Frustrations of astrophotography
Astrophotography can be frustrating.
Right now, from the Earth’s perspective, Jupiter, Saturn and Mars appear close together in the sky. This conjunction is quite a pretty sight, although you have to get up early in the morning to see it, as it’s fairly low in the East.
From my latitude (38° South), Jupiter is out on its own, blazing away higher than the others. Saturn and Mars are closer to each other, with Saturn slightly higher. Mars itself is clearly redder, but is similar in brightness to Saturn. The whole conjunction is wedged in between the constellations of Sagittarius and Capricorn.
My back yard faces East, but it’s up a hill and there are some tall trees blocking the view. Last night I woke up at about 3am so I thought I’d give it a whirl anyway. As it was a very wide field I decided to use my DSLR with a 70mm lens, which gave me the right sized view. I grabbed the tripod and stumbled out into the darkness.

I was soon able to get a better shot, although there was still foliage in the frame. After waiting a little more, and framing to allow the planets to rise without drifting out of shot, I set the camera to take 100 six second exposures. I planned to stack these for the final image.




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