My neighbor's telescope comment about Jupiter ruined my whole photo night

Last Tuesday I spent 3 hours stacking 400 frames of Jupiter with my 8-inch dob, and my neighbor walks over and goes "is that just a bright star?" I nearly choked on my coffee because I had the Great Red Spot visible and she thought it was a pixel. Anyone else have non-astro people casually dismiss a photo you worked forever on, or is it just my street?

1 comments

1 Comment

wyattmitchell2d ago

is that just a bright star" would have made me spit out my drink too. I had a similar thing happen with my moon mosaic, spent two hours stacking and sharpening, and my buddy said "cool, you took a picture of the moon" like it was no big deal. What finally worked for me was pulling up my raw single frame and putting it right next to the stacked and processed version. Once they saw the difference side by side, the light bulb went on and they actually got it. I also started keeping a few of my best shots on my phone, so when people ask, I can just show them over coffee instead of dragging them outside. It doesn't make them care the same way we do, but at least they stop treating it like a blurry dot.