Jupiter March 30th, from Toronto

[nucdoc]

Some pictures from last nite: Questar 7 Ti,  ZWO 174 mm with LRGB filters, Skywatcher AZ/EQ 6, processing with Autostakert, pixinsight, acquired with Firecapture, approx 120 sec for each capture, and 5000 frames total

[christhebrit]

Very nice!

I'm trying to get into this at a very basic level with my 6" refractor, HEQ5 and Nikon D3100.

My photos are finy at best, why are yours large enough to show this detail?

I struggle to show a few cloud bands after paintshop.

[nucdoc]

Very nice!

I'm trying to get into this at a very basic level with my 6" refractor, HEQ5 and Nikon D3100.

My photos are finy at best, why are yours large enough to show this detail?

I struggle to show a few cloud bands after paintshop.

Image size is a function of the telescope, camera and back focus, the farther back you can focus on the CCD the larger the image.  For the two larger images I used a 2x and 4x power mate (like a barlow) respectively, this helped with the magnification.  As far as details, I was never alble to get much planetary detail with a DSLR, others here probably can comment better than me.  High sensitivity video cameras have revolutionized planet astrophotography, at least for me.

The Philips webcam, with adaptor is a very good way to start, Firecapture and Autostakert are both free and excellent tools for acquisition and processing of webcam AVI's

An excellent camera is the ZWO 120mm (monochrome), and since the debut of the ZWO 174 in March of this year several ZWO 120's have been on Cloudy Nights equipment exchange for $200 USD.

[christhebrit]

Interesting, I thought the DSLR had a bigger chip meaning more detail.

I've used some websites which show me objects with specific equipment and cameras, but even with the 4x or 5x option the images still appear small.

I'll look into the CCD option, but thought they made smaller images due to chip size.

With mono, it'd only be black and white, is cost the reason for your suggestion or is there more I'm missing?

I understand I can edit colour using software, something I intend to try on stars soon.

It's just that I'd like to try and produce a realistic image to work with, I may have OCD :-P

[mitchelln]

Interesting, I thought the DSLR had a bigger chip meaning more detail.

I've used some websites which show me objects with specific equipment and cameras, but even with the 4x or 5x option the images still appear small.

I'll look into the CCD option, but thought they made smaller images due to chip size.

With mono, it'd only be black and white, is cost the reason for your suggestion or is there more I'm missing?

I understand I can edit colour using software, something I intend to try on stars soon.

It's just that I'd like to try and produce a realistic image to work with, I may have OCD :-P

Most DSLR's employ binning to achieve the HD 1920x1080 resolution when in video mode. Effectively they throw away around 1 in 3 pixels. I switched from using my Canon 7D with a 4x Powermate to a QHY5L-II and couldn't believe the difference in scale.

[Pete Presland]

Lovely set of images.

[christhebrit]

Most DSLR's employ binning to achieve the HD 1920x1080 resolution when in video mode. Effectively they throw away around 1 in 3 pixels. I switched from using my Canon 7D with a 4x Powermate to a QHY5L-II and couldn't believe the difference in scale.

I'm now quite interested in the QHY5L-II after having done some research.

I'm confused, the QHY5-II has a bigger chip, but I think a much lower QE.

Doesn't that make it worse?

[Virgoman]

Lovely and varied image collection

                                        Best regards,

                                                              Ralph