Jupiter first attempt

That's lovely. I'm taking my first steps with DSLR astrophotography, and I really appreciate the techy stuff you've posted.

If that was my photo, I'd be pleased as punch!

58 minutes ago, Swithin StCleeve said:

That's lovely. I'm taking my first steps with DSLR astrophotography, and I really appreciate the techy stuff you've posted.

 

If that was my photo, I'd be pleased as punch!

Thanks for the nice comment , I try to write down all the settings that went into the photo for my own reference. If I change something, I can always compare it with photos posted here. 

What DSLR and scope have you got? If the DSLR has live view, it will double as a planetary camera as well as a DSO camera.

Clear skies,

Dan.

Cannon 750D camera, and an 8" Skywatcher on an EQ mount. The camera only arrived last week, so I'm just taking on board info. I was particularly pleased to see your Jupiter because someone told me DSLRs aren't useful for Planetary photography.

I've got such a lot to learn, but I have got some nice moon shots this week, which I'm pleased with.

6 minutes ago, Swithin StCleeve said:

Cannon 750D camera, and an 8" Skywatcher on an EQ mount. The camera only arrived last week, so I'm just taking on board info. I was particularly pleased to see your Jupiter because someone told me DSLRs aren't useful for Planetary photography.

I've got such a lot to learn, but I have got some nice moon shots this week, which I'm pleased with.

Cool, with an 8" you should get some very nice results. You may need a 2x Barlow to get a better image scale. The 750D is a great piece of kit, you can easily do decent planetary imaging with it. There are a few things to sort first though...

- Do NOT try to image with 1080p (HD) or 720p video, the camera makes the frames from the full sensor but then down samples the pixels. When you zoom in on the planet it will look very blocky. I think this is why people say DSLRs are not good for planetary.

- There is an easy trick to get the best quality out of the DSLR (as good as webcam). Install a program like backyard EOS (or something similar). It has a planetary imaging mode. In this mode it will record movies onto the computer from the camera live view. To get the best resolution use 5x zoom (do not use any other zoom), for details explaining why go to the backyard EOS help video. I should mention that this works for my cameras (550D and 600D) so it should work for yours).

- once you have recorded a video of the planet (up to 10 mins of video should be enough) process it in RegiStax, see the primer video on youtube to get you started.

Once you have got the best image scale and pixel resolution, the result then depends on the british weather! 

Hope that helps!

Dan.

Nice image . Lots of gr8 detail.

seb

1 hour ago, Galatic Wanderer said:

Nice image . Lots of gr8 detail.

seb

Thanks Galatic wanderer, Registax did most of the hard work ! Dan

Thanks for the tips Dan. When you say record movies onto the computer with the camera live view, does that mean you have to have your pc hooked up to the camera when you record the movie?

Yes, that's correct, normally the camera movie modes (that record onto the memory card) are down-sampled and are therefore not useful for planetary imaging. If you hook up the DSLR to a laptop running Backyard EOS it will directly record from the live view data (cropped at 5x). Some very impressive planetary images have been taken this way. I am not sure is you can record 5x live view onto the memory card, I would think they the live view is purely for looking at a scene rather than recording from. I guess it could be annoying that laptop is needed to do this but if you had a webcam, the laptop would also be necessary. 

Have a look at the backyard EOS help vid: www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3gkw8bx7Aw (skip to 1:35:40 for planetary)

HTH 

Dan.

Some useful tips there, many thanks. I've yet to use my equatorial mount properly, (I've had a Dobsonian for the last 20 years), so that's my first challenge. Then I'll get some imaging done. I was at my local Astronomy group last Monday and a guy told me polar alignment was quite easy, and ran me through it (I took my scope).

Then I need a motor...

On 22 June 2016 at 08:21, Swithin StCleeve said:

Some useful tips there, many thanks. I've yet to use my equatorial mount properly, (I've had a Dobsonian for the last 20 years), so that's my first challenge. Then I'll get some imaging done. I was at my local Astronomy group last Monday and a guy told me polar alignment was quite easy, and ran me through it (I took my scope).

Then I need a motor...

Best thing you can do is talk to a local astro club! Luckely with planetary work you do not need a hugely precise PA. As long as the planet is not drifting off the screen every 10 seconds you should get good results!

Lovely pict - whoever did the image editing must be pretty talented

2 hours ago, S-Nova said:

Lovely pict - whoever did the image editing must be pretty talented

Yes S-Nova, very talented indeed!