The secret of the webcam’s success is that it can produce images with very short exposure times, perhaps one-tenth of the durations required with conventional cooled CCD cameras. This is due in large part to the simple, inexpensive webcam, which has enabled amateurs armed with modest telescopes to produce images of the planets that rival those captured with large professional instruments ( S&T: October 2005, page 115). Over the past five years, a tremendous resurgence in amateur planetary astronomy has taken place. Author Don Parker created these stunning portraits of Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars using webcams, a 16-inch Newtonian telescope, and the techniques he describes here. But extracting the most detail from the raw images produced at the telescope takes patience and skill, not to mention the tools available today for your digital darkroom. Capturing the planets has become relatively easy, thanks to the webcam.
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