Photographing the Planets by Jeff Phillips

Jeff Phillips is one of our most accomplished astrophotographers, concentrating mostly upon the planets. At our November meeting, he’ll explain to us how he gets his amazing results. About his talk, Jeff writes: “When I first got into amateur astronomy, the best pictures taken from the surface of Earth with film showed the planets as fuzzy, grainy and indistinct. This was true even with large professional telescopes. Today, amateurs can take better pictures from the back yard. The difference is in the cameras and the software. People have come to call the process ‘Lucky Imaging.’ I take videos of the planets with a high speed camera, often shooting at 100 frames per second or faster, and use software to stack just the sharpest frames into a final image. I’ve been lucky enough to have several pictures printed in Sky and Telescope magazine. I’ll share some of my images and talk about the process of capturing and processing these images. I'll include a few unprocessed videos so you can see what I’m actually seeing at the telescope in the middle of the night.” Jeff’s talks are always inspiring. Don’t miss this one! At our meeting we will also have Ken Martin’s slide show of astrophotos shared on our email list since the last meeting, displayed in all their glory on the planetarium dome. The meeting is at 7:00 on Thursday, November 19th at the Eugene Science Center planetarium, 2300 Leo Harris Parkway in Eugene (behind Autzen Stadium).