My name is Peter Nerbun. I'm an astrophotographer who lives in
Perry Hall, Maryland in the USA.
Here are the astrophotos I captured with my C11 Schmidt Cassegrain Telescope (SCT) and ATIK 460EX astronomy camera. Please click on any one of the images to see a description of how and when I captured that particular image. After you've read the description please click on the green oval icon at the top left corner of this page, this will take you back to the page showing all of my astrophoto images.
Mercury, Venus, Earth's Moon,
Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and Europa
These are 6 images I captured of our Solar System with my C-11 SCT in 2012 and 2013. Here's a brief description of each one:
1. The top left picture is my image of Mars that I captured on Feb 6 2012; please note Syrtis Major, the first documented surface feature of another planet. It was discovered by Christiaan Huygens who drew a picture of it when he illustrated Mars in 1659.
2. The top right picture is my image of Saturn that I captured on Mar 30 2013; please note the Cassini Gap which is the black area that separates the rings surrounding the planet.
3. The center left picture is my image of Jupiter and its moon Europa that I captured on Dec 6 2012. Please note the black circular shadow of Europa located just to the right of Europa itself.
4. The center right picture is my image of the Moon's horizon including Amundsen Crater near the top of the image. Note that the horizon of the Moon is nearly flat due to the extreme magnification of this image.
5. The bottom left picture is my image of Venus on Dec 27 2013; the planet was 7% illuminated at the time so it appears as a thin crescent of light.
6. The bottom right picture is my image of Mercury on Jun 15 2013; please note the mottled surface near the terminator; although individual craters aren't shown due to seeing conditions this mottled surface is an indicator of large scale albedo features on the planet.