Saturn from last night

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

Still rubbish, but it might sort some things out for me - questions involved!

This was taken through my cheap and cheerful 120mm achromatic refractor, and it appears that it can do better than my Newt. Is that probably the case, or did I get lucky with the seeing?

Also there is a blue haze round the planet, what might cause that?

The conditions were poor, with clouds drifting about and a definite wobble on the lunar views. The AVIs were one camera guided (the imaging camera doing duty as the guide cam. in K3CCD tools) using a standard Toucam.

Captain Chaos

[GordonCopestake]

Nowt wrong with that CC, cassini clear and some banding. I would say the blue haze is seeing, but i'm not sure.

I didn't know that K3CCD could use one camera for both guiding and imaging?

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

Gordon, take a look at this. http://stargazerslounge.co.uk/index.php?topic=12045.0

Captain Chaos

[geppetto]

Considering the conditions the scope did well on that one CC 8)

Re the blue haze, I had one like that once so I had an investigate in Photoshop

to look at the seperate colour chanels.

The blue chanel in mine was completely out of focus due to the seeing but the red and green were

quite sharp.

Might be worth a look

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

It was as you say Phil. I just wondered if anybody had found a cure for it and why it was doing it.

I'm getting the feeling that the Frac. is better at planets than the Newt. Just when I was thinking of retiring it.

If this is the central obstruction getting in the way of a good image, maybe my SCT planetary plan needs to be rethought. Perhaps a 200mm Frac? ( HOW MUCH!!!!! )

Focal length wise its exactly the same as the Newt., but much slower, so not as good for DSO stuff. Maybe I should have a go at RGB with the 16HR on the frac. for a laugh?

All food for thought this stuff.

BTW had a go with an IR pass filter and the SC3 for a Lum. image last night but the clouds were all in the way.

Captain Chaos

[GordonCopestake]

Sell your achro and your newt and buy an ED100. Cracking planetary 'scope I found. You can biggyback the ED80 too if you wanna, they go well together

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

Gordon, did you spell ED120 wrong there? :scratch:

Sell the Newt?! There's no need for profanities at this time of the morning.

Capatin Chaos

[GordonCopestake]

Well, i've never used or looked though an ED120 yet, so can't recommend one, Martin seems to be getting on with his mind. Damn expensive though! That being said the ED120 is f/7.5 which is a tad faster than the f/9 the ED100 is. Although you can use focal reducers on these ED 'scopes nicely.

Oh, and yes.... sell the newt! Unless you are into visual stuff, the extra aperture doesn't count for much, and the central obstruction is an.... obstruction

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

To do it justice Gordon, I'm going to start a new thread to dicuss this proposition. Should be interesting.

Captain Chaos

[jcm]

Considering the conditions the scope did well on that one CC 8)

Re the blue haze, I had one like that once so I had an investigate in Photoshop

to look at the separate colour chanels.

The blue chanel in mine was completely out of focus due to the seeing but the red and green were

quite sharp.

Might be worth a look

Good image CC considering the conditions.

I think I agree with this-quote above-. My Saturn images often had a slight blue haze , particularly along one edge. Most times ( now I know about it ) I have to realign the blue channel. The blue frame of the RGB is often not as distinct as the others. The TMB optics seem to produce no false colour so I do not think it is the lens.

John

PS - Conditions so bad here (last night) that I went in doors and watched tele !!!!

[geoff_k]

CC

You say that you were using an achromat in which case a fringe killer might help improve the image a bit.

I could never really get good planetary images out of my achromat. Much better with the Newtonian.

I agree about the blue channel. Nonetheless, that's a pretty good image for the seeing.

Geoff

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

I could never really get good planetary images out of my achromat. Much better with the Newtonian.

Geoff

Just the opposite of what I've found Geoff, maybe I need to recollimate the Newt. a few times. I've been wondering about the effect of adding the barlow on collimation. I know it shouldn't make it go off, but its still something else to go wrong.

Captain Chaos

[geoff_k]

CC

The thing with Newtonians is that you definitely need to keep on top of the collimation. I try and collimate mine before every observing session if I can.

I have a small ED80 APO and would love to get a larger version, but a quick shake of the piggy bank doesn't come up with much.

In the end, whatever scope you have, the weather conditions in our fair land mean that some times you might as well be using a toy scope from Woolies for all the difference it makes.

Geoff