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Eric Hahl Eric Hahl is online now
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Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Aumsville OR
Posts: 3,669
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You’ll never see the kind of detail shown in those photos. Well, maybe with a 20” objective. It’s trickery. Each of those photos is a stack of images taken with a video camera. Software picks out the sharpest images and aligns, stacks them for better contrast. Sometimes 1000’s of images are in the stack.
Our eyes can’t collect data and stack like that. Once the photon is received it is gone and on to the next.
My best views of Jupiter and Saturn were through a 16” reflector I had. I could make out that Jupiter was pinkish, could see the Great Red Spot when it was reddish and could see some darker belts but nothing like the sharpness shown in the photos above.
Saturn is the real treat to view. It has less cloud detail than Jupiter but the rings! They change throughout the years as we orbit and it orbits.

Keep in mind, even at 300x these planets are 500 million and 1 billion miles away. They will be tiny in an eyepiece. If you were to measure the diameter they probably would be about 1/8th inch.
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Eric Hahl
85 911 to 73RS backdate, a.k.a. "Gretchen" (SOLD)
2015 981 Cayman S (Sold)
23 Outback Wilderness & 23 BMW R1250GS
Old 12-18-2021, 09:36 AM
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