Mike Phillips was already an accomplished planetary astrophotographer, but he took everything to the next level with this amazing video of Jupiter. In order to create these 8 seconds of awesomeness, Mike filmed Jupiter for a consecutive 1.5 hours on September 12, 2012. Then he batched up groups of frames and stacked them together to pull out even higher resolution. Then he stitched the whole thing back together to create a video that shows off Jupiter’s rotation.
Just stacking up video to create a single image is difficult work, but doing this kind of animation really takes things to the next level. And Mike’s just getting started. Once Jupiter reaches opposition, he thinks he’ll be able to get a full rotation of the giant planet.
You might want to check out Mike’s post on Google+, where he responds to other astrophotographers explaining his technique. Mike has also promised a tutorial… that would be nice.
One of the commentartors, Thad Szabo, noted:
I didn’t realize you had constructed your own version of Voyager and gotten launch capability…
Wait… you shot this from Earth’s surface???
Exactly.
Mike shot the video of Jupiter through his home made f/4.5 14″ Newtonian telescope
It’s amazing how far technology and inventiveness have taken the abilities of common person. I bet within the next 10-20 years I’ll be reading about some dude who detects the atmospheric composition of exoplanets from his back yard on the weekends for fun.