Moon and Jupiter close together tonight

[Cazzie]

I worked up a composite for all tonight. This consists of two shots of the moon and two shots of Jupiter. Plus a few shots of empty space. All are at the same magnification, but the moon is very bright and so is Jupiter compared to its three visible moons tonight; these being Callisto and Europa on its western side and Io on its eastern side, Ganymede is behind the planet now. So I had to take one of Jupiter with less exposure to capture the planets bands and one at a higher exposure to capture its moons. Both shots of our moon are the same exposure and two shots were required due to its size. The two of the moon were first stitched in Microsoft ICE, saved as a TIFF and processed in Lightroom and Photoshop. On the Jupiter image I selected the image of Jupiter in the correct exposure of the planet and pasted it on the overexposed image Once the pasted Jupiter was aligned, I cloned out the overexposed Jupiter and merged the two images. I then did a panorama with Jupiter in its correct positions relation to the Moon tonight at around 8:30 PM EDT. The Moon has slipped slightly lower now. For best view, go Fill Screen. Sized for 16/10 aspect wide angle monitors. Whew. I have been at this two hours.

I mounted my Nikon D5500 on a T-mount with a 1.25-in adapter for my Celestron C-8 (guided). ISO was 800, all settings Manual. Shots of the moon were at 1/250-second, the one of Jupiter at 1/25-second, and another at 1-second (for its moons). The entire panorama was constructed in Photoshop CS by copying and pasting merged images and empty space images in their proper locations then merging all images into one and sizing it for the web. .

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y168/cazmodel/moon_jupiter_pano_zps1mxu7bbs.jpg

[Naismith]

High quality image. And able to capture the Jovian moons too, very impressed. :encouragement: