Thank you. From the posted article, it took me to a YouTube video, which mentioned a Popular Science article[0], which I found looking at the history in BlueSky… yet none of that had the actual photo. After all that running around, it’s quite underwhelming. I suppose the headline and the process is better/more interesting than the picture, and they knew it.
That's... honestly kinda underwhelming. You can't even see any stripes, it's just a vague blob. I guess the contrast was just too much for the Gameboy camera?
I've used a gameboy camera recently. It took some lovely pictures once it was adjusted properly. I just suspect that there might have been problems with dynamic range etc that made it particularly difficult to take a picture of jupiter?
Not to diminish his accomplishment, he attached the game boy camera to a 60inch telescope at Mount Wilson. This is a cool project but the quality of the photo is what you’d expect from a gameboy camera.
The headline seems to imply that he custom built a telescope for his gameboy.
Would have been far more interesting to have an iPhone adapter, another very common device but with a worthwhile image sensor better justifying time on a massive telescope.
It's a 100" telescope... from 1917. To summarize Wikipedia for you (my words, not a genai): While it was used by famous people like Hubble it isn't used for scientific work anymore. Some adaptics optics stuff happened in the 1990s, but I suppose that was just to test the system on a telescope that wasn't in active use anymore. In 2014 it "began its new life as the world's largest telescope dedicated to public use".
I took a few lab courses in the university (for Physics), it's never that easy.
How do you keep it in place? A wood mount? A 3D printed piece? A metal support may be an overkill. Does it need screws for alignment? I guess 3, but I'm not sure if they are necessary. Can I buy the sensor alone or I have to remove a lens? Do you have a strong opinion about sensors? Like one for beginners and one for intermediate level. Wires? I still have nightmares about BNC wires that magically stop working. How much light isolation? Do I have to paint everything in black? (While using a microscope in a completely dark room to take photos, someone opened the door and the light ruined one or two of the slides, we notice that a few days later.)
Each one here has a different set of expertise, so if you want to run the experiment and write a nice post with photos you can farm some karma. Otherwise, you can just comment that is also useful.
Even if you ignore all the issues you mentioned and physically mount the sensor with a bunch of blue tack in a dim environment you will be able to get a much better picture than the article. Next step would be 3d printing a case/mount. There really isn't much more to it.
PS: you can buy a sensor with a USB2 cable attached to it, which works flawlessly in Linux.
Here's a link to the actual photo. https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2026/06/09-Jupiter.jpg
[replaced a Threads link for a better one]
"Get the full app experience"
F%%k the closed web.
Ah yea, I shouldn't have linked to Threads (it was just the first result I found to see the full photo). I replaced the link with a better one.
Thank you. From the posted article, it took me to a YouTube video, which mentioned a Popular Science article[0], which I found looking at the history in BlueSky… yet none of that had the actual photo. After all that running around, it’s quite underwhelming. I suppose the headline and the process is better/more interesting than the picture, and they knew it.
[0] https://www.popsci.com/science/game-boy-camera-jupiter/
That's... honestly kinda underwhelming. You can't even see any stripes, it's just a vague blob. I guess the contrast was just too much for the Gameboy camera?
It means a lot more if you held one of these in your hands new before you were old enough to drive
(or, in my case, read about it in nintendo power, but only saw it behind the glass case at Target)
I've used a gameboy camera recently. It took some lovely pictures once it was adjusted properly. I just suspect that there might have been problems with dynamic range etc that made it particularly difficult to take a picture of jupiter?
Sorry, but I had a game boy camera in 1998 and it was underwhelming back then too. I was in the third grade.
Yes, the lack of whelm in all cases is what makes it impressive that it worked at all in this case.
Not to diminish his accomplishment, he attached the game boy camera to a 60inch telescope at Mount Wilson. This is a cool project but the quality of the photo is what you’d expect from a gameboy camera.
The headline seems to imply that he custom built a telescope for his gameboy.
Can I see the picture of Jupiter though? Seems like one of the 2 pictures this article would need
Yeah, surprising all this effort and no clean copy of the picture to be easily found. Pretty easy to get them off the GB camera now days.
Probably because it is a kind of autogenerated article betting it all on the clickbait title to generate ad dollars.
Related: "2bit Astrophotography with the Game Boy Camera" 04-jul-2017 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14697456 55 comments
Having the colour of your links be very close to the default colour of links you've already clicked is an interesting style choice
I don't know why I was expecting to be amazed by the photo.
Would have been far more interesting to have an iPhone adapter, another very common device but with a worthwhile image sensor better justifying time on a massive telescope.
It's a 100" telescope... from 1917. To summarize Wikipedia for you (my words, not a genai): While it was used by famous people like Hubble it isn't used for scientific work anymore. Some adaptics optics stuff happened in the 1990s, but I suppose that was just to test the system on a telescope that wasn't in active use anymore. In 2014 it "began its new life as the world's largest telescope dedicated to public use".
So I'd say it's a good use as any ;-)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Wilson_Observatory#100-i...
This is why the internet was born.
This is definitely news for hackers.
Blogspam article with more ads than content.
Just name the "guy" in the title, how hard is that? I hate this so much. Idea and execution is so rad, just credit him properly, Engadget pls...
Musician and retro tech fan Chris Graue
There's a headline character count budget!
Where is the photo?
Read the other comments and you’ll find the answer you’re looking for.
[dead]
[flagged]
Do you have a blog post about it? It may be an interesting DIY post in HN in spite it may seem trivial to you. (Remember to include a few photos.)
There's not much to blog about. You just take the camera sensor and place it in the focal plane of the lens.
I took a few lab courses in the university (for Physics), it's never that easy.
How do you keep it in place? A wood mount? A 3D printed piece? A metal support may be an overkill. Does it need screws for alignment? I guess 3, but I'm not sure if they are necessary. Can I buy the sensor alone or I have to remove a lens? Do you have a strong opinion about sensors? Like one for beginners and one for intermediate level. Wires? I still have nightmares about BNC wires that magically stop working. How much light isolation? Do I have to paint everything in black? (While using a microscope in a completely dark room to take photos, someone opened the door and the light ruined one or two of the slides, we notice that a few days later.)
Each one here has a different set of expertise, so if you want to run the experiment and write a nice post with photos you can farm some karma. Otherwise, you can just comment that is also useful.
Even if you ignore all the issues you mentioned and physically mount the sensor with a bunch of blue tack in a dim environment you will be able to get a much better picture than the article. Next step would be 3d printing a case/mount. There really isn't much more to it.
PS: you can buy a sensor with a USB2 cable attached to it, which works flawlessly in Linux.
Indeed, content performance is more important than camera performance here.