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SkyWatcher 130P Advice

brucen

By brucen
in Imaging - Planetary

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brucen

brucen

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Hi, I am enjoying my dabble with astro photography using my f5 650mm scope and have been quite pleased with my first pics of Jupiter - this being one of the ones I am not to embarrassed to publish!

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I have been using a Revelation 2x Barlow with the Phillips webcam, which, as I understand it, is only giving me about half the focal length I should be aiming at. I have been waiting for stocks to arrive to get a Tal x3 but would like to know what difference this will (should) make to the end results. Have any of you got images taken with the 130P that you could show me to give me an idea of what I can expect? Thanks in advance!

post-25116-133877692898_thumb.jpg

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Olorin

Olorin

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Brucen nice start!

The x3 will give you ~1.5 times the diameter you get now. However here is a small tip after you mater the x3 try to stack the two barlows and get x6.

Check some of my posts and you will be able to see what comes out with x2, x3, x2+x3 and x5. My scope is a bit different but you can get the picture :D

I am also attaching my barlow benchmark so you can see the difference between them (it doesn't have the x2+x3 though)

post-25865-133877692961_thumb.jpg

Dror

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brucen

brucen

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Brucen nice start!

The x3 will give you ~1.5 times the diameter you get now. However here is a small tip after you mater the x3 try to stack the two barlows and get x6.

Check some of my posts and you will be able to see what comes out with x2, x3, x2+x3 and x5. My scope is a bit different but you can get the picture ;)

I am also attaching my barlow benchmark so you can see the difference between them (it doesn't have the x2+x3 though)

[ATTACH]73180[/ATTACH]

Dror

Many thanks. As you will have seen I don't have that much detail on my pic. Will using a more powerful barlow allow me to bring out more detail or will it just make the image bigger? Sorry if that's a daft question!!

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brucen

brucen

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The details are due to the seeing, the collimation, the focus, and to some extent also the aperture. Nevertheless people with similar telescope publish great images so do not despair the right conditions will come

Thanks.

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brucen

brucen

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You should be able to bring out more detail during stacking. Play about with the wavelets settings on registax. The results can be astounding.

I am still a novice with wavelets but it's great fun seeing a big blob turn into something you actually recognise as a planet!

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Anweniel

Anweniel

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Brucen, I have a couple of attempts on Jupiter with my skywatcher 130/650 using 2x barlow. I have no real tracking capability for planetary with my mount (its the alt-az non goto) so I had to use castrator first and try to manually keep up with by slewing slowly. I am massively amateurish at the pics are really my first couple of attempts so they are pretty rubbish, will get them off the laptop in a bit for comparison.

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brucen

brucen

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OK heres my (rather feeble) jupiters virtually 0 experience with the processing so makes matters worse lol. For comparison purposes the equipment was:

Skywatcher 130/650

Alt-Az mount

Celestron x2 Barlow

LX modded SPC900NC

Anweniel, Thanks for these. It appears that we are getting a similar level of detail using the same equipment so we seem to be on the right track at least. I have only had a couple of attempts as well but there have been so many brilliant pics on the forum recently I was starting to think there was more to it! It appears that perseverance combined with a masters degree in wavelets is the answer.... I will, however, go ahead with the 3xBarlow and try that both alone and combined with the 2x. Tals appear hard to come by at the moment though and I don't really want to spend too much until I know it will make a significant difference.

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Anweniel

Anweniel

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Agreed, although without good tracking, long exposures (or multiple short exposures) quality of camera etc, its my suspicion that barlowing up won't achieve much in picking out more detail (assuming aperture more pertinent for this) but a larger disc no doubt. Love to see your results if you try it though ;)

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brucen

brucen

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I have been working on the theory that they say you need a focal ratio of f20 using a webcam but the 130P is only f5 although the 2x Barlow is pushing this up to f10. I have no idea if going to f15 (or f25 if I stack the barlows) will significantly improve the image but the article attached suggests that only details which fill 2 pixels will be recorded so it makes sense to make the image larger to capture more detail.

http://www.project-nightflight.net/webcam_imaging.pdf

Whatever the results it will be a bit of fun trying to get something in the field of view as it's not that easy using the 2x !!

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red dwalf

red dwalf

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i used to have a 130p and found if going above a 3 x barlow it`s amazingly difficult to get the image onto the chip of the webcam as the field of view is so small,

you can still get some lovely images though, most important is get the focus right which in it`s self is no mean feet when the image is moving around.

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brucen

brucen

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i used to have a 130p and found if going above a 3 x barlow it`s amazingly difficult to get the image onto the chip of the webcam as the field of view is so small,

you can still get some lovely images though, most important is get the focus right which in it`s self is no mean feet when the image is moving around.

I had beginners luck the first couple of times using the 2x and wondered what all the fuss was about. Third time was truth time! Should be great sport using 5X....... I think focussing is my main issue as you say and I am sure that it's a case of practice, practice and yet more practice.

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brucen

brucen

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I hope you post some results, may be able to convince me to buy a 5x as I understand it the maks are great for planetary due their large focal lengths, with the 130p at fl of 650 at 5x that makes the focal length 3250?

I cannot find anyone with stocks of the Tal Barlow at the moment and as I don't need a 3x for general viewing am reluctant to get a more expensive one until I am 100% sure it's worth it!

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brucen

brucen

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Although I have now upgraded I used my 130p on a Synscan AZ GoTo to image Jupiter. This was with an unmodded Philips Webcam and about 2mins video.

Thanks for taking the time to post these. Seems I am on the right track anyway.

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