Something about the backyard telescope pics I see online of Saturn creeps me out. Almost like the rings shouldn’t be real . A planet that only exists on schoolroom posters or something. Hard to explain
It was the first time that I saw Saturn in the new scope and I thought it looked faked. It was a weird feeling at first. It was so much sharper and crisp in person as that picture was taken with an iPhone.
Yes, this is possible from backyard telescopes with a camera and good software. Basically you can take thousands of pictures and use photo software to take out the best parts of each picture and make that picture. That picture was probably taken with a telescope like mine or maybe a couple inches larger. I got a camera but have not learned to use it yet. It is extremely complicated with a very high learning curve and I don’t have the patience yet.
This picture looks unimpressive without context, so here’s the backstory. My wife’s mother passed away last year and was cremated. She wanted to be spread at the beach, but it was the middle of January so they didn’t want to go into the water. The boat services that do the ash spreading were completely booked for the month, so I jokingly pitched the idea of making a potato gun, filling plastic easter eggs with her ashes, and shooting her into the water. I’ll be damned, they loved the idea, so I got to work.
That’s awesome, my son is really into that shit right now. Here’s a moon picture we got with his cheap-o National Geographic telescope. Took forever to get a focused picture through the eyepiece