Ace planetary photographer of Delhi – Sona was at our Manesar Astrofacility to photograph the evening planets with the 20-inch “Aperture Telescope”, and the results are superlative. Here she is seen imaging Jupiter and Saturn with the largest telescope available for purchase in India and which is “Made in India”.
Usually planetary photographers use a tracking mount, which follows the planet automatically without manual intervention. The 20-inch in on a manual mount but extremely smooth. You can move the telescope easily, consistently, just with slight pressure of your fingers. It’s easy to follow an object in the sky, even at small field of view.
Planetary imaging cameras have a small sensor. There was some difficulty, but we were able to locate the planet several times, place it at one corner of the sensor, and shoot it nicely at a high video frame rate, as it drifted across the diagonal of the sensor.
The opposition of Mars in the year 2020 was a very good one, only next to the one that occurred in 2003. The planet was close to Earth, bright and showing a lot of surface features. Indeed a rare opportunity to image the surface in detail.
Awesome experience, thank you for bringing back the memory of imaging through an exceptionally well made 20″ Dobsonian. The ease with which it was carried to the rooftop and assembled was astonishing, Can’t believe it was 65 kgs, I carried the truss part though. With the Telrad finder and smooth movement it was easy to manoeuvre, yes just a nudge and Mars was in perfect view, we imaged while manually tracking Mars.
Sona Sahni Shukla
The focal length is long, the sensor size small, but the movement of the telescope is so effortless, consistent and steady that you can bring the planet into the field of view easily and repeatedly.
Here is the fantastic result obtained from the 20-inch ‘Aperture Telescope’ captured and processed by Sona Sahni Shukla, Ace Planetary Photographer.
