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3 hours ago, Astronomist said:

What you have is probably better than most refractors for imaging the planets due to the large aperture. Refractors of non-gigantic size are better suited to deep sky imaging.

Yeah I just don't like collimating though lol, and I do want to eventually progress toward imaging DSOs. My (small) balcony is where I most frequently image and observe, which would greatly benefit from a relatively smaller scope when needed :P

4 hours ago, Astronomist said:

Very nice! what scope are you using?

Sky-Watcher Classic 250P

I do eventually want to buy a refractor and a proper mount, but for now this will do

Little better...

On 07/06/2024 at 07:27, josefk said:

Nice. I had the pleasure of observing an early season Saturn after dawn on Sunday just passed. It was a bit bigger in the EP than your images here and fantastic against a china blue sky even with the magnification i was using . The rings at this narrow angle (and that your pictures show nicely) were striking for me after several months since my last observation and considerable narrowing of the angle of tilt since last year. I saw it like a ping pong ball pierced by a cocktail stick. Will be super as the year goes on. 👍

Yeah in my 3mm EP it also appears bigger, and you can just barely make out the gap between the planet and its rings if you focus your eye enough.

I've spent a couple more days taking photos/videos at various shutter speeds and/or ISO levels, and have been learning to process/stack them. Lots of room for improvement still, as I do feel like I'm doing certain parts of the process incorrectly (any tips from whoever is reading would be appreciated), but I was able to bring out some darker colors of gas I think (could also just be really bad processing). The darkest band is just the rings I'm pretty sure.. I'm going to try different barlow lenses next and continue playing around with camera settings to get it to work with my setup.

On 07/06/2024 at 10:30, Elp said:

Such a unique orientation to see, I haven't looked at it for years so hopefully can capture it later this year when it's higher up for longer.

It has definitely made it a challenge to photograph and learn to stack with! As you can see above, the rings are pretty blurry and have an odd 'shadow' to them.

First view of Saturn in several weeks since it has been extremely cloudy. This is also the first test of capturing Saturn with my new camera (Canon Rebel T7). A 3x barlow lens was used. No processing/stacking, though I did capture some video too that I may use to try and learn how to process/align and stack.

Off the top of my head I believe these two photos use ISO 6400, and a shutter speed of 1/60 or so.

I'm also pretty sure the white dot down and to the left of Saturn is star HIP115311 https://www.universeguide.com/star/115311/hip115311#facts

On 29/05/2024 at 15:26, LukeTheNuke said:

Off to a great start! Very nice! They look sharp. I especially like the close-up. It looks a bit more contrasty to me. So your camera is a DSLR? Did you convert the shots to mono in processing or set the camera to mono? (at least, I don't think I see any colour? I like shooting in mono myself, I'm just wondering why).

Yes it's a DSLR. All settings are default except for shutter speed, ISO, and the countdown timer to reduce vibration when taking the photo, and I didn't do any post-processing/stacking. These are the .jpegs directly from the camera, though I do also have the raw files; I'm just not experienced with editing those yet. I do have some daytime shots, I just haven't posted them yet, and I was still experimenting with the above mentioned settings, so the daytime photos I do have have a very dull/dark blue for the sky.

6 hours ago, Altocumulus said:

Looking good, and welcome to the Forum - and the rabbit hole that is imaging astronomy...

Thanks! It has been a very rewarding experience so far. First time seeing Saturn in the scope was amazing. Woke up my girlfriend at 5am to come see it I plan to get a shot of it soon hopefully

Am only just starting out with imaging, and getting back into astronomy in general. Bought first scope recently (Sky-Watcher Classic 250P)

Both taken with Rebel T7, mounted to the scope, one with no barlow lens and then the other was either with  a 2x or 3x (don't quite remember; was a few days ago and didn't note it down)