First ever go at imaging

[singlespeedman]

these were taken tonight with a MS webcam (phillips one found and on the way) and my 127 mak. Still learning the sharp cam settings and registax but quite happy that I managed to get everything up and running smoothly and the tracking etc worked well but a lot of wind did cause some issues.

[Clayton]

Good start. Some more detail about the capture settings will help if you need advice at this point. Did you use a Barlow for this?

[singlespeedman]

No Barlow used but am working through my video processing to see if I can work out how to get a better image from it. I am going to have another crack Sunday night to see if I can get a better shot from a location with less wind.

[Clayton]

Just a couple of things.

Check the Saturation setting as there is very little colour evident in your image. If it is set low, then try it high.

The capture looks to be a bit under exposed so perhaps bump up the gain or use a slower shutter speed, don't go too far though as over exposure is a bigger sin Not the end of the world though:rolleyes:

If your capture program has a histogram display then use it to set the histo to about 80% full as a guide.

Using a Barlow does raise the difficulty level a bit, so you may wish to delay using it a bit longer, but it pays dividends in terms of the detail you can capture and I think it makes focusing easier.

Good luck on Sunday, I hope conditions are good

[nightfisher]

much better at my only go at jupiter, keep at it

[brucen]

Hi,

Your first pics look almost identical to mine when a started 2 weeks ago. Many hours with Registax have moved me on to this - from 2000 frames at 10fps. Still not brilliant but I only have a 2x Barlow and need to increase focal length quite a bit more I think to up the detail. Keep at it and good luck tonight!!

[Celeste]

Hiya......these are the settings I used to get this image from my mak127...focus is also a huge issue, I got lucky with this one! Next on the menu for me is a decent barlow

[Philips SPC 900NC PC Camera]

Brightness=64

Contrast=32

Saturation=0

Gamma=0

ColorEnable=255

BacklightCompensation=0

Gain=39

Exposure=-8

Resolution=640x480

Frame Rate (fps)=10.00

Colour Space / Compression=I420

[malc-c]

these were taken tonight with a MS webcam (phillips one found and on the way) and my 127 mak. Still learning the sharp cam settings and registax but quite happy that I managed to get everything up and running smoothly and the tracking etc worked well but a lot of wind did cause some issues.

I tried manually stacking and stretching the images, but there simply isn't enough data there to get the detail out. Your focus also seem a little off.

The settings in Celeste's post seem to be about right for the phillips camera, but it might be that the MS camera needs more gain and a lower fps setting ?

[singlespeedman]

the wind was an issue and the first run through of the video has stacked every frame. I have been through and managed to grab some clearer frames but am stacking them manually in photoshop to see just how clear I can get the overall image manually. Tonight will go a lot better. The meade auto focuser make fine focus a breeze but the breeze last night was causing too much movement on the scope to get enough decent frames. I might just have a stab at the moon too. Once I am happy with a straight image I will be looking at buying a nice barlow instead of the cheap ones I have currently.