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Photography
by Sue Ellen and Tom Boyle
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Conjunction of Venus, Jupiter, Moon
January 25, 2012
Bruce Peninsula, Ontario, Canada

Sunday evening we went out on the flats near Barrrow Bay to view the western sky and took a few photographs to experiment with some camera settings. The air temperatature was about -3 C and winds were gusting to 25km/h

Nikon D 7000 f/8 2.5sec ISO-100 18mm

Nikon D 7000 f/8 2.5sec ISO-100 58mm

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Conjunction of Venus, Jupiter, Moon
January 26, 2012
Bruce Peninsula, Ontario, Canada

The following evening we went out again to the same location as above and found the the conjunction was too high in the sky to repeat the composition so we retreated to a clearing nearby. The air temperature was about -4 C and the winds were light.

Nikon D 7000 f/3.8 1/10sec ISO-1600 21mm
Bruce Peninsula Dark Sky Photograph

Jupiter was just visible below the conjunction of Venus and the Moon

Nikon D 7000 f/4.5 1/4sec ISO-1600 35mm
Bruce Peninsula Dark Sky Photograph

Nikon D 7000 f/8 1/4sec ISO-800 38mm
Bruce Peninsula Dark Sky Photograph

Nikon D 7000 f/4.8 1/2sec ISO-800 45mm
Bruce Peninsula Dark Sky Photograph

As the sky darkened we switched over to a 200 mm lens and photographed Venus and the Moon

Nikon D 7000 f/5.6 1/3sec ISO-800 180mm
Bruce Peninsula Dark Sky Photograph

We then focused down to Jupiter only as it began to set behind the trees. The result was a very small image of Jupiter at that magnification.

Nikon D 7000 f/5.6 1/3sec ISO-800 200mm
Bruce Peninsula Dark Sky Photograph

and then back up to Venus and the Moon and called it quits for the night.

Nikon D 7000 f/5.6 1/3sec ISO-800 200mm
Bruce Peninsula Dark Sky Photograph

To our surprise when the single 1.91 MB 4928 x 3264 JEPG of Jupiter was enlarged we were able to resolve four moons around the planet and indentify then by using Stellarium. Only one photograph in 35 produced this result and we expect that we were pushing the limits of the equipment. Our next project will be to shoot raw and refine our settings.

Jupiter's moons through Nikon D 7000 200mm

We can view an object that is 142,984 km wide and 863,783,205 kilometres away and then capture the faint light of its moons which are as small as 3122 km in diameter with a DSLR camera. That is somewhat amazing.