These pictures are taken with a small digital camera looking through modest binoculars. Using the binoculars with the eye, sharp detail on the surface of the moon can be made out and the moons of Jupiter are easily seen when at large elongation. I have tried to capture these with the digital camera.

The setup consists of a Canon PowerShot SD1000 Digital Elph (7.1 Mpx, 3x optical zoom) and Nikon Action EX 7×50 binoculars, each on their own tripod. The camera is placed about an inch from the eyepiece of one of the binocs, zoomed all the way in and set to marco mode. I use the self-timer to ensure steadyness on long exposures.

Some issues I’m having: To shoot the moon, I need a much shorter exposure than what it gives me automatically and to shoot Jupiter’s moons I need the longest exposure possible. I’m pretty sure I can manually set the exposure on the camera but I’m too lazy to look in the manual. I’m also having trouble getting the whole moon in focus at once but I think I can remedy this by keeping the camera’s focus locked and manually focusing with the binoculars, or manually focusing the camera if that can be done. (Again, too the manual is too far away from where I’m sitting.)

The pictures are taken roughly on 0:30 UT 11 October 2008 at 42.4°N 72.5°W.