couple of years back who stacked several TC's and manually focussed, perhaps use live view?
 
Byker28i said:
Wasn't there someone on PetaPixel a couple of years back who stacked several TC's and manually focussed, perhaps use live view?
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You might be thinking of this:
https://petapixel.com/2010/12/21/extra-reach-for-shooting-the-moon/

But unfortunately they aren't telling the whole truth. They claim that the last image was taken using an 800mm lens and three stacked 2x extenders, but there's no way you could fit the whole moon in the frame at that focal length. It's not even close. You need a focal length of 2400mm to 2800mm (full frame equivalent) for the diameter of the moon to fill the frame, depending on where the moon is in its orbit; but they say that picture uses 800 x2 x2 x2 = 6400mm. Something clearly doesn't add up somewhere.


Meanwhile here's my colleague Richie in the office with a Canon 800mm lens and four stacked 2x extenders, for an actual focal length of 12800mm at f/91. We didn't try doing any astro stuff though. Perhaps we should...

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keety said:
nice, this was my attempt last night, similar setup, 150-600 + 1.4x and 5dmk3, used a sky watchers tracking mount


Jupiter with its moons Callisto, Ganymede,Europa and IO by Keety, on Flickr
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Ooh, that's very nice. Your Jupiter is a fair bit smaller than mine, obviously, but you've got much better definition in the cloud bands and even the red spot. I'm very impressed. How many shots did you take to produce that?
 
2... 1 for the moons and 1 for Jupiter...

I used live view 10* magnification to manually focus... i actualy found focusing fairly easy as when it wasnt focused correctly you couldnt see the moons, as soon as the focus was spot on the moons lit up! It was a pretty special feeling seeing Jupiter on the back of my camera!

Are you using a tracking mount or standard tripod?
 
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My monitor has always been quite sensitive to blacks - and am seeing a big square around Jupiter I think? But not sure if my screen shot will replicate it.... Maybe only those with heightened blacks can see it? If you have photoshopped in Jupiter to get a clearer image - you might need to increase your blacks a bit more to hide the outline of the square :)


tp1.jpg
 
Super Stuart..... That's a great example of what can be achieved without a scope..... But to be fair the 600mm lens probably costs more than any of my scopes on their own!!
 
cymruchris said:
My monitor has always been quite sensitive to blacks - and am seeing a big square around Jupiter I think?
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That wouldn't surprise me. Obviously the image I posted is a combination of two exposures, one for the planet and one for the moons. I can't remember the details, but they were definitely several stops apart. So then I've layered the two exposures, and the one with the planet is a lower exposure so the sky is a bit more black, but clearly I wasn't careful enough to equalise the black points. I'll have to fix that.
 
Had a few plays with the Fuji X-T2 + 100-400 and 2x telecon - 1200mm EFL IIRC. All fairly late at night after a considerable incohalic ontike... Not worth sharing, although when I get around to sorting them out, I might stick one in the P4P area - it shows what appears to be camera shake on one of the moons but must be a near conjunction of 2 since the other elements aren't (as!) blurred!
 
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