Space Shots

Last night the moon was near full and floating beautifully above our house, so I decided to go out and try to take some pictures of it. I've done this before, of course, usually ending up with shots that look like a light bulb in a dark room. So I read up a little on how to "shoot the moon" and headed out.

Of course, everything I read suggested a lens with at least a 300mm zoom. But as I only have the two lenses for my D60, and I can only zoom up to 200mm, I just wanted to get the best shots I could.

So after some test shots, I ended up with these...

That I cropped and enlarged into these...

Jupiter, meanwhile, was hovering just south of the moon. Although I knew full well that my little 200mm lens wouldn't be able to shoot the great storm on Jupiter, I thought I'd snap a few shots and see what came up.  When I zoomed in while still outside, I saw this...

I thought I might be getting some sort of weird contamination from the house, so I moved away a little and re-shot...

OK, maybe the lens was dirty. Clean that off and re-shoot again...

Alright. Something is there, but I can't hold the camera still enough freehand, so I got the tripod and shot again...

I wondered if they were stars beyond Jupiter or maybe UFO's. I know there are moons around Jupiter, and these certainly looked like sunlight reflecting off of planets. But could my camera actually get pictures of Jupiter's moons???

Apparently the answer is YES!  Those four little splotches of light are - from left to right - Ganymede, Calypso, Io and Europa! I, of course, was totally geeked about this find, and am hoping one day to get a bigger lens!

I'm such a nerd.

More Later