saturn 28/12/2004 first attempt wth lpi

ladies and gents,
here is my first attempt last night to capture saturn with the lpi that came with my lx200gps. i think the focus was a bit off and it was a bit wild and cold last night, not to mention the moon but it did not come out too bad. 24 single frames were taken 9 of them discarded as they were out of focus the rest were processed and stacked in registax. being able to focus and reposition the telescope from within the autostar suite is kind of handy but the planetarium part is a bit awkward to use. with practice i think i could do better than this assuming the atmosphere is a bit more stable at the time. still learning how to use all this software.
stephen.

Nice first attempt.

Have you tried the LPI software to auto-stack the images?

You can also download the DSI software from Meade and use it with the LPI instead. I tried it on a terrestrial object and it was much better than the LPI software.

Hi Stephen,
Great first go at Saturn, you might want to reduce the contrast/brightness abit, just to take the glare of it.
There is alot of potential in that image !

james,
i have not tried really to get the lpi to autostack i will try it next time. i am just wary about giving it too much control, at least with single frames you can see what you can use and adjust them manually. if the software is doing it automatically, you have nothing in between. i did not know you could use the dsi software with it , i might give it a try next time.

dave,
as you suggested it is a bit bright. i used photshop le to change the brightness and contrast here goes.
stephen.

Stephen,
That's a decent image you got there. Focus is actually pretty good as you can clearly see a sharp Cassini division. For future images I'd recommend two things:
1) Try and use a barlow. This will give a larger image and allow a larger target to focus on. However, there also comes a point when increasing the mag might be counterproductive if the atmosphere is very turbulent. A larger image also makes it easier to set the brightness, contrast, gain and shutter speeds to a more useful level. On a small image this is difficult to do.
2) Capture more frames. More as in several hundred. Then try using Registax to align and stack them.
All in all a very good effort and a hell of alot better than my first attempt.
Clear skies,

2) Capture more frames. More as in several hundred. Then try using Registax to align and stack them.
All in all a very good effort and a hell of alot better than my first attempt.
Clear skies,

My thoughts exactly, you got a superb image considering the number of frames you used, you would get much better resolution if you used more frames, its also way better then my first go also.