Photographer Brennan Gilmore has taken advantage of Jupiter’s closest position to Earth in the past 59 years and captured a photo of the gas giant with its four Galilean moons on the roof of a barn.
The photo shows Jupiter along with its moons, from left to right, Ganymede, Europa, Io and Callisto and was taken Monday, September 16 near Charlottesville, Virginia. The photo was made possible because Jupiter sat in opposition, meaning Earth was located directly between Jupiter and the Sun, combined with the fact that the gas giant was as close to Earth as it had been in 59 and as close as she will get. being until the year 2139. The result is that Jupiter’s angular size in the sky and the planet’s luminosity were both extremely high.
“Jupiter rises above the central barn of Carter’s Mountain Orchard, a popular destination in the Charlottesville area that dominates the eastern skyline above the city. This location on a ridge makes it particularly attractive as a foreground for the moonrise and moonrise photos — and I’ve captured a full moon there before,” Gilmore said. PetaPixel.
“The four to five degree elevation of the ridge line means that celestial objects have a higher degree of clarity/less distortion than when they rise directly above the horizon, because you are shooting through less air mass.”
Gilmore says he planned this shoot using two apps he says are central to his astrophotography: Planit Pro and Stellarium.
“I used Stellarium to confirm the field of view – that I would be able to capture all the moons in the frame,” he says. “And PlanitPro helped me figure out the exact location I needed to shoot from to capture Jupiter above the building. I used a third app, Atomic Clock, to make sure my time was in sync with the ephemerides of these applications.
Gilmore says that to get the extreme forced perspective he wanted, he used the biggest lens — or optical tube assembly (OTA) — he owns: a Celestron EdgeHD 9.25″ Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope.
“This OTA is made for the optical requirements of astrophotography, and normally I use it for deep sky and planetary astrophotography. For this photo, instead of using a cooled astro camera and filter wheel, I I took pictures with a Sony Alpha 7R III, connected to the telescope with a specialized adjustable camera ring that allowed me to get the precise focus needed,” he explains.
“I also used a remote shutter and shot with a quiet shutter, as even the slightest vibration at the 2350mm focal length can cause noticeable blur in images. Camera and scope sat on a Sky-Watcher EQ6r-pro mount, although I was just using it as a sturdy tripod, as I wasn’t tracking the sky, but rather filming from a static position.
Gilmore says he tried several potential locations for the shot he was hoping to get, but unfortunately, in order to line up exactly with the target building, most areas worked.
“Either there were trees obscuring the view or it was private accommodation – one landlord, when I asked permission to shoot from his property, said to me, in quotes: ‘Hell No! ‘ Eventually I found a construction site along the necessary axis and luckily no one was there at 6:30 p.m. when I arrived,” he says.
“After setting up all the equipment, I adjusted the focus as the temperature dropped. The OTA’s large mirror and glass lens are very sensitive to temperature fluctuations. Clouds appeared threateningly above my head and I was afraid that at the right time the horizon would be obscured. Fortunately, the area of the sky I was filming remained clear,” continues Gilmore.
“When the time came, I didn’t see Jupiter at first – there are always slight differences between the apps and what you see – but I was delighted to soon see a bright light emerging from the trees right there I quickly took several images, adjusting the ISO and exposure to try and get the shutter speed as low as possible to “freeze” the image because the turbulence of the air would dramatically distort the focus and shape of the planet and its moons.Because Jupiter was so low and light passed through so much air mass, there is noticeable color distortion on the limbs of the planet and moons – this is due to the varying refraction of different wavelengths of light.
Gilmore says that due to the focal length, the planet crossed the frame in just over a minute, and the time that Jupiter and the moons were all visible was only about 30 seconds.
“Fortunately, with careful planning in advance, I was set up exactly where I needed to be and was able to get a unique photo on the day of Jupiter’s closest approach to Earth in my lifetime. “, he says.
Gilmore adds that he hoped to make planetary images closer to Jupiter that night, but shortly after capturing the photo of the gas giant and its moons, clouds obscured the sky.
For more from Gilmore, be sure to visit his website and follow him on Instagram.
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