Who says mostly cloudy weather is bad for astronomy?

[laconicsax]

$35 telescope+compact digital camera+mostly cloudy night+good timing (and of course a good barlow lens and decent eyepiece)



Had to underexpose the image to get the cloud band detail. The downside of course is that the big moons don't show up. Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto were visible; Io was hiding.

The red spot was also hiding, but you can clearly see that the southern equatorial belt is indeed http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2010/05/12/how-will-jupiter-hold-up-his-pants/">missing.

[HuckleB]

1. Nice!

[TZ]

2. Nice.

I remeber looking at Jupiter through a nice telescope back in high school it was amazing to see the colors bands and all the big moons in orbit.

[Deep13]

3. A $35 telescope?

I can't see the image. It's a red X.

[Deep13]

4. Nevermind, I can see it now.

Not bad. You should check out some of the amateur planetary photography at www.cloudynights.com.

[laconicsax]

5. Hmm...it loads on every device here.

Edit: Never mind, you can see it now.

And yes, a http://www.amazon.com/Celestron-21024-FirstScope-Telescope/dp/B001UQ6E4Y/ref=sr_1_1?s=gateway&ie=UTF8&qid=1285475134&sr=8-1">$35 telescope. It's not without its limitations (included eyepieces are close to worthless, fixed, spherical primary mirror), but with a good eyepiece, it works quite well.

[Silent3]

6. I'm a strong believer in cheating with Photoshop.

I'd have done a second shot with greater exposure to capture the moons, then composite the two shots. :)

[laconicsax]

7. I could have done the same with a screen shot from Celestia...

...which I considered doing.