I wanted to see how much photography I could do with a simple digital camera, a carton toilet roll to hold it in place and a very simple video camera. It was quite fun setting everything up, finding Jupiter, aligning my telescope and then trying to film Jupiter and take pictures of the giant.
My telescope is a simple Celestron SLX 130, which is a dream starter telescope that is very easy to use. I still believe that it was one of the best purchases that I have ever made. I have a Fujifilm Finepix S5600 camera that has taken fantastic photographs over the last 7-8 years that I have owned it but has never taken a picture of a planet so is just as inexperienced as me. The final devise is my Canon MV750i digital video camera. I also tried to use my helmet came because it fitted better into my make shift camera holder but all it took was Jupiter and I could not see the moons.
My original plan was to take pictures of Jupiter for the week leading up to the 19th and for a week after the 19th so that I could see how Jupiter moves into its stationary position and then out retrograde motion. I know the theory behind retrograde motion but I have never tried to photograph it. The plan did not work due to the cloud cover all week until Sunday the 21st. On the 21st I was so excited to test out my equipment that I took the photos even thought the even that I wanted to follow had passed.
The first thing that I did once I had setup my telescope was look for Jupiter which was very easy since it is so bright and very hard to miss. Then I aligned the telescope and spent a good 30min to hour just staring at the amazing planet. I could see the 4 Galilean satellites clearly with Io on the one side of Jupiter and Ganymede, Europa and Callisto on the other. I didn’t waste too much time with my helmet cam because I don’t have an LCD attached to it so I could not see if I was filming anything. Once I had finished with my helmet cam I took my Canon Video camera out and tried to film Jupiter. It was not easy, I tried with my 25mm lens and then the 5mm lens and I really struggled to track Jupiter but I did take some clips which are attached. I had better success with my Fujifilm Digital Camera where most of the pictures came out well enough to see Jupiter and the four Galilean moons. The pictures were slightly blurred and you could see that my telescope was vibrating when I pressed the shutter button.
I have placed the various photos on this blog and I have also added photos where I inverted the Black and white colours. The inverted photos show a lot more detail of what I took. Unfortunately my photos do not show the great red spot and the atmospheric bands that I could see when I looked through the telescope. I have to learn how to create longer exposures with my camera to see if I can get any more detail and I have to get a couple of filters to see how they change my photos. Next time I get a clear sky I will take photos of the moon and see how those photos come out.
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