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Astrophotography of Jupiter with an iPhone

by , 12:45 PM EDT, October 28th, 2008

An expert amateur astronomer in Arizona has captured a terrific photo of Jupiter and its Galilean moons with an Apple iPhone and a Meade catadioptric telescope.

The astrophoto was taken over the weekend of Oct 25 by Michael Weasner of Tucson, Arizona. He used the afocal technique with a 2x Barlow lens, a 15 mm eyepiece, a lunar filter (to reduce the brightness slightly) and an iPhone 2G. The effective magnification was 267x. The telescope was a Meade 8-inch (20 cm) LX200-ACF. The catadioptric telescope uses a glass corrector plate and mirrors to achieve the "Advanced Coma-Free" system related to the original Ritchey-Chrétien design.


Jupiter

The photo shows three of the four "Galilean" moons of Jupiter: Ganymede, Io, Europa, on the right, left to right. Callisto was not in the frame, and a faint star can be seen on the left of Jupiter. A few of Jupiter's cloud bands can be seen in the iPhone photo.

Galileo was the first to see these largest moons of Jupiter through his homemade telescope in 1610, and they were named after him. Jupiter has, at last count, 62 moons, but the four largest Galilean moons are about the same size as the Earth's moon while the rest are generally much smaller. Some people with excellent vision have claimed to be able to see these moons, in favorable positioning and seeing conditions, with their naked eye.


Meade LX200-ACF

The photo was cleaned up slightly with Apple's Aperture to adjust the exposure (brightness) and contrast.

Mr. Weasner is the founder and maintainer of "Weasner's Mighty ETX Site" where he covers all things related to Meade astronomical telescopes, including his own and submitted astrophotography.

Back in January, Mr. Weasner submitted one of the first astronomical photos of the Earth's moon using similar equipment and an Apple iPhone 2G.

Observer Comments

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Close Name:Guest
Wed Oct 29, 2008 5:37 am Subject: Meh.

So a phone has a camera, wow. This exact same achievement could have been done with any number of phones, not just an overpriced Apple one.


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Close Name:LaurieF -   TMO Forum Mod Posts: 3547 Joined: 15 Jun 2001
Wed Oct 29, 2008 5:46 am Subject:

What are you doing here? This is an Apple-related bulletin board and news site. Respond very shortly with a cogent reason, or your post will be deleted.


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Close Name:Guest
Wed Oct 29, 2008 10:54 am Subject:

> This is an Apple-related bulletin board and news site.

Yes, but the article is only barely so.


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Close Name:Guest
Wed Oct 29, 2008 9:05 pm Subject: Mikey

Why would anyone take the picture with the 2megapixel ugliness that is the iPhone? Or any phone for that matter? My Nokia n95 takes great 5mp images but I would not waste such a great pic even on 5mp.


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Close Name:Guest
Thu Oct 30, 2008 10:51 am Subject: Thank yoU!

I love Jupiter!


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Close Name:Guest
Thu Oct 30, 2008 11:50 am Subject: This is completely awesome.

Here from BadAstronomy, hello Mac-people!

I am completely amazed that this was captured with a cameraphone. We live in the future. Nice work.

Also, ignore the trolls. The best camera is the one you have, and having one in your phone is about as convenient as you can get. Yes, you could have gotten a better picture with a better camera---but not if you didn't have a better camera. I take pictures with my Centro all the time that would be prettier with my DSLR---but I don't carry my DSLR to work every day.


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Close Name:Guest
Thu Oct 30, 2008 5:26 pm Subject: clarification

This wasn't a simple point and shoot. As stated in the article, it was taken through a telescope via specific attached lens/eyepiece. Therefore it's safe to assume that it wasn't a spur of the moment opportunity shot that required one to make do with whatever camera was available, it was intentionally done with the iPhone.


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Close Name:Guest
Thu Oct 30, 2008 6:18 pm Subject: FYI: You've been Farked :)

Nice photo. Good work on getting the moons in too.


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Close Name:Guest
Thu Oct 30, 2008 8:58 pm Subject: Doing it wrong

If you don't carry a quality piece of glass with you wherever you go, You sir, are doing it wrong


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Close Name:xmattingly Posts: 266 Joined: 31 Jul 2007
Fri Oct 31, 2008 7:26 am Subject:

Quote
LaurieF wrote:
What are you doing here? This is an Apple-related bulletin board and news site. Respond very shortly with a cogent reason, or your post will be deleted.
I like applesauce!


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Close Name:Guest
Sun Nov 02, 2008 10:36 pm Subject: Seriously?

I love my iPhone just as much as the next guy, but its just silly to use an iPhone to take astrological photos. There are setups you can buy to attach DSLR's like my D300 to the telescope. And if you dont want to spend that much money, there are adapters for P&S cameras which will take photos 100x better than the above posted iPhone shot.


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Close Name:Guest
Mon Nov 03, 2008 4:00 am Subject: Pretty Cool

he should try for ur-anus you guys should also see what people do with the DSLRs after the remove the ifrared filter.


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Close Name:Guest
Tue Nov 04, 2008 9:11 am Subject: Anonymous

Quote
LaurieF wrote:
What are you doing here? This is an Apple-related bulletin board and news site. Respond very shortly with a cogent reason, or your post will be deleted.


Heh heh heh. Someone records one of the mysteries of the world on an iponce and there is a fast response from the 1984 Communism squad.

Perhaps others could post photos of amazing objects from our wide world onto this wold wide web?


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