With his latest photo of Jupiter, astrophotographer Andrew McCarthy continues to prove that you can snap incredible photos of outer space right from your backyard. The image is the clearest Jupiter photo that McCarthy has ever taken. In it, we can clearly see the Gas Giant’s colorful stripes and Great Red Spot. It’s a remarkable image that shows just how far McCarthy has come with his astrophotography since he began taking photos in 2017.
The final photo is the culmination of nearly 600,000 individual frames McCarthy shot over the course of two hours from his home base in Arizona. Using an 11-inch telescope and a color camera that he uses for deep space photography, McCarthy was able to come away with a unique look at the planet that is near and dear to him.
“Jupiter holds a special place in my heart, as it was the first object I spotted when I bought my first telescope and led me down this road to becoming an astrophotographer,” he tells My Modern Met.
McCarthy had long believed that a clear image of Jupiter wasn’t in the cards due to his location. “I always thought my geography prevented me from taking particularly clear planetary pics. Only certain locations on Earth have a steady enough atmosphere to do it well. For that reason, when I had a night of terrific conditions, I was encouraged that I would be able to push the clarity of my images much further.”
The results that McCarthy obtained only prove that his instincts were correct. And since publishing his photo of Jupiter, he’s continued to make strides in imaging our Solar System’s largest planet. This includes some incredible timelapse images. In one, it’s even possible to see Jupiter’s moon Io transit the planet, and his most recent picture took advantage of the fact that Jupiter was just the closest it’s been to Earth in 59 years.
As McCarthy continues to hone his craft and make strides in his astrophotography, we can only keep watching his Instagram to see what he’ll publish next.
Watch Andrew McCarthy’s stunning Jupiter timelapses.
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