First ever (for me) image of Jupiter

[stargazerlily]

Taken last night (1st November) using my SW150PL with x2 Barlow and Phillips 880C flashed web cam. Captured with SharpCap (53 seconds duration at 10 frames per second). First pass through RegiStax 5.1.

Any suggestions or hints-tips on how to improve the image? Wasn't sure what setting to use in SharpCap or how to go about processing the video in RegiStax.

Many thanks

Pete

[Clayton]

Hi Pete,

Nice first image. Can't help with sharp cap

But the image is slightly under exposed. Also a little more scale would help. either with extension tubes or a stronger Barlow (make a cheap extension tube from an old barlow with the lens removed).

And try to capture for longer (eg. 3 min) to give Registax more to work with.

I hope you don't mind me playing with your image?

Just some Histogram stretching in CS3 (Levels Adjustment)

[stargazerlily]

Hi Clayton,

No problems at all mate, you can play with it all you like. Very nice result!!

I do have a x3 Tal Barlow but it never occurred to me to use it last night.

Thanks

Pete

[GreatAttractor]

Much better than my first Jupiter image As a beginner planetary imager I can suggest that you use the SharpCap's histogram view (Transform->Histogram) and make sure it's not too underfilled (on the other hand the shorter exposures the better). Also your image looks similar to mine when I apply too little wavelet sharpening (I use Registax 6).

[spaceboy]

Looking good!

[bigal1]

Good result especially for your first attempt , as Clayton said more magnification and gain should certainly help to bring out more detail ( when conditions allow the use of higher mags ) .

[King]

That's a very good first Jupiter!

I learned SharpCap via

then messed around from that. Basically keep all settings other than Gain and Exposure somewhere around the middle, aside from the B&W/Colour control of course. If your exposure maxes out at "-4" like it does when I use the same camera you may want to have it at -4 with very little gain (if any?), -5 with a bit more gain or -6 with considerably more gain. I can't give precise figures on gain as it depends on how hazy your sky is and such but look for having the central belts/area as pronounced as possible without being overexposed (with the tell-tale bright spot appearing around the center). The gain you have there seems a bit high, hence the "square net" background you have there. Maybe lower that a bit and touch up the exposure if that wasn't maxed? Would have needed a bit of a hazy sky for that to be a problem...

SharpCap does have a histogram function but I find it misleading and always seemed to do better learning by "winging it".

[x6gas]

Some that know better than me say to keep the frame rate at 10fps or less with your webcam to avoid image compression and to put the gamma to zero and keep it there. Then start with the exposure at one of the three left-most settings and gain at about 60% and fiddle from there.

I'm still learning so can't confirm this from experience, but it's what I've been told!