I'm beginning to get the hang of this planetary imaging

Mind you I've been messing at it on and off for 10 years or so! But having a permanent setup makes things so much easier when compared to lugging out equipment each night and waiting for scopes to cool down.

Here's a couple of images of Jupiter from Saturday night:

That's the most detail I've ever managed to get on Jupiter. I was using 2000 frames at 5fps which thinking about it meant 6 minutes of video which is enough to have the planets rotation make an impact - and I'm delighted to have images good enough that that makes a difference Though I'm starting to appreciate the high frame rate planetary cameras from DMK and the like now.

The focussing was good (Bahtinov mask). The collimation was pretty good - concentric out of focus rings with a 4mm eyepiece; is that good enough?

I reprocessed the second image to bring out Io a bit more as it had just re-emerged from behind Jupiter also:


I think I should be able to get a little better images with this setup. Perhaps try and improve the collimation and use a shorter video with 10fps if that doesn't introduce compression from the webcam.

Cheers,
~Al

I like the detail in the banding..and nice with the capture of the moon in the second image..
Great job!!

Nice set of images and some good detail, well done.

Yeah Philips webcams only work well at 5-10fps before compression kicks in as they are only usb 1.

If you’re not using Firecap capture software I strongly recommend you give it a go,
and change the image screen from 640x480 to something like (ROI) 400x320 I find you can capture
at 15-20 and even 30fps without the images being compressed,
now I’m not 100% sure about this, but I know I’m getting much better images now then I used to.

Also as the image screen get smaller you’ll find it very difficult to keep the object on the chip, but worth it.

Keep up the good work.

Hi Albert,
Just seen your images now try limiting your capture times to around 45sec with your DKM and lower your ROI to a smaller window size which will increase your frame rate up quite a bit. Well done on the images mate.

Carl.

Good shots there Al,
Stacking more frames will sharpen up the image somewhat, you should try 15fps and see what you get. Your collimation sounds good. For my SCT I found that I could use the webcam itself for collimation. For me its easier to measure symmetry and image centeredness of a de-focused star on a laptop screen then by eye.
The laser is usually good enough for the dob.

Dear god that's impressive. You got Io and everything. That made me stop with amazement right there.