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Community photo entitled Jupiter & moons with Mercury by Tom Tan on 06/25/2026 at Melbourne, Australia

Jupiter & moons with Mercury

On 06/25/2026 06:05 pm by Tom Tan | Melbourne, Australia

I would like to share my photo of Mercury.

Mercury is most illusive because it is very low. To me that is rare.
I managed to squeeze Jupiter and Mercury into opposite corners of the frame.

I wanted to show it was Jupiter with the presence of the line of moons.
Then a sky map would show Mercury a few degrees diagonally below.

I shot a range of ISO (800/1600/3200) and a range of shutter speeds (1/10s to 1/2.5s)
several times and picked an ISO 800 1/2.5s frame to boost the contrast
to add more blackness to the background and make the moons stand out.

Mercury remains a little dot because it is much dimmer.

William Optics 360mm telescope with a APS-C 1.5x Nikon D7500 camera.
Tripod, remote shutter release

contrast was boosted to show the moons of Jupiter