This was my first serious attempt at capturing Jupiter and its four largest moons. These were first seen by Galileo, are often known as the Galilean Moons, and helped establish celestial motions independent of Earth in support of the controversial (at the time) Copernican theory. Jupiter is so bright that it proves difficult to get both the planet and its moons since you have to boost the exposure to image the relatively dimmer moons. The solution was to take two sets of exposures, one for Jupiter and one for the moons. After that, it's a matter of overlaying the two to create a composite image.
All told, Jupiter had 80 moons with 57 having official names with another 23 awaiting official naming. Of the four shown above, Ganymede is the largest and exceeds the size of the planet mercury.
Photo Details
Celestron 7" Mak-Cas on CGEMII Mount
ZWO ASI178MM
SharpCap - 8 Bit Mono through RGB filters
Image Stacking in AutoStakkert
Adjustments in Registax 6
Final Adjustments in Photoshop
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