iPhone Video and Pictures of the Moon, Jupiter, and it's Moons

I got home late after working on my orbital Mechanics homework and couldn't resist the magnificent Moon and a mysterious bright point in the sky. A quick consultation with my astronomy app revealed that it was Jupiter. After gazing for a while, I tried to capture what I saw with the iPhone:

The First Photo of Anything I Ever took of something in the Heavens

Jupiter and it's Moons

The Moon

Mare Crisium

Mamie got the telescope for $20 at a garage sale.

I went with Lincoln to an astronomy store downtown a few months back with the intent to buy a camera to use with my telescope. Everything in the store was ridiculously expensive, so I kind of gave up on growing my astronomy habit. As it turns out, my iPhone fills the need for now.

It's amazing to see these things with your own eyes. These things are literally right above our heads, and we don't even know it until we use something that improves out vision. I certainly took the moon for granted until I saw it's detail through a telescope. Even though I have seen pictures, the physiological response of actually seeing something directly with your own eyes is visceral. Its like the difference between looking at a picture of a person and looking at that person.

I'm pretty sure that tonight (this morning) was the first time that I saw the moons of Jupiter. It was certainly the first time that I took a photo of something up there.