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Solar System Images

All the solar system images I took from my backyard observatory through my telescopes. Solar System objects include everything that orbits the sun, the eight (nine?) other planets, the moon, comets and asteroids or minor planets. The planet images are taken with a video camera that takes many frames per second of the planet for several minutes. Each individual frame is graded for sharpness automatically. The best images are then stacked to provide a final image far sharper than the best image from the video. Planets are small, I use a Televue Powermate to multiply the image to make the planet larger. The atmosphere becomes a huge problem, and the planet bounces all around the frame. It is very difficult to get a good planet image. The moon is difficult because it is so bright. My main camera doesn’t like anything that is very bright, the brightness floods the pixels and overflows into the next pixel and makes a mess of the image. My main camera also doesn’t take very short exposures, a tenth of a second is the shortest. That is pretty long for the bright moon. I hope you enjoy these solar system images!

Click on the below text description for a larger version and picture details…