Jupiter with Celestron Neximage 5
Entry posted by James4
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New Year's Eve 2012, was chilly around 2 degrees C. But the skies were improving and Jupiter was shining through the thin cloud cover.
I had just picked up a 'Celestron Neximage 5' and was hoping it would clear enough to give it a run.
I set up the CGEM and put the C9.25 on board. Jupiter was in and out the clouds as I hooked up the Neximage.
Flashback
About 2 years ago I was imaging with a pocket digital camera (a Pentax Optio E30). I had surprisingly good results from this non astro camera.
But eventually I seemed to hit a barrier on improvements. The images were noisy and I couldn't get past a certain level.
I figured when I upgraded my DSLR to one that shoots video, the better chip would be lower noise and higher quality and would take me to the next level.
Survey says XX.
It just didn't turn out that way. The images seemed to have almost no colour and were not even quite as good as those from the $150 Pentax.
The cost of a real planet camera was out of reach, so I fell away from it. Recently observing Jupiter I decided I needed to try imaging again.
I decided to try a planet camera instead of messing around with not astro cameras. I still can't justify the money for a high end camera, but saw the Celestron Neximage 5 - a 5 MegaPixel Planet Camera. I reasoned if this can improve my imaging over the other cameras, the next step will be a monochrome cooled camera.
I'm not expecting brilliant results, but do hope to see an improvement over previous efforts.
Back to New Year's Eve
I removed the eyepiece and put the Neximage 5 in its place. On the computer I could see Jupiter a s a large cloud, I refocused and it was just a few turns of the stock focuser to bring Jupiter to focus. Jupiter was still facing in and out of the clouds. I hit the record button quick to at least capture a few frames.
I changed the resolution up to 2592 x 1944 and Jupiter looked huge on screen. Over the next two hours I captured about 20 video clips of Jupiter.
I twice put the camera away only to be wowed visually and sparked into taking more video. However, later all the videos turned out to be low resolution.
I had tried many different resolution settings on-screen but they had all come out at low res!
Meanwhile back at the scope, I decided to bring out the new 10" Lightbridge. I recently sold my 6" Explore Scientific Refractor and picked up a Lightbridge.
I used a 5mm 2" Ultima LX eyepiece for 255x on the Lightbridge. The view was excellent, Jupiter was crisp and 5 belts were visible. As far as I could tell there was no GRS or other large features on the nearside of Jupiter. I compared the view in the 10" Lightbridge with the 9.25" SCT. The view looked the same to me, I couldn't really see any difference - I was using 184 x (13mm Ultima 2") in the SCT.
I decided to look for Comet 2012 K5/Linear. I googled the coordinates and punched them into the CGEM Handcontroller. I slewed there and hunted around for a few minutes. Then just below two faint stars there it was - a small but distinct cloud. I observed it for a few minutes before moving back to Jupiter.
I tried an OIII filter in the Lightbride to look at The Orion Nebula. The Trapezium almost disappeared, but the nebula eppeared larger and more extended.
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