Saturn & Jupiter... September 20, 2025
(Click on Picture for larger view)

Added September 20, 2025 ...
Saturn & Jupiter
I took these images of Saturn & Jupiter early morning of September 20, 2025 using the Celestron 11" EdgeHD telescope with a focal length of 2,800mm. The camera was the Altair Astro Hypercam 183c with a pixel size of 2.4 microns. Saturn was a day away from opposition and was about 796.5 million miles away. Jupiter is several months from its opposition which will be in early January of 2026.

To photograph the planets, a telescope with a long focal length with a focal ratio f/8 or higher is recommended. Also, a planetary camera with a pixel size of 2.9 or smaller is ideal.

The software I used to capture these heavenly bodies was SharpCap Pro. Within the software, I used the live planetary stacking routine. In the past, I would take a movie file consisting of thousands of frames and then stack them in a program called AutoStakkert!. From there I would take the finished image and import it into another program called RegiStax 6 to fine tune it. With this newer version of SharpCap Pro, I can do all of this in one step in the live stacking routine.

The Techy Stuff ... For those who want to know ...
Telescope: Celestron Edge HD at f/10 with a focal length of 2,800mm
Mount: Celestron CGX
Mount Control: CPWI
Camera: Altair Astro Hypercam 183c with a pixel size of 2.4 microns
Guiding and "Goto", I used Celestron's CPWI with StarSense AutoGuider
Capture software: Sharpcap Pro using Live Stacking
Number of stacked images: 5,000
Seeing conditions: 8 (Scale of 1-10)
Location: My Backyard Heavenly Garden

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