Playing with astrophotography

One of the easiest subjects to photograph in the night sky is the Moon. Everyone knows where it is, and it looks large and bright from the earth(well, unless it is in the new moon phase).

Yesterday, Jupiter was passing close to the Moon, as seen from the Earth.

I tried to get a close up of Jupiter and the Moon in the same frame, but the brightness of the Moon was overexposing the photograph.

When I properly exposed the Moon, Jupiter was not very visible.

I could have used HDR techniques here to merge differently exposed photos into a single one that had Jupiter and the Moon properly exposed, but I changed my mind and started focusing on Jupiter alone.

Removing the Moon from the frame allowed me to gather more light from Jupiter and its surroundings, and that’s when four other objects appeared in my picture.

Checking with Stellarium, I confirmed that these objects were Europa, Io, Ganymede, and Callisto. They are the four largest moons of Jupiter!.

I never thought that I would be able to photograph the moons of Jupiter from the Earth using my own camera, but there they are!.

Here is the previous photo aligned with the simulated sky from Stellarium. Cool!