Ah yes, another good night for stargazing and astrophotography. Slightly hazy, often actually helps as it means the atmosphere is calm.
Without further ado I present my trophy pictures for the night. The first is of the lovely triangle formed by Venus (top), Jupiter (bottom left) and the Moon.
Unfortunately because Venus is so far up, this is zoomed-out far enough that the moons of Jupiter are not visible. Still a really nice shot, I think, especially getting all three objects within the dynamic range of a single exposure.
Zooming then – and helpfully using auto-focus on the moon, often a good trick when the moon is up – got this image off of the Moon and Jupiter being nice and close. Again this is from a single exposure, I like seeing the disk of the moon, I also like that this image displays objects so disparate in brightness as two of Jupiter’s Galilean moons and the moon, whilst retaining details (craters on the day/night border) on the moon. This would be my favourite shot of this night, despite Venus not being in it.
For those too lazy to zoom in fully, here’s tonight’s close-up of Jupiter, this time only two moons visible, grmpf, lol two moons are easily visible below Jupiter: Ganymede closest and Callisto further out, and as I was informed by Stellarium, the two tiny tiny specks just top left of Jupiter (!) are, in fact, the other two moons, Europa just a little to the left of Io. Intat amayzing? I think so!
I’ve got a set of around 40-odd photos, some may be good for stacking and making into a composite, ‘astro-HDR’-like image. Unfortunately, I don’t have time for that tonight. Also, tomorrow the moon should be close to Venus, so I’ll have another go at getting some nice shots – although Venus isn’t as interesting as Jupiter, having no moons and all that. But I will have a go at the remaining photos, watch this space! Until then, enjoy these :).