Day 209 Jupiter

This is Jupiter and her four largest moons. Why the lines?  Well, this is a 30 second exposure.  Have you ever taken a picture and have it blurred?  Say headlights on a car that leave a long streak? This is the same effect. I had my camera mounted on a tripod. So why the streaks?  Well, what you are seeing is the movement of the earth that happened during the 30 seconds of this exposure. Remember that the earth is rotating on its axis.  I went to a SkyandTelescope.com to see where Juipter and its moons were. I took this image at aproxmitely 9:58 PM CST from Spring, Tx on September 25, 2010. According to that web site,  you see from left to right, Callisto, Io, Jupiter, Europa, and Ganymede.  I was totally facinated that I could capture this with my D200. Now I'm wanting a telescope with a t-mount for my camera. One day...  And you can make out the curvature of Jupiter.

For the record, the original image is a 30 second exposure, ISO 800, 200 mm, and F13. I then cropped the image considerably to zoom in on the image above. Below is the original image.