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Showing results for tags 'imaging'.
Found 164 results
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Which one should I get I am little bit confused please help me out
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which webcam is best for planetary imaging under 25 USD . If you have experience of any webcam for planetary work please help me out -
should I modify a logitech Webcam for planetary imaging or get that svbony 105 planetary camera. I don't know the image quality svbony camera . If the Svbony camera is better than a modified Webcam please tell me
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I just got into observing and would love to be able to take a picture of what I'm seeing. I got an old Nikon D60 from 2012? laying here still working perfectly with multiple lenses. I did some research and found I should buy some kind of T-ring as an adapter between the telescope and camera. Is this the only thing I need to take an image ? Thanks in advance!
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Hi everyone, I am new to astrophotography and of course started by taking a photo of the moon (as attached) using my Canon EOS500D camera - 1/250 exposure time, 800ISO. I used my celestron 127EQ telescope with a adapter for the camera of course. I used no eyepiece. However, i find that it is slightly blurred, and upon taking pictures of nearby stars, i also found them to be blurred, even with a high exposure time. am i doing anything wrong at all or is this simply because of my setup? Many thanks IMG_3243.CR2 -
Hello I am wondering if anyone has a suggestion that might help me My imaging set up is an RC reflector with an FLI proline 16803 camera and 50mm Astrodon filters (LRGB + 5nm narrow band) I have had a string of issues...everything from my mount had mechanical problems to my telescope had issues with the mirror cell to some family distractions...but at long last I seem to have everything working with the exception of the Astrodon Ha filter. Attached are representative 30minute subframes of the horse head and Pacman nebulae in Ha, SII, and OIII. I get similar results with different objects although for bright, broad spectrum targets like M42, I will get data from the Ha filter (much as the stars shine thru on the HH and Pacman) although even that data does not comport with other imager’s Ha images of those objects. The LRGB performance appears to be normal. My hypothesis is that this Ha filter is defective, perhaps not centered on 656.3nm I have contacted Astrodon and exchanged a couple of emails with Cary Chleborad seeking some help. At first he claimed there was no issue because with enough manipulation some data could be extracted from the Ha. Later, when confronted with the other narrowband frames and the obvious difference to the Ha, at first he ghosted me, but when I said I would ask other imagers for help, he responded with a new position stating that because of the way the filters are made and their robust quality processes, it is impossible for the filter to be defective and therefore something else must be at issue. He does not offer a suggestion of what might be the problem, nor is he interested in having me send the filter back for evaluation. Frankly, I’m more than disappointed given the premium I paid for Astrodon filters All that aside, and taking Cary’s position at face value, does anyone have an idea of what might cause this behavior other than the filter? In a perfect world, does anyone live in the Austin, Texas area who would be willing to try my filter one night and see what they get with their equipment? The attached link is to the raw, uncalibrated files right off the camera. I think a simple blink process in PixInsight will show what I’m talking about. I’m a little at my wits end, please help! https://www.dropbox.com/sh/60mvhzb717hdhnl/AACcAMkQdDsJuk1RU10PXvgja?dl=0 -
Hi folks, I've been seeing tear drop shape stars with the EdgeHd 8 and ZWO ASI294MC Pro camera, so I verified the collimation. I'm using a celestron x0.7 reducer. Does collimation needs to be checked with an eyepiece or with the camera and with or without reducer? I'm asking since I verified my collimation yesterday and couldn't see the concentric rings with the complete imaging train (ASI294MC, OAG, and x0.7 reducer). It was only showing the inner shadow and outer circle. I than replaced the AS294MC with my guide cam (ASI120) which has a much smaller sensor and could see many rings. While, to my view, it seems to be collimated, it's strange that I can't see the rings with the main imaging cam. Any thoughts? Here's how I left the collimation after some adjustments with the guide cam. Kind regards, Jairo
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I'm brand new to the forum and new to Astro. I've been loving it since January and learnt a huge amount by myself with the help of forums like these. I recently purchased an iOptron 10" RC truss. 3" focuser with a 2" compression. I have been using a WO FLT 132 before this which is little more forgiving. I have attached a couple of pictures from my first attempts. I am not using a field flattener at this point. (just getting used to collimating and setting up). Camera ZWO ASI 6200 MC cooled camera. The images below are composed of 50 x 5 minute subs stacked in pixinsight with basic image processing. I'm using PHD II and a WO guidestar 61 and ASI 120 for guiding on a CEM60EC mount. Drift alignment in PHD 2. Any ideas as to the main causes of egg shaped stars? Could this be sensor tilt? crappy guiding? Focus also looks off? Any help appreciated please
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Hi guys, So on Tuesday night I spent the evening imaging the moon with my Celestron 9.25 SCT and DSLR as shown below and am happy with the images I collated (I only took images as I did intend to take capture video but I got carried away and time was getting on). I have approx 350 jpeg (and the equivalent in raw) images and have used the Microsoft image composite editor to stitch the frames together without editing them first etc but I wonder if I'm going the images an injustice? I'm not ready to pay for editing software as I know there is a lot of very good free downloads out there and I'm asking for recommendations. Should I be processing the frames before/after stitching and what software would you recommend? Please offer any advice you have. I will post the resulting image once I'm happy with the outcome Thanks in advance!
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processing 99% Moon Mosaic
Adaaam75 posted a topic in Imaging - Image Processing, Help and Techniques
Hi guys, So on Tuesday night I spent the evening imaging the moon with my Celestron 9.25 SCT and DSLR as shown below and am happy with the images I collated (I only took images as I did intend to take capture video but I got carried away and time was getting on). I have approx 350 jpeg (and the equivalent in raw) images and have used the Microsoft image composite editor to stitch the frames together without editing them first etc but I wonder if I'm going the images an injustice? I'm not ready to pay for editing software as I know there is a lot of very good free downloads out there and I'm asking for recommendations. Should I be processing the frames before/after stitching and what software would you recommend? Please offer any advice you have. I will post the resulting image once I'm happy with the outcome Thanks in advance, -
Hi I feel as though I see a steady stream of images along the lines of “I just held my phone up to the eyepiece”. Now either I’m absolutely missing something (which is definitely possible) or there is considerably more luck/effort in those images than inferred. I have an iPhone, and seem to have two significant problems using it to grab any kind of useful image. And no, I’m not expecting it to rival a dedicated imaging rig. Firstly, alignment is very difficult. And secondly, focus seems to be impossible. I have one of the Celestron NexYZ phone mounts, which is less steady than I expected but I can eventually get the camera aligned with the eyepiece. But I’ve never managed to get focus. I’ve tried the default camera app as well a dedicated one with more manual control. I’m failing. Overall this is not a significant impediment to my observing. But it would be great to be able to get some reference shots to go with my observing notes. Does anyone have any tips?
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Hey all, I made an acquisition and processing tutorial a while back (3 years ago? Yikes!) and it is fairly dated in terms of what I'm doing these days. I've been asked for a long time to make a new one showing what I'm doing these days. Specifically how I'm processing a single shot image for both the surface and prominences and how to process them together to show prominences and the surface at once. I've abandoned doing split images and composites and strictly work from one image using layers. Acquisition does not use gamma at all anymore. Nothing terribly fancy, but it's not exactly intuitive so hopefully this new video will illustrate most of the fundamentals to get you started. Instead of an hour, this time it's only 18 minutes. It's real time from start to finish. I'm sorry for the long "waiting periods" where I'm just waiting for the software to finish its routine, it lasts 1.5 minutes and 30 seconds tops typically at first. The first 4 minutes is literally just stacking & alignment in AS!3. I typically will go faster than this, but wanted to slow down enough to try to talk through what I'm doing as I do it. Hopefully you can see each action on the screen. I may have made a few mistakes or said a few incorrect things or terms, forgive me for that, this is not my day job. I really hope it helps folk get more into processing as its not difficult or intimidating when you see a simple process with only a few things that are used. The key is good data to begin with and a good exposure value. Today's data came from a 100mm F10 achromatic refractor and an ASI290MM camera with an HA filter. I used FireCapture to acquire the data with a defocused flat frame. No gamma is used. I target anywhere from 65% to 72% histogram fill. That's it! The processing is fast and simple. I have a few presets that I use, but they are all defaults in Photoshop. A lot of the numbers I use for parameters are based on image scale, so keep that in mind, experiment with your own values. The only preset I use that is not a default is my coloring scheme. I color with levels in Photoshop, and my values are Red: 1.6, Green 0.8, Blue 0.2 (these are mid-point values). Processing Tutorial Video (18 minutes): https://youtu.be/RJvJEoVS0oU RAW (.TIF) files available here to practice on (the same images you will see below as RAW TIFs): https://drive.google.com/open?id=1zjeoux7YPZpGjlRGtX6fH7CH2PhB-dzv Video for Acquisition, Focus, Flat Calibration and Exposure (20 minutes): (Please let me know if any links do not work) ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Results from today using this work flow method. Colored: B&W: SSM data (sampled during 1.5~2 arc-second seeing conditions): Equipment for today: 100mm F10 Frac (Omni XLT 120mm F8.3 masked to 4") Baader Red CCD-IR Block Filter (ERF) PST etalon + BF10mm ASI290MM SSM (for fun, no automation) Very best,- 22 replies
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New to forum help needed. I have had this problem a couple of times now over the last few weeks. I hope someone can help. I am seeing a black band at the bottom of some of my imaged. They are all 10min light frames. At first I thought it was my filter wheel out of position but it seems to be on every other image. I used the same setup the night before with no issues. I'm using a Explorer scienific Apochromatic 102. ZWO Optical ASI 120mm-S (CMOS). ZWO Electronic Filter Wheel 1.25inch with R,G,B filters and ASIAIR Any ideas would be helpfull.
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Hi all, I am hoping someone might be able to help with a possible way to shoot dark and bias frames on a DSLR (canon 700D) without the need to cover the scope or camera, ideally using APT scripts My thinking is that the camera, has a noise reduction mode where it will take the light shot, then with the shutter closed it will take a dark frame and subtract it from the light. So could you take a series of dark frames on ATP and lock the shutter down? If anyone knows I would love to know. Would be great to automate the lights, park the scope and have it run darks and bias, without the need to go out to it and cap up at 3.-4 in the morn Thanks Matt @astro_pics_uk -
Unable to replicate observed detail in photograph
Matt Hayden posted a topic in Imaging - Discussion
Hello! What with all this locking down business and home schooling my ten year old son, I have dusted off my TAL-1 and created a slightly less than ideal setup in his room. The westward facing window has been providing great views of the moon and venus over the past week. Obviously doing this indoors is not great (the floor is pretty solid, as is the TAL stand!) but it does mean we get to use the scope every evening, rather than going through the process of carrying the whole rig outside every day. I have a T-mount converter for my old-ish Pentax k-M DSLR, but have quite disappointing results with the camera, when compared to the observed image using the eye. The eyeball view is nothing less than banging - crystal clear detail with a 25mm eyepiece, strong contrast - it's spectacular. I add the camera with an eyepiece inside a tube, and can't replicate the same result, or anything like it. It's OK, but not good enough. I've cleaned the eyepiece today and collimated the scope. The primary mirror looks fine other than a couple of tiny dust particles, no scratches or weirdness on the coating. The camera is working pretty well as far as I can tell. Apart from a little clumsy-ness with the adjustments, the clarity in the eyepiece suggests it's all working fairly well. Photo attached of best result from last night. My question is: is this a focusing issue or some sort of aberration? Should I expect focusing to be difficult in the camera eyepiece? What's going on?! Does anyone have any other tips I can try to get this working better?- 11 replies
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This blog describes Installing 3rd Party Drivers into a Raspberry Pi having installed Ubuntu MATE and followed the instructions to run the AstroPi3 script to install INDI and other astro related software. SSH has been enabled so that now the RPi can be accessed remotely from Terminal. eg. ssh gina@rpi where gina is my user name and rpi is the computer name as set up during the Ubuntu MATE installation. This set up process is detailed in my blog :- Setting up a Raspberry Pi for Astro Imaging and Control - Updated Feb 2020 for RPi 3B & RPi 3B+
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I now have a number of options for imaging this coming season. FOV ranges available with various scopes and lenses :- 1000mm FL MN190 Pro Mak-Newt 400mm FL Esprit 80ED Pro plus 2 x ST80 105mm (and others) Ex Asahi Pentax camera lenses 2.5mm fisheye for all sky My fields of view range from all sky through NB with 3 cameras and 3 lenses widefield to 400mm triple scopes and cameras to 1000mm single 190MN Mak-Newt. I have the following cameras :- 3x Atik 460EX ZWO ASI1600MM-Cool ZWO ASI178MM - currently on all sky camera ZWO ASI185MC And mounts :- EQ8 main mount in observatory NEQ6 with Skywatcher Pillar Mount currently uncovered. The all sky camera is mounted on an aluminium tube mast attached to the side of the warm room. ============================================== Now to the nitty-gritty - The main limitation as to what I can use will be the mounts. If I can get my head round it I could have two imaging sessions running at the same time plus the all sky camera. I currently have 4 projects on the books :- All sky camera - currently in progress Triple widefield narrow band imaging rig - on hold Triple 400mm narrow band imaging rig - also on hold Changing to Linux OS for imaging with Raspberry Pi - investigating I'm also keen to try the ASI1200MM-Cool camera which may not need guiding and thus could save a fair bit of hassle. I'm thinking of trying it with the MN190 or maybe the Esprit 80ED but I guess the wider aperture camera lenses would mean shorter exposures and no guiding. What occurs to me is that I'm trying to do far too much at a time and that I must concentrate on one or two things and leave the others until later (if at all). I have the NEQ6 mount on it's tripod in my living room so I can experiment with controlling that without going outside. Once I have things working I can hump the mount out onto the Pillar for an imaging session. I also have the PoleMaster PA alignment camera already attached to the NEQ6 which I can try once I put the NEQ6 outside.
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Hi, I wan't to tell you about a relatively new open source imaging suite that I have been using for around 7-8 months now. Night time imaging n' astronomy or in short NINA! The new website is really quite informative, so check it out here: https://nighttime-imaging.eu/ As a software developer and IT professional I was blown away by this application these guys were creating, when I first stumbled upon it last year. It is a really feature rich application as the very long feature list below will show, and it is absolutely free! I was immediately drawn to the very simple but still quite information rich UI that was presented to me when I tried it the first time. Isbeorn (the developer), Dark Archon (massive contributor) and Quickload (big contributor) have really created something impressive here, and it is constantly being improved upon. It is quite normal to see these guys working on the next cool feature in the middle of the night As it is a "hobby project" and Open Source, and these guys don't have every model of every camera available - sometimes there can be glitches with new equipment, but it is usually sorted out in quick fashion. But this is where we "mere mortals" can help improve this amazing piece of software, by using it and providing feedback and logs (in case of errrors) via. Discord or the Issue tracker on bitbucket. In return for this you get a very comprehensive piece of astro imaging software for absolutely nothing! If anyone needs any help in settings this up, don't hesitate to write in this thread and I will try to help, or jump on Discord and join the "support" channel. I recommend taking the latest beta version, pretty much always, as it has the latest fixes and is generally stable. List of main features as grabbed from the webpage and personal experience (I surely missed some): Equipment control ASCOM Cameras Mounts Filter wheels Focusers Rotators Native camera drivers for Atik ZWO QHYCCD Altair Astro cameras Canon Nikon Touptek Can run multiple camera's and supports syncronized dithering (early version, but tested in the field!) Image analysis Image statistics Auto stretch Full image star detection with HFR calculation (used for autofocus as well) Exposure time recommendation Sequencing Multitarget sequence lists (image multiple targets automatically) Automatic mosaic capture as defined in framing assistant Light, Bias, Dark, DarkFlat, Flat frames of various exposure lengths and gain/iso Automatic filter change Autofocus using full image HFR calculations over time number of exposures Temperature change Automatic centering and rotation of targets using platesolving Save as raw (dslr), fits, xisf, etc. Customizeable filename pattern Automatic meridian flip Can automatically flip and recenter target after flip has been completed Sky atlas Sky atlas with more than 10.000 objects. Filtering on type, magnitude, size, altitude and more Altitude chars showing showing altitude over time for your location Framing assistant Can pull data from various skyserveys, to make framing and planning easier You can see a preview of your fov based on camera and scope details Mosaic planning mode Shows your mosaic tilesin the framing wizard Set desired overlap percentage Offline skymap shows gridlines and all sky atlas DSO's, constellations and coordinates ("Cartes du Ciel'ish") Sleek and customizable UI Imaging tab can be customized to show all the information you could possibly want to see image (duh! ;)) Statistics HFR history PHD2 graph and statistics Mount information Camera information Filter wheel information Platesolve information Weather data and more.. Quick switch between light and dark scheme Customizable colorschemes Flats wizard Set a desired ADU and tolerance for flats Simple mode or multimode where flats are captured for each filter Set minimum and maximum exposure time Guide to help you get the desired flats Can automatically capture matching darkflats Other cool features PHD2 integration with Dithering Weather data from OpenWeatherMap API List of bright focus stars for use with Bahtinov mask, clik and slew to it Polar alignment tools Configuration profiles, so different setups can be used A word about open source: The project is open source, this means that all source code is readily available from bitbucket, and anyone is free to contribute code. The developer is Isbeorn (Stefan) and as the repository manager he decides when and if a submission (pull request) is deemed good enough to enter a release..! There are a couple of other main contributors who do a lot of work, and put in a lot of their free time to this project. You are free to ask for features and request support and people are generally very helpful and quick to implement something if it is a good idea. BUT as this is a hobby project for these people, don't expect the same of them as you would of a company from whom you buy a product, IT IS UNFAIR! A word about Discord: Discord is a free chat (text and voice) platform that anyone can create a server on. Discord as a whole is not run by the people behind N.I.N.A., only the NINA server, and as such is not moderated by the developers.- 142 replies
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Skywatcher 80 ED DS-Pro outfit including matched flattener and motor focus. Now only £350 This kit gives you a great introduction to astronomy and imaging, which is why it's so popular. You can see details over at FLO but there is: 80 ED Ds-Pro OTA (Objective Lens Diameter: 80mm, Telescope Focal Length: 600mm, f/7.5) SW Eyepiece (2"): 28mm 2”/50.8mm Di-Electric Star Diagonal 9x50 Finderscope Dual-Speed 11:1 2” Crayford Focuser (Backlash-Free) Supplied with Tube Rings & Mounting Plate - please note there is a longer black vixen type dovetail fitted, not the fancy new green short one you will see on the FLO site SW motor focus and fitting kit - I've never used this, hence it's not fitted (more details over on FLO) Dedicated SW 0.85x reducer/flattener (see FLO for more details) Aluminium Carrying / Shipping Case The RRP is over £720, so grab a bargain while you can. Collection from Nottingham, or DHL for £20 (within UK)- 5 replies
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Hi, this question has probably been done to death here, but can I ask the community to help me decide on a new camera? After struggling with my very glitchy QHY5LIIc camera for a while, as well as having a forced break from astronomy, I have decided to get a new camera. After all the problems I've been having with the QHY, I really don't want to use this manufacturer again. I know lots of people use them quite happily, but once bitten ... I have been looking at the ZWO cameras - OSC, as I haven't the time, clear skies, or patients to do LRGB imaging! I have about £250 to spend, which I may be able to push to £300 if I wait a bit. ? So I've been looking at the ASI224MC, ASI290MC and the ASI178MC cameras. I mainly do planetary/Luna imaging, but I have also dabbled in a bit of DSO and would like to continue with both. I have a C9.25 and a ST80 guide scope. I know these aren't ideal for DSOs but please humour me! I think from the specs/information that the 224 is probably the best option. Although the resolution and QE are the worst of the three, the well depth and read noise are the best and the fps is pretty good too. I don't know if there are better/cheaper cameras using the same chips, such as Altair's range. I just don't want to make the same mistake that I did with the QHY!n Any help/advice you can give will be much appreciated.?
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Hi All, So I am new to astrophotography and was looking for some advice on what to buy, mainly the mount as I don't have a huge budget. I am currently using a SkyWatcher 102mm Telescope (500mm Focal Length) with a Canon 550d along with a EQ2 mount, so no motors as of yet. Any advice on what mounts to get would be great. Thanks
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All set up to go with the sole aim of getting some Saturn images! To start off it was Jupes again to get some imaging done... The GRS superbly placed and looking Redder than a lidl tomato (subliminal advertising) After capturing some film it was time to properly align using Polaris and that wonderful on ya knees polar scope method!!! Boom!! three calibration stars and 'GoTo' whatever you wish for! Cygnus time - Check sheets and then give up and go and fetch Sissy Haas bible... 20 lovely doubles, not rushed just enjoyed and studied hard... working with my Starwave f/11 102 and for those difficult ones a 6.5 Meade HD and even with the 2.5 Revelation Barlow gave interesting views... 200x the recommended max mag on that Starwave, I squeezed more than that out of her. The stars looked round and colourful the companions sometimes hard to spot... But there's a great deal of satisfaction when you see them close by. I made some star symbol notes in the book when a true double of beauty made me smile, my top few were: Σ 2668 Superb 26 Gyg lovely 17 Cyg 19 Cyg Bright Red Ψ Cyg Σ 2687 Sharp 49 Cyg Faint 48 Cyg Wide H IV 113 Spot on (why did I write that?) 61 Cyg Nice Also - Σ 2760, 59 Cyg, 52 Cyg, O Σ 410, Σ 2705, Σ 2588, S 726, Σ 2578, 16 Cyg, δ Cyg So that's my haul for the night... By the time I had finished those it was 01:30 and cloud had covered what was left of Saturn. The great thing about that session was that I didn't have those long whiney scope movements around the sky, it was all within the constellation. I expect my neighbours with open windows were also grateful. Love that 102 f/11 Starwave scope.... A lot of the comments in Sissy Haas recommend a 150mm for some of the hits I made with my 102 so I'm happy... to get the colour is special as well... Not sure my alignment was that great because after entering RA & Dec the doubles were not always centered which resulted in me having to move towards the nearest double looking star a lot of the times. Didn't get -19 Cyg or T Cyg although I tried... Oh and on editing my images I notice I bagged both Europa and Io.... shame Jupiter disappeared behind next doors roof before the shadow made a transit! I've had to lighten one image to show the moons so beware you professionals ?
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I've been struggling to find an answer to whether a 2.5" focuser is likely to cause vignetting on a full-frame (36x24mm) camera sensor. This would be for an f/7 130mm scope, probably used in conjunction with a 3" 0.79x focal reducer (stated to have an illuminated image circle of 45mm). Whilst the focal reducer should fully illuminate the sensor (having an M68 connector on the scope side and M48 on the camera side), it is not clear whether any "mechanical" vignetting might occur with a 2.5" focuser drawtube. I imagine this would depend on the backfocus of the scope - i.e. how far the focal plane is behind the end of the focuser. If it's a long way back, I can visualize the light cone potentially being restricted when it enters the drawtube inside the OTA. Hopefully, the scope isn't designed this way, but it's hard to tell. If there is no mechanical vignetting, it does raise the question of what the benefits of larger focusers are. Greater load capacity certainly; improved stability? maybe. But does it actually give a wider unvignetted image circle? I'd like to apply some science to this question, rather than buying a bigger focuser "just in case"! Thanks for any answers! John. -
I am ready to purchase my laptop, it will be an Intel core i7 with all the trimmings, my questions is regarding drive space and typical imaging file size output. Many new computers have solid state hard drives, they are much faster but space is sacrificed as even the upper end laptops have 256gb SS drives. Somehow I feel that a 256gb drive will be low for an imaging laptop, I know I can add an external drive but I want to avoid carrying anything else. Maybe I should opt out of solid state and instead get one with a 1Tb standard drive?. Or, am I wrong, and 256gb SS drive will do the trick? I have no idea what a decent range is for typical nights imaging or solar imaging sessions.
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Hi there, I am still new to amateur astronomy and astrophotography. I recently took my first steps towards moon and Jupiter photography. While I am satisfied with my moon pictures, I am struggling with Jupiter. I am a bit desperate, so I hope that maybe someone good give me a couple of useful hints so I can learn and improve. When shooting Jupiter without any barlow lense or eyepiece, I manage to get a sharp picture and am actually reasonably satisfied with the results (see attachments named "ok.."). I use Firecapture to shoot something like 3000 single images (mostly JPEG because I had issues with other formats.. maybe this is one of my first mistakes) and stack them afterwards. When recording AVI movies with Firecapture and dissecting them to single pictures afterwards, my results are less sharp than taking photos, so I sticked to recording images instead of movies. When the image is stacked, I continue with editing using Registax. After tweaking around, I obtain a sharp image of Jupiter as a result. Now to my issue: I want to obtain bigger images from planets, especially Jupiter, and therefore bought a premium 3x barlow lense. I tested it on the moon and was very satisifed when comparing the view (and images) to my cheap 2x barlow lense. So I think I managed to see the difference and I think that the new barlow lense does quite well. When putting the ASI ZWO cam into the barlow lense and shooting Jupiter, the effects of the seeing increases (as I expected) and the image starts getting more noisy, but the single frames I see within Firecapture are still ok (at least that is what I think, maybe I am wrong there). I play around with the values for gain and shutter speed, select the Jupiter profile and start shooting (max. 180s because of Jupiter's rotation, I receive around 20 - 50 FPS, depends on the shutter speed, ofc). After 3 minutes, I receive between 2000 and 4500 single JPEGs, depending on my settings. Of course I know BMP or TIFF should be better, however I often have issues with Firecatpure's BMPs/TIFFs when putting them into pre-processing software such as Pipp. I pre-process, stack and edit my images and then still have a blurry Jupiter in front of me (see attachment, images named "stack.."). No matter what I do and how I tune the settings within Registax, Jupiter won't become any sharper when using the stacks which were recorded through my 3 x barlow lense. Could this be because of my recordings (bad image format, not enough frames..)? Do I need more frames when recording through a barlow lense? Or can't I do any better under the conditions of my site (see below)? Are there any tricks when recording through a barlow, do I need other settings or shall I use another software? I attached the stacked image ("stack6_raw.tif") and am curious if someone could get more out of it. For me, this tif looks like the stacked pictures of the small Jupiter pictures, and I managed to get them sharper. So I wonder if it's me or if I simply can't expect more when using a barlow lense? If so, how can I shoot bigger and sharper pictures of Jupiter then (without having to switch my telescope, I know that my Newton is not the "planet killer"). I am greatful for all hints! My equipment and software I use: EQ6-R Pro with GoTo 8" inch Newton (200PDS 200mm 1000mm f/5) 3x Premium Barlow ASI ZWO 290 Color and cooled Recording: Firecapture Preprocessing: Pipp (Planetary, output in TIF) Stacking: Autostackert 3 Editin: Registax6 My site: Germany Small town, lots of light pollution, but it's still "ok" Mid - strong seeing on most days stack6_raw.tif single_stack6.tif single_small_jupiter.tif
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