Picture of Uranus and Jupiter

Here are two different pictures put into one by Dave of Uranus and Jupiter. They were both taken with the same magnification, which really shows the size difference from our perspective (obviously size and distance are a factor). I was really happy to finally see Uranus. And to actually get a picture of it was really satisfying.

Both of these images were taken through my 8" reflector using Dave's Cannon DSLR. We are both fairly new to imaging celestial objects and found it difficult to get the image to focus. First we found the planet using an eyepiece, which is pretty tough in itself where the object is so small and faint like Uranus(Jupiter is no problem because it is so big in the sky!). Then we removed the eyepiece and attached the camera. The camera is heavy enough that it throws the balance of the telescope off, so it is necessary to balance the scope again. And hopefully the object hasn't moved out of view while doing so, because it can be difficult to find the object again through the camera's view screen.
So if you are lucky enough to still have the object in view, the next step is to achieve focus. This step is also very tough because you simply have to guess whether or not you are focusing in the right direction until you get a crisp picture. Once focus is achieved, you want to try a short exposure of maybe 15 seconds to see how well the mount is tracking the object. If drifting occurs at 15 seconds than the tracking needs to be fixed. This essentially means the camera needs to come back off and a new alignment needs to be performed again. I mentioned the 'drift alignment" method in an earlier post. The whole 'drift alignment' method can take all night if you are a newbie(like me).
Let me know if you have any comments or questions. I would love to hear them!