This Photo Shows Jupiter’s Size in the Sky Compared to the Moon

Jupiter and the Moon were in conjunction this week, appearing close together in the night sky. The event led astrophotography enthusiast Rami Ammoun to create this composite photo showing the relative sizes of the two celestial objects in the sky as seen from Earth.

Ammoun was shooting from Richmond, Virginia, at 5:40am using a Canon Rebel T6s, Meade Series 6000 130mm refractor telescope, and Tele Vue 5x Powermate. He shot 9 photos of the moon (at 910mm, f/7, 1/200s, ISO 100), edited them in Lightroom to remove chromatic aberration, and stacked the images in Photoshop to increase clarity and sharpness.

Jupiter was captured in a 1-minute video (at 4550mm, f/35, 1/200s, ISO 100). The best 1,200 frames were extracted and then 80% of them were stacked in AutoStakkert! The result was then sharpened and cleaned up in Photoshop.

Here’s a wider version of what he ended up with:

The faint dots you see next to Jupiter are its moons.

And if you’re wondering what the actual distance between Jupiter and the Moon was in the sky that night, here’s a different composite showing that: