Pune Boy Clicks Clearest Photos Of The Moon
Manasi Saraf Joshi
Pune, 20th May 2021: In what could be termed a rare feat, 16-year-old Prathmesh Jaju has clicked over 50,000 photos of the moon. And the novelty about these photos is that they neither get blurred nor pixelated when zoomed in. He tried to capture the moon in all its three phases.
A standard 10th student of Vidya Bhavan Highschool, Prathmesh since childhood had a fascination and curiosity about astronomy and astrophysics. Although he says that this liking of his has come partly from his father Ritesh Jaju, a businessman, it was various television serials that attracted and arrested his attention.
Actual imaging
He explains, “This image is an HDR Composite of two different images made to give it a 3-dimensional effect. This is my most detailed and clearest shot of the third quarter Mineral Moon. I captured around 50,000+ images over 186 Giga Bytes of Data which almost killed my laptop with the processing.
“I captured around 38 panels at 1500 and 3000mm Focal Length with a 1.2-megapixel ZWO ASI120MC-S which made this image almost 50 megapixels huge. (Resolution downscaled for Mobiles)
▪️Celestron 5 Cassegrain OTA.
▪️ZWO ASI120MC-S
▪️ SkyWatcher EQ3-2 GO-TO.
▪️GSO 2X BARLOW
(Which allowed me to shot at 3 metres of Focal Length)”
It was the night of May 3 when Prathmesh went to his house terrace and started making videos of the most adorable satellite Moon. He started clicking the pictures at 1 am and finished his job by 5 am. It took one and half-day (38 to 40 hours) for him to process these pictures.
He informs, “One video means 2,000 photos which eventually after merging gave me one photo. I merged 38 videos which finally gave me 50,000 photos. I processed the photos generally; we see grey and white photos of the moon. But there are many minerals present on it, which gives it colours.”
Like titanium makes it blue, oxide or copper makes it red”, he mentions. “We see white side since it gets illuminated with the Sun’s light. We can also see the craters and rough surface of the Moon clearly”, he stated.
He has not only captured the image of the moon but various galaxies, planets like Uranus, Saturn, Jupiter.
Member of Jyotirvidya Pratishthan
Prathmesh being an amateur astronomer has been a member of Jyotirvidya Pratishthan, an institute that is spreading awareness about astronomy. “I had an interest in astronomy so I became a member and volunteer for the institute”, he said.
Astrophotography and India
Prathmesh who wishes to make his career in astronomy and astrophysics also has a strong liking and ability as an astrophotographer. “Astrophotography is not a very well-developed branch in India, but it is a rage in western countries”, he said.
“Among the photographers we have in our country only five percent are astrophotographers”, he says. It is a difficult job and needs to have a liking plus immense knowledge”, he adds.
