By Ed Downs

The Giant Red Spot on Jupiter. (NASA.gov)This amateur astronomer decided that it was time to dabble in the rapidly expanding field of astro photography and bought a new gadget.  Sort of like flying, there is always another accessory to buy.  That gadget is designed to hold a simple, digital, point and shoot class of camera in the correct position to actually take photos of distant objects.  This is a long way from the more advanced levels of amateur astro-photography, which can challenge Hubble Telescope photos, but it is a fun and cheap place to start. 

The timing is also good as a favorite local, Jupiter, is positioned for the best viewing in two years.  The gas giant Jupiter and it’s four largest moons, Io, Europa, Ganymede and Calisto make for terrific photos.  Even a small telescope will give the amateur a great view, and a telescope such as owned by this writer (12” reflector) will allow one to resolve some surface details on the moons.  Yes, these are big moons, the least of which (Europa) is a bit smaller than our moon and the largest (Ganymede) being bigger than the planet Mercury.  But why, one might ask, bother taking a rudimentary photo when incredible images are already available from the likes of the Hubble Space Telescope, the Galileo and New Horizons spacecraft plus highly advanced ground based telescopes?