Jupiter is at opposition tonight, meaning Earth is directly between it and the Sun, it is also as close in its orbit as it has been in 59 years, and will be for decades more. Next to Jupiter are the four Galilean moons, from left to right: Ganymede, Europa, Io and Callisto.
A lot of careful planning went into this shot, that was taken 1.5 miles away from the barn which sits high on a mountain ridge outside of Charlottesville, Virginia. I used a Celestron EdgeHD 9.25" telescope with a Sony A7rIII camera, which made the focal length 2350mm. (For non-photographers, that's about 4 times as much reach as most large telephoto lenses you'll see at sporting events). At that length I had to plan my exact position as the tolerances are very small -- the app PhotoPro was very helpful in this regard.
Forced perspective photos like this often make folks wonder if it was just photoshopped together, but that’s not the case here. You can check out a short video I made showing the set-up and images from the back of the camera as they came in on my Instagram page: @brennangilmorephoto
red_west_la on September 27th, 2022 at 01:48 UTC »
That's really close. Don't get much closer or else Jupiter's gravity will suck the roof right off of that barn.
MrJackDog on September 27th, 2022 at 01:49 UTC »
Jupiter is at opposition tonight, meaning Earth is directly between it and the Sun, it is also as close in its orbit as it has been in 59 years, and will be for decades more. Next to Jupiter are the four Galilean moons, from left to right: Ganymede, Europa, Io and Callisto.
A lot of careful planning went into this shot, that was taken 1.5 miles away from the barn which sits high on a mountain ridge outside of Charlottesville, Virginia. I used a Celestron EdgeHD 9.25" telescope with a Sony A7rIII camera, which made the focal length 2350mm. (For non-photographers, that's about 4 times as much reach as most large telephoto lenses you'll see at sporting events). At that length I had to plan my exact position as the tolerances are very small -- the app PhotoPro was very helpful in this regard.
Forced perspective photos like this often make folks wonder if it was just photoshopped together, but that’s not the case here. You can check out a short video I made showing the set-up and images from the back of the camera as they came in on my Instagram page: @brennangilmorephoto
Cockrocker on September 27th, 2022 at 07:07 UTC »
Regardless of distance from barn and zoom, I’m surprised that the moons could ever look so far away from Jupiter