How Many Moons Do You See?

This composite image was taken on December 6, 2011. Jupiter was rather close to the moon, and the skies were gorgeously crisp and clear.  The main image captures how visually stunning the sight was. At inset is a 100% crop of Jupiter and its four largest moons from one of the images used to put this composite together!

This photo is a composite of two images. Both images were shot at the same focal length/zoom range of 135mm, using a Sigma 70-200 F2.8 HSM lens:

• Image 1: 1/500 second shot at F8 to capture a nice looking Moon.
• Image 2: 1/1.5 second shot at F2.8 to capture Jupiter’s brilliance.

The two images were merged and the background was evened out using fill brush. The inset of Jupiter and its four larger moons is a 100% crop of the second image. At 135mm zoom with a stable tripod, that’s not half bad!  Jupiter itself is very bright, so shooting at 1/1.5 seconds at F2.8 was used to bring out the four larger satellites around it. This overexposed the planet but brought the moons out nicely.