A couple of weeks ago, I’d gone to bed fairly late and – either because I was feeling very tired, or because I was being lazy (or perhaps both) – I didn’t bother closing my bedroom curtains. In the very early hours I drifted out of the dreamworld, and noticed a very bright point of light in the sky.
As I looked at it, I realised it was probably Jupiter, so I got up and grabbed my camera. Not knowing where my tripod was at that particular point, I used the window frame (which, obviously, I’d opened) as a rest to take a couple of shots with my otherwise handheld camera, at its maximum optical zoom of 50x.
As I was still sleepy, I didn’t think to look at the camera settings – I just took a couple of shots as is – closed the window, and went back to bed.
It wasn’t until the next morning that I looked at the pictures, the best of which (cropped to just show the relevant part) is here:
My first thought when I looked at that picture was that I could probably have done better – mounting the camera on a tripod for a start, as well as optimising its settings to something suitable for taking a photo of the night sky.
Checking online, I realised that Jupiter would be at its closest to us that night/the next morning, so there would be another opportunity. With that in mind, I dug out my tripod in readiness…
This time, though the weather was a little unfriendly – very strong winds meant I wasn’t able to open a window, and while the relevant point of light was visible, it was largely obscured by clouds.
However, it’s also been pointed out to me that under the circumstances, the picture isn’t that bad. Rick Murray, for example, pointed to his photo from a few years ago as a comparison, taken with a mobile phone rigged up to a 3″ or so telescope.
As a kid who was heavily into astronomy, I always wanted a telescope. The closest I got was an ‘Optics Set’ for Christmas one year, which came with a variety of lenses, tubes, and various other components, and allowed you to build a number of different optical items, such as a simple camera, a simple microscope, and, yes, a couple of very simple telescopes.
As an adult, I’ve always felt it would be nice to have one, but tended to consider other things to be more of a priority, so haven’t given much time to looking at what I could buy. Around this time last year, though I got as far as browsing eBay for telescopes, and even put a few on watch, but never followed up with a bid or a purchase. I’ve now started doing the same again, and I’ve decided that while I won’t buy something straight away, at some point during 2025 I will acquire a half decent (I hope) reflector telescope that I can use from my balcony space.
(If you don’t know, I live in a high rise flat, with a splendid view out towards West / Southwest – in just the right direction that I don’t ‘benefit’ from the worst of the light pollution from a big city. My immediate view is of a large woodland park as mentioned in August, and while there are a few modest urbanised areas in that direction, it’s more or less looking out towards the Bristol Channel, and thence the ocean. My balcony space is a therefore reasonable spot for a bit of home-based stargazing.)
The next comparable view of Jupiter is, I believe, early 2026 – it’ll be interesting to see if I have a suitable telescope by then (along with what I need to take photographs through it). And of course there are other bright lights in the sky to gaze at.