Jupiter is beautifully placed in the southern sky at midnight just now, with no moon to spoil the show. You might remember my previous effort to capture it was not a great success. Since then, I’ve picked up a new x2 magnifier for my scope. (Called a “Barlow” in telescope-speak.) I got it for £20 on Ebay, which I consider a bit of a bargain. I’ve no idea if it was responsible for any improvements. There are a myriad of factors that can affect a picture on any one night. But here are the old and the new compared, with the new picture on the right.
This isn’t what you actually see through the telescope. It’s heavily cropped. The original picture looks more like this. This is a 1/60s exposure at iso 1600.
I don’t normally save “raw” images on the camera. But that night I accidentally had that option switched on, and I’m glad I did. Just a reminder, most images on the web are jpeg type files, or similar. These are compressed images. But the compression algorithm is lossy, it doesn’t preserve all the original information. All the images you see above are based on jpeg originals.
This can work very well for every day pictures in bright light. However, for high magnifications, every bit of detail is important. Raw images save every bit that is captured by the camera. And what a difference it makes. Here they are compared, with the raw image on the right.
As you can see, there’s a lot more detail in the raw compared to the jpeg image. This feeds through the image processing. I took a dozen images in rapid succession and stacked them using my favourite photo processing program, called “Siril”. This is the result (raw on the right).
And here’s that final image close up.
Given the cheap equipment, and basic processing, I’m fairly chuffed with this.
Having said that, Jupiter is by far the easiest planet to photograph. More massive than all the other planets combined, and able to swallow 1,000 earths whole, it presents an easy profile to photograph in the night sky. Mars is tiny in comparison, Saturn is much further away, and Venus is just a featureless, cloudy blob. Initial attempts to photograph them haven’t been an outstanding success so far. I’ll let you know if my efforts improve.
Meanwhile, back in the Andromeda galaxy. No telescope this time, just an old Carl Zeiss lens I found in the cupboard, This was only a brief test, iso 3200 4s x28, so under2 mins total exposure. Based on the result, this might be worth playing with a bit more.
Platitude of the Day 
Thanks again for some nice photos, Peter. Keep experimenting!
When I was a small boy (and the nights were a lot darker than they are now), someone pointed out the Andromeda Galaxy to me, and observed that it is the furthest object that it is possible to see with the naked eye. That made a great impression on me at the time. It still does.
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“When I was a small boy (and the nights were a lot darker than they are now), someone pointed out the Andromeda Galaxy to me, and observed that it is the furthest object that it is possible to see with the naked eye.”
Sadly, despite trying very hard, I don’t think I’ve ever seen it with just my eyes. Maybe one day I’ll holiday in a place with a nice dark sky.
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For am absolutely astonishing picture of Jupiter, taken a few weeks before, have a look at this photo from Damian Peach.
https://www.damianpeach.com/jup24.htm
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Yes, you should definitely be shooting raw images for the reasons you mentioned. However, raw images need further processing to make them usable – black point, white point, contrast, saturation, sharpness, and on and on.
it all sounds complicated, but really it isn’t. Have a look on YouTube and you can find lots of tutorials.
Once you get a feel for it you can create preset recipes you can apply to all of your shots.
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Aha! I thought there was a proper astrophotographer around here somewhere. Just one of the many reasons I’ve been hesitant about posting some of my embarrassing efforts.
Thanks for the encouragement. I’ll certainly look up some of those videos.
Any chance to a link to some of your work?
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No, not an astrophotographer, but I do have an advanced diploma in photography. I’ve never photographed the sky with my proper camera but I will certainly have to give it a go.
I had a go at photographing the Milky Way with my phone though. I did it as a joke, but was surprised at the results. I was in the middle of the Nullarbor Plain with absolutely no light pollution. And I tweaked the image to enhance the false colours created by the very low light levels.
Incidentally, all the settings I talked about in the first post are available on my iPhone.
I’ll try to think of a way to show them to you. Stay tuned.
Cheers, Neil
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The view of the night sky from that part of the world must be absolutely incredible. I’d very much like to see the photo you took.
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And here’s one of Neil’s pics. Taken with a phone!
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I recently unearthed a 10″ Celestron reflector and stand that had been dumped in the caretaker’s garage. It needs about £150 spending on it to get it serviceable but as no one is showing any interest, it remains on a shelf gathering dust.
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Philip, if you contact a local astronomy club I’m sure they would be very happy to restore a 10″ telescope. If you message me using the contact link at the top of the page then I might be able to help.
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