Yet another Saturn

Hi Trevor,
well done on a fine saturn image very good detale

Cheers all.

Woops, you're right Seanie. Didn't notice that on my notebook monitor. I used a paint bucket over the background. I should still have the original though.

Then let me see it the way the gods intended!

Hi, I'm back, after a year's absence (I doubt any body missed me, I certainly hope not!) I'm impressed by your Saturn image too, I've just started webcamming this month, and was out (in very similar conditions- very good seeing too) on Saturday. Must say tjhat my images aren't quite as good as that though. I used a 150mm TAL Newtonian and SPC900NC webcam, and even experimented with putting two barlows together (not my best idea, but got me to f/40). Maybe they'll be better next time -I'm getting a motorised mount this weekend, so it'll be easier to take a decent number of frames, and make collimation easier. The advantages of an apo!

www.pulsar.co.nr/Mambo/observationbmps/2454149+1.bmp

This was the first that night, f/20

www.pulsar.co.nr/mambo/observationbmps/2454149+2.bmp

The second, otherwise same as above.

www.pulsar.co.nr/mambo/observationbmps/2454149+3.bmp

The third: Experimental, and not 100% successful. @f/40

Was cold that night -2, and I'm starting to sound like a charity case!

I've got all the details written down somewhere, if, as I very much doubt, anyone is interested

Clear Skies, Dan

Hi dan! Welcome back to the boards!
When i click on the links it just bring me to the main website! :x

Hey Dan! Welcome back from me also

Those images are exactly like what I was getting at first. The 3rd one was missing BTW.

Is it possible the webcam was set to auto?
You will also want make sure to turn off Auto settings for the webcam. Typically I'd turn Gamma way down (under 25%), capture at 5 or 10 fps and try to use a low a gain as I can (higher gain means more noise) and try to capture anywhere from 1000 to 2000 frames (sometimes more).

Other than that focusing is the most difficult part. To help with this I recently started using K3CCDTools (from pk3.org). There's a 30 day trial on the site here pk3.org/Astro/index.htm . The great thing about it is that it has an excellent focus helper. Just place the Saturn near the middle of the screen, hit the focus tool and keep turning your focuser slowly until you reach the maximum focus, i.e. the highest number the tool displays. Once you reach that point you are at or are very close to perfect focus.

Using that in combination with the Tal 150 and the SP900NC should get you some lovely images with practice. Took me ages
It will be much much easier when your new mount comes.

Anyway, it took a while to figure out all the correct procedures so when I did I documented it on my site here to help others:

www.thelunarscape.com/Joomla/content/view/31/48/

Take a look, I hope it's of help. You can skip the first few paragraphs, it's just background info.

There's only one problem; you're gonna get hooked on this

By the way there's a space in your image links at the beginning and the end so they don't show up. Had to copy the URL to get to the image.

Cheers,

Trev

Then let me see it the way the gods intended!

It updated now Seannie. Thanks for pointing it out. It looked nasty when I zoomed in! :lol: