jupiter and moons

jupiter and moons
Jupiter is rising early these days, the brightest object in the night sky besides the moon. I mounted my 70-200mm on a tripod, and though it’s not what I’d call a functional astrophotography setup, I love that I was able to get a clean shot of several of Jupiter’s moons.

This image is very heavily cropped. 200mm did not get me very close to Jupiter. Even still, this little white blob is about 300 times the mass of Earth.

It reminds me a bit of an opportunity I had in college to visit a radio telescope observatory. They had some optical telescopes, much more powerful than anything I’d ever played with at home, and Saturn was visible the night we were there. It’s honestly one of the most amazing things you could hope to see: this unimaginably giant planet, with pale desaturated brown and tan bands and huge wide rings, with bright little moons hanging next to it, the whole thing tiny but crystal clear in the eyepiece.

I wish I lived in a place where light pollution didn’t drown out everything dimmer than a low-flying airplane. The actual beauty of these planets seen in person — naked eye or telescope — is completely unlike anything else. The sense of distance, uncrossable distance, is profound and I think quite necessary.