Jupiter - Animated GIF using iPhone 12

PeterStudz · April 14, 2023

This is just a little fun. I took these videos with my old iPhone 12 back in 18th Sept 2021 while I was observing Jupiter and Saturn. It was my second attempt at taking a video of Jupiter (well, any planets) and no more than an experiment.

The first was taken at 21:16 with the GRS just about central. The second taken at 22:33 with the GRS right on the limb just before I packed up. At the time I tried to get something decent from a single frame but wasn’t happy with the result. So gave up and filed the videos away. I don’t own a PC or similar so stacking was opuntia of the question.

Then one recent cloudy and rainy day (one of far too many) I had another go. But this time I had the iPhone planet stacking app “VideoStack” and editing app “WaveletCam”.

The results (after all it’s just an iPhone 12) aren’t that bad and didn’t take long. Although I didn’t try hard so sure it could be better. And quite a few features are showing. Eg on the second image there are some barges just above the North Equatorial Belt. Here you can just see the GRS as a smudge against the planets limb. Having said that a more modern smartphone would do better.

Then I had the idea of making a mini animated GIF. Of course it’s just two images but it does show how fast Jupiter rotates with just 1 hour & 17 minutes between the two. All good practice in what is a learning experience. And it does give me a few other ideas to try in the near future.

Skywatcher 200p Dob, BST StarGuider 5mm, iPhone 12 on basic smartphone adapter. Short 7 sec videos (4K at 60 fps) zoomed at 1.8x using stock camera app. All editing on the phone using the stock camera app, VideoStack, WaveletCam and Lightroom.