My first (blurry) image of Jupiter, zoomed in 6x!

[RogueMason]

I got this picture of Jupiter last night with my camera through my telescope:

I think it's the first time I've caught all four Galileans visible at the same time, which is pretty awesome. Naturally, the camera doesn't get the clearest of images when you're taking them by holding the lens up to the eyepiece of the telescope, but this is still one of my better pictures of Jupiter.

I also got my best picture of the Moon thus far last week, again through my telescope:

I almost got to look at Venus a few weeks ago, too, but I only noticed it as I was walking home from university, and I was just too late in getting the telescope out; the planet decided to hide behind the trees

[-Velocity-]

Registax er.. something I believe the program is called. I have it, but I've yet to learn it. Like I said ive been neglecting planetary imaging. But its time to switch to over from DSO's. My skies are on the border of yellow and red on the pollution scale.

Fyi everyone.. light pollution does NOT impact planetary views ( excluding Neptune and Uranus ). The light from planets is so bright and concentrated light pollution takes no effect. Infact the best ameture photos I've seen of Jupiter were takin from major cities on roof tops. Stable air is what makes for good planetary views. And apparently the air is more stable year round in a city then in a rural area. Believe it or not lol. I'm getting this information from both personal experience and a backyard astronomy text book. Where it also states its very possible to view Jupiters moons with the naked eye.

But light pollution WILL affect your ability to see any moons of Jupiter naked-eye.

Also, I don't know where you got that information about the air actually being steadier in cities. It is probably on average, LESS steady in cities, though it might depend on the time of night, and there are likely to be a lot of places in the city where your views are just fine. You want to be away from large objects radiating a lot of heat into the air. If you're looking over the rooftop of a heated home or building, your views will be terrible. Likewise, if you are set up on the top of a building that is heated significantly above or below ambient temperature, or on a still-warm, asphalt parking lot, your views will suffer as well. Basically, if you're in a city, you're more likely to encounter the types of objects that will mess up your views.

[K^2]

I might be completely off on this, but cities might work like a really large karst spring in terms of updraft. If you've seen one of these, the water is really choppy near the boundaries, but pretty smooth in the center, because while there is significant flow, it's very uniform.

The way I'm picturing this with upper atmosphere is that outside the city, temperatures are varied, but overall, fairly constant. So small variations in local temperature will result in many small, fractured convection cells, which gives you a very choppy atmosphere above. In the city, you still get that, but this variation in temperature is nothing compared to the huge difference between city temperature and suburban temperature. So individual contributions from parking lots and buildings might be getting lost in the massive updraft generated by the whole city. This might result in pretty consistent atmosphere above. After all, it's not the wind velocity that causes distortion, but variations in density. And I can at least see how a city might reduce these.

[Tommygun]

Well I got it to work, but not good enough for Jupiter.

I think I'm having Parallax problems and other issues with the lenses not being at true 90 degree angles to the stick.

I'm seeing a lot of rainbow effects in the image. It should be good enough for the Moon and it magnifies quite well.

On a side note: I live about a quarter mile from a runway of a small commercial airport. I'm standing outside with a "telescope" over one shoulder to aim it and pointing it up at the sky.

Then it slowly dawns on me.......this thing looks a lot like a SA-7.......maybe I shouldn't do this in the middle of the day.

Edited December 23, 2013 by Tommygun

[Motokid600]

I might be completely off on this, but cities might work like a really large karst spring in terms of updraft. If you've seen one of these, the water is really choppy near the boundaries, but pretty smooth in the center, because while there is significant flow, it's very uniform.

The way I'm picturing this with upper atmosphere is that outside the city, temperatures are varied, but overall, fairly constant. So small variations in local temperature will result in many small, fractured convection cells, which gives you a very choppy atmosphere above. In the city, you still get that, but this variation in temperature is nothing compared to the huge difference between city temperature and suburban temperature. So individual contributions from parking lots and buildings might be getting lost in the massive updraft generated by the whole city. This might result in pretty consistent atmosphere above. After all, it's not the wind velocity that causes distortion, but variations in density. And I can at least see how a city might reduce these.

Pretty much hit the nail on the head. While there are local areas of bad seeing in the city you have to dodge. Overall the seeing can better in the upper atmosphere because of the columb of warm air rising off the entire city. And if your inside this columb then you can achieve some of the best planetary views on the planet.

[GJames]

On a side note: I live about a quarter mile from a runway of a small commercial airport. I'm standing outside with a "telescope" over one shoulder to aim it and pointing it up at the sky.

It then it slowly dawns on me.......this thing looks a lot like a SA-7.......maybe I shouldn't do this in the middle of the day.

http://i.imgur.com/iKXIXQC.jpg

What you should do is attach a laser pen to the side of it and point it around. There's no way that could be misunderstood...

[Motokid600]

Well I got it to work, but not good enough for Jupiter.

I think I'm having Parallax problems and other issues with the lenses not being at true 90 degree angles to the stick.

I'm seeing a lot of rainbow effects in the image. It should be good enough for the Moon and it magnifies quite well.

On a side note: I live about a quarter mile from a runway of a small commercial airport. I'm standing outside with a "telescope" over one shoulder to aim it and pointing it up at the sky.

Then it slowly dawns on me.......this thing looks a lot like a SA-7.......maybe I shouldn't do this in the middle of the day.

http://i.imgur.com/iKXIXQC.jpg

I bet I can guess what's on your Christmas list lol.

[GDJ]

Well I got it to work, but not good enough for Jupiter.

I think I'm having Parallax problems and other issues with the lenses not being at true 90 degree angles to the stick.

I'm seeing a lot of rainbow effects in the image. It should be good enough for the Moon and it magnifies quite well.

On a side note: I live about a quarter mile from a runway of a small commercial airport. I'm standing outside with a "telescope" over one shoulder to aim it and pointing it up at the sky.

Then it slowly dawns on me.......this thing looks a lot like a SA-7.......maybe I shouldn't do this in the middle of the day.

http://i.imgur.com/iKXIXQC.jpg

Your lenses that you have are not colour corrected in all 3 major wavelengths (i.e. not achromatic). Basically that means that you are using single element lenses, and all 3 major wavelengths are refracting in different amounts.

You're on the right track for a basic telescope, but your objective lens (big one) needs to be a minimum 2 element lens. That will help quite a bit with the colour correction.

[K^2]

On a side note: I live about a quarter mile from a runway of a small commercial airport. I'm standing outside with a "telescope" over one shoulder to aim it and pointing it up at the sky.

Then it slowly dawns on me.......this thing looks a lot like a SA-7.......maybe I shouldn't do this in the middle of the day.

Walking though the neighborhood after sundown with a telescope to get to a place with good view of the sky can also look all sorts of wrong. I'm pretty sure that's an immutable hazard of amateur astronomy.

[78stonewobble]

Nice pictures, even the blurry ones...

I've only gotten a glimpse of jupiter through a pair of handheld binoculars once, maaaybe even a glimps of one of the moons, but I have terribly unsteady hands for that sort of thing. So that will have to wait for a telescope.

[Sun]

I really wish the sky was clear enough recently to get a good view of Saturn through my telescope.

Said telescope:

A Celestron Power-Seeker 60AZ.