Jupiter and her moons

[Kirkus]

I'm posting this here because it's a question about the attachment rather than just a display.

I captured this last night... Jupiter and 4 of her moons (I believe - Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto).

I had to blow the tar out of my exposure to capture the moons, but I've noticed several photos of Jupiter and her moons where the planet itself shows good exposure. Are these taken with much higher end cameras maybe?

[iceman]

Hi Kirkus

Yes, if the camera is more sensitive it will pick up the faint moons more easily.

With my DMK at the focal length I use, Callisto (the dimmest of the 4) is quite faint but can still be picked up. It's usually lightened a tad in post processing using levels or curves.

Another option for you is to make 2 avi's - 1 correctly exposing Jupiter and 1 where Jupiter is overexposed so you pick up the moon. Process them independently, and make a composite of the two in photoshop or similar.
That's not an uncommon technique.

[Kirkus]

Thank you Mike. I thought it was the limitations of the camera.

I considered composing two separate processed images, but I thought maybe that was breaking the rules. LOL. I'm still learning.

Thanks again!

[iceman]

No breaking the rules there.. pretty much all astrophotography is a piece of art - processed in many ways to look pleasing to the eye, or to highlight a feature of interest.

Making a composite is perfectly fine.

Even when I capture both the moon and Jupiter in the same FOV, I process them separately because they can require different treatment.

[Dennis]

Just a teeny, weenie, minor nit pickin' detail – isn’t Jupiter a him!:whistle:;)
Cheers

Dennis

[Matty P]

That's what I thought. :lol:

[Kirkus]

I don't know. I looked for the obvious sign(s) but the seeing wasn't very good.

:eyepop: