Jupiter is one of the most stunning objects in the night sky, and while it is relatively close to us are far as objects in space go, it is still a mind-bogglingly far distance from our home planet, making it a real challenge to photograph. This neat video goes behind the scenes to show the process an astrophotographer went through to get a photo of the biggest planet.
Coming to you from Astro Backyard, this fascinating video shows the process of taking an image of Jupiter. Jupiter was recently in opposition with Earth (meaning our planet had passed between it and the sun) and was near its closest distance to our planet, which made it especially large and bright in the night sky, ideal for photographing it. But even at its closest, it is still about 600 million km (373 million miles away), a distance that is hard to fathom and that makes it a real challenge to image. In fact, for this shot, it took 10,000 frames taken through a Celestron Edge HD 11 telescope with a planetary imaging camera, from which the best 3,000 frames were selected and combined to create a single final photo! It is certainly a ton of work, but seeing the result must be tremendously satisfying. Check out the video above to see what it took.
Honestly I would have expected far more detail out of an 11"
Could be the seeing and latitude? He is further north. Here in FL (no jet stream) I’ve been seeing great planetary images lately from 9.25’s !