My First Saturn

[Daz1974]

After not managing to have a worthwhile viewing session with my telescope since stargazing live back in January I was quite happy to be able to get out tonight and have my first proper look at Saturn. It goes without saying how fantastic it looks and after spending some time really pushing my little skywatcher 130p to its limits with a 8mm BST and 3x Tal (which gave a fantastic view of Saturn) I decided to try the SPC800 webcam and grabbing some images.

Now, I have had very little experience so far with registax having just messed about with a few grabs of Jupiter when I first got my scope back in October last year and after spending about 10 minutes messing about this evening I settled on the following.

This was taken using a Skywatcher 130p Goto, a phillips SPC800 webcam into a Tal 3x Barlow with the following SharpCap settings:

AVI Length: 2 minutes

Resolution=640x480

Frame Rate (fps)=30.00

Colour Space / Compression=YUY2

Exposure=-4

Brightness=127

Contrast=33

Saturation=-100

Gamma=14

ColorEnable=255

BacklightCompensation=0

Gain=43

Would appreciate any more experienced users of the software to analyse, and comment as to what could be done to improve my images with the hardware I have available

[Stargazer Jack]

That is a very good image, well done

[Qualia]

I'm not a photographer, Daz, but as an image, this lay person thinks you've done an excellent job. It's very nice and well executed

[MidnightSun]

Well done.....

[SeedyF]

That looks really good well done

Lovely sharp image and good detail. I am no expert with registax myself I just fiddle until I get something I am happy with!!

Sent from my GT-I9000 using Tapatalk 2

[shellfish]

Cool pick realy like it

[starnut]

nice one

[paulf]

I got a 130p last month, and got asda webcam yesterday so if my first effort at saturn is half as good as yours I'll be very happy!

[Ganymede12]

Great pics!

So far all I have of Saturn is a yellow blur!

I think my problem Is keeping the camera steady!

[phil m105]

great image & info

ive been geussing with my brightness,exposure ect.....

& like you im struggling with registax

[pel]

Firstly, that is a great image with the equipment you have.

I started off following the Basic tutorial below (he's voice isn't as boring as some either) and then built on that and then finally you can process further in something like Adobe Photoshop Elements.

Most of the improvement in Registax comes when you start adjusting the Lower wavelets (5&6).

[media=]

[pel]

Wow, it embedded the Tutorial :-)

[Space Cowboy]

Thats an excellent image with your little scope! Ideally your frame rate needs to be slower i.e 10-15fps to avoid video compression (spc webcam being only usb 1.1) and capture time longer i.e 6mins but you've done a great job there all being said!

[Pete Presland]

Thats an excellent image with your little scope! Ideally your frame rate needs to be slower i.e 10-15fps to avoid video compression (spc webcam being only usb 1.1) and capture time longer i.e 6mins but you've done a great job there all being said!

spot on advice. more frames, means you can much harsher with amount you of frames you dump.also a bit more aggressive with the wavelets in registax as well because noise will less of a problem with more frames stacked.

[Daz1974]

thanks everyone for the comments. I'll lower the frame rate next time space cowboy and increasse the capture time and see what I can come up with.

[JamesF]

I'd be tempted to bring the frame rate down to 10fps. The SPC880/900 always uses compression at 640x480 IIRC, but the higher the frame rate the more compression used. I've not really seen any advantage in changing to the higher frame rates.

James