First real attempt at getting a Jupiter shot.

Popoutman

Last night I decided to try and take advantage of the transparent skies and still local air, to take a few captures of Jupiter.

Using my recently-acquired Meade 6" F5 newtonian on the LXD75 mount, I set up, polar aligned, 3-star aligned (saying I was <5' from the pole using the Kochab Clock trick), and left to cool down more. I was collimated as well as the Meade spider would allow using the combination tool I have, and I have yet to remove the mirror clips and substitute with silicone.

The seeing was pretty terrible, being honest, and I could see Jupiter dancing around and it looked as though it was at the bottom of a river. I persevered if only for the practice...

I started tracking on Jupiter. and using K3CCDTools to capture at 10fps, 1/60s exposure with the Logitach quickcam that I had rehoused. I have a 2x TV barlow to let me reach focus, and to get a better image scale. I had the focus as best I could get with the FFT routine in K3CCD. I now understand why people have the 10:1 reducers on their high-end focusers!

One tip for K3CCDTools users - don't record video when you have a reticle displayed on screen.. it appears in random frames in the recorded file.

Here's one result from a total of 1100 frames stacked in Avistack, and histogram stretched:



Wavelet sharpening appears not to make any improvement - too blurry from the seeing?

Another attempt, with more detail almost seen using 3500 frames stacked in Avistack, and histogram stretched:



Any thoughts?

peterako

I'm a relative novice myself.

It was lovely and clear last night and I set teh 'scope out early to cool down (along with my added fan to speed things up).
I checked and corrected collimation....

Then viewed.
Looked ok up to 250x but beyond that it was not great.

I too took some shots and they are not among my best.

So my only thoughts on your questions:

1. Seeing was not great last night.....
2. If you were seeing Jupiter at the bottom of a river....maybe the scope was not properly cooled? Or magnification too high?

3....

BEWARE.....astro photography is very addictive

Nice first shots!

Peter

Popoutman

I knew the seeing was my limit last night as on previous nights with the scope, I could easily see the first diffraction ring around stars, but last night I had trouble getting to the finest focus, and the diffraction rings were only intermittently visible. Jupiter was looking a little like a drop of water on a hotplate, with many wobbles of the limb, and the satellites were really wobbly.
Thermal issues may have had a part to play, yet I had the scope out cooling at sunset. Given that the air temp dropped about 12-14 degrees from 6 to 9, I think that the local surroundings may have had a part to play, I did set up on tarmac in the yard. Next time I'll set up on the lawn

whynotdo

Popoutman wrote: »

Any thoughts?

Hi popoutman,Main thought is thank You for sharing the pics!:)
and hate when people apologise for their early efforts at Astronomy or Astrophotography,I get a real kick from people bothering to post their pics from what i know is a passion to them.
Your technical chat is way over My head as i have never owned a Scope and unlikely to own one soon(too much light pollution anyway on top of of other factors)

Please keep them coming,seeing them second hand is better than not seeing them at all,
even with Peters Govt health warning:)
it is not hard to guess the hugh effort you's go to even reach early days!

backboiler

I was out myself last night for an hour or two but, while the sky itself was clear, a mist came in and drenched everything, ground, telescope tube, lenses, covers, everything. Strange kind of weather.
It's only a wee 102 mm job and I'm looking from the city of Dublin but I got some lovely views of Jupiter with a very, very clear dark band visible around 30-ish degrees north of its equator.
Also got a look at Uranus, though it was just a wee dot.
After that the lenses got soaked, especially the small alignment scope, for some reason. Came back after about 20 minutes and it was a bit clearer but not perfect. Still I had a decent gawk at the Pleiades and the fuzz ball that is the Andromeda Galaxy.
Had a look for M33 as well but couldn't find it. After I came in I realised I should have had a look for Comet Hartley to the north but gave up because of the damn mist.
Not a bad night's viewing but without the mist it would have been great.

dlofnep

Good work!:)

Popoutman

I have one more stack result that I have yet to post, I took the .avi with a #82 filter (I think) in place to try and raise contrast in the belts. That stack is on an external harddrive, so will be here later on.

After taking the videos, I did a nice hour or so of looking at other things, before I had to call it a night and go in by about 10pm.. but I'll post that in another thread. It's nice to be properly getting back into the hobby again.