Back to Home

Astronomy Discussion Forums

Forums: Atm · Astrophotography · Blackholes · Blackholes2 · CCD · Celestron · Domes · Education
Eyepieces · Meade · Misc. · God and Science · SETI · Software · UFO · XEphem
RSS Button

Home | Discussion Forums
Login

Be the first pioneers to continue the Astronomy Discussions at our new Astronomy meeting place...
The Space and Astronomy Agora
Yes And No

Forum List | Follow Ups | Post Message | Back to Thread Topics | In Response To
Posted by Daniel Johnson on May 21, 2003 11:43:49 UTC

It is now possible to use amateur scopes to make photos of planets showing more detail than can be seen with the eye alone--dozens or hundreds of frames are averaged digitally, with web cameras or ordinary digital cameras being the devices used. However, I have seen the Red Spot many times. I have seen the shadow of Io as a crisp, round disk on the face of Jupiter, with the moons themselves just barely spherical (as opposed to point-like) on the very best nights (they are at the lower end of size for visible spherical shape with amateur scopes of 8 inches or larger). The Cassini division of Saturn's rings is easily visible, and at times a subtle band or two on the planet itself is there.
By the way, don't buy your scope from a local dealer. Either Astronomics.com or OPTcorp.com will give you good service, friendly advice, and a much lower price.
Get a scope of 8 or 10 inch aperture if you can afford it. See my recent posts on this topic in the miscellaneous (general) category of this forum. I personally take some very nice photos of Jupiter with my 10-inch Meade LX200 GPS.

Follow Ups:

    Login to Post
    Additional Information
    Google
     
    Web www.astronomy.net
    DayNightLine
    About Astronomy Net | Advertise on Astronomy Net | Contact & Comments | Privacy Policy
    Unless otherwise specified, web site content Copyright 1994-2024 John Huggins All Rights Reserved
    Forum posts are Copyright their authors as specified in the heading above the post.
    "dbHTML," "AstroGuide," "ASTRONOMY.NET" & "VA.NET"
    are trademarks of John Huggins