My first look at Jupiter through a Telescope :)

My first time looking at Jupiter through a telescope was on 9th August night.

Stayed up late last night to get my first Astro Shots If I'd waited another hour (to about 3am :huh: ) I might have got the Red Spot too...

Still struggling with focusing.



Both shots with:
Celestron G-8N (8" Reflector)
CG5 Mount with RA motorised drive
Philips spnc900nc webcam
UV filter
1st shot with 2.5 barlow, 2nd with 2x barlow.

Also viewed the Ring Nebula in Lyra 9th and 10th August (but cannot get my camera to detect it ) Looks good.

Looked at Andromeda for the first time too

Gloriously clear night last night.
Milky Way was awe inspiring!
And could see Andromeda with the naked eye using averted vision.

Hard to believe it after the July we had and the rain today!

Peter

Hi Peter,

Great effort, and yeah I think we all struggle with focusing (I know I do).
Planning on having a go at this tonight if it stays clear.
Well done again.

Tony

Peter. Congrats on some excellent first time results!
All I'd say is increase the gain or brightness of the camera
(sometimes in the dark outside it looks fine but in the
light of day on the pc it'll look dark...
always err on the side of caution..)
Also, I would if I may be so bold as to reccomend that you
spend more time observing and less on the laptop / camera.
For 2 reasons:
1. having an instinctive mental picture of the planet will help
you in further imaging but you'll as many observing hours as possible to build this up..
Jupiter changes like the wind here so it's vital to have good visual
representation first before photographing.
(same rule applies to terrestrial photography)

2. You'll get more out of visual observation than photographic at
ground level.
Unless you see a comet crashing into it!
by all means don't give up imaging...
In fact I encourage it!
But, don't miss out on the joys & importance of visual observation also!
We need people to be able to 'spot' the difference between a
new impact and an old storm / moon shadow!

ATB
Frank.

Thanks Tony and Frank.

Yep....I agree with your 'bold' statement Frank

And I'll definitely make an effort to do more observing.

At the moment, when there's a clear sky, I try and look for a while, image for a while and look again.

But I think I'll try more looking/observing especially as the nights come earlier and I can drag out a kid or two to share the experience.

And, at least at the moment, I am getting much clearer images viewing with my eyes than with the camera.

I have also been thinking along the same lines as you regarding the gain/brightness settings.
Definitely since I started reducing both my AVI shots have become too grainy.

Thanks again,
Peter

Hi Peter

Sounds like some good advice from Frank.
Especially what you see on laptop while imaging and what you see the
next day, I fall victim to this all the time.

I also like to capture as many frames as possible, think about two mins for Jupiter.

Here are a couple of shots I got Friday night of Jupiter, still having
problems with focus had to wait till 3am for planet to clear neighbour’s trees.

Telescope 100mm f9 refractor, 2x Barlow and Philips 840k webcam.
I use K3cdd to capture (free) and WcCtrl (free) to control web cam .

My web cam setting are something like this.

Brightness 40%
Gamma 30%
Gain 10% (I have read somewhere that this should be as high
as 60%, but it just blows it out for me)
Fps 10
Sutter 1/25

For these shots I took 1300 frames @10 fps.
Hope this is of some help.


Tony

Very nice images from your 100mm Tony. The cloud bands are distinct and have colour, which is good. Actually, what make of scope is it?

Seanie.