The sky was really clear tonight and Jupiter stood plainly out above us. I've never tried to take pictures of any of the planets before and suggested to Drew that maybe we should try tonight. He was really excited, so we I took my camera out and set it on the tripod along with our relatively measly 200mm zoom and started shooting. To our amazement, we were able to capture 3 of Jupiter's 4 Galilean moons discovered by Galileo in 1610 (the fourth is no doubt in front or behind Jupiter). All totaled, Jupiter has 64 moons with about half being so small they were only discovered in the last ten years.

This is a 100% crop and the moons are only 5 or 6 pixels wide. I had no idea you could see another planet's moons with an average zoom lens the equivalent of a good pair of binoculars. I think they'll be more planetary photography in the future. I'm interested to see if I can resolve some surface detail. Saturn will definitely be a future subject.

[Update:]

After further research and review of the photos I took of Jupiter and its moons, I've changed my opinion on what I originally thought was just a background star. I now think we did in fact capture all four of Jupiter's Galilean moons. I think the displacement of the fourth moon is exaggerated because the other three moons just happen to be closer to Jupiter in their current orbits. If the moons were a little more spread out, the displacement would appear less and the fourth moon would appear to be more where I've seen it in other photos. All this combined with this moon being less bright than its siblings caused me to miss it the first time around. This photos is another 100% crop which clearly shows four moons! (Jupiter is not bigger, or more zoomed in, in this photo, rather it is just overexposed.)