Damian Peach: Planetary Astrophotography (Case Study)

In this interview, Damian Peach outlines his approach to planetary astrophotography and in particular how he took two photos the above photo, Colourful Saturn, and the one below of Jupiter.

How Did You Plan the Shots?

These photos were part of hundreds of image sequences taken over a 4 week period as part of my yearly planetary observing program which I’ve been doing since 1997.

What Equipment Did You Use?

For these shots I used:

Telescope: Celestron C14 EdgeHD
Mount: Losmandy G11
Camera: PlayerOne Astronomy Saturn M-SQR
Camera: PlayerOne Astronomy Saturn Uranus-C

“Getting sharp and detailed images of the planets requires both extremely stable atmospheric conditions and a good quality telescope that is carefully calibrated.”

How Did You Compose the Shots?

There was no real specific composition but both images are comprised of 50,000 single frames combined through RGB filters x 0.02-second exposures.

Getting sharp and detailed images of the planets requires both extremely stable atmospheric conditions and a good quality telescope that is carefully calibrated.

Damian Peach jupiter image — Dance of the Moons © Damian Peach. Jupiter flanked by two of its many moons, Io and Europa. Europa is the icy white moon casting a shadow onto the ‘surface’ of Jupiter, and Io is the yellowy-orange lava-covered circle on the lower left. The Great Red Spot is clearly seen with the shadow of Europa cutting across its southern edge.

What Post-Processing Did You Do?

Several different software packages were used:

Can You Recommend Any Learning Resources For Other Astrophotographers?

I provide a tutorial surface that teaches you how to take and process images like this – it can be found on Patreon.

About You – Damian Peach

Damian A. Peach FRAS is a British amateur astronomer, astrophotographer, lecturer, and author:

His images have been featured in Astronomy Magazine, Sky & Telescope, Astronomy Now, and The Sky at Night. He has authored articles on astrophotography for these magazines.
He has been a co-author on several professional scientific papers on planetary astronomy, especially regarding work on Mars and Jupiter.
His work has also been used by NASA and ESA to illustrate what ground-based telescopes can achieve in photographing the planets, and the support they can provide to professional space probe missions.
In 2017, Asteroid 27632 was re-named Damianpeach by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) for his contributions to amateur astronomy.

You can read more about him on his website or via his Patreon.

You can also follow him on: