First Jupiter with 8" newt and 600D

[cathalferris]

I've tried to record Jupiter through my 8" f 5.9 OO newt on LXD-75, using a TV 2x barlow and the 3x zoom mode on my Canon 600D.

Exposure was set at about 1/80 second with MagicLantern

Weather conditions were gusty-windy, with a layer of high cloud coming over every now andthen. I recorded 3300 frames, and spent the next 2 weeks tryingto find a good workflow to get the video streams into both Registax and Avistack. Finally I found a product that worked for me (Movavi video convertor, to either a folder of images or to an uncompressed avi. I stacked the best 2200 in Registax 6 and this gave me a very smoothed Jupiter. Applying lots of wavelets brought out some of the detail, and I applied some curves and histogram work in Paint.net to bring up the satellites and to brighten Jupiter without saturating the center of the white belts.

Overall, I'm impressed with the image given the poor quality of the original .mov, and with the poor seeing that was present that night for me. It's as much a practice for when I get a good steady clear night, as it is for the pretty image that I got. It's a nice touch that I (just about) got three satellites to the left, and Callisto is just barely visible above the disk if you play a lot with the levels. I didn't want to composite the satellites in, I was curious as to how good I could get it without

Not nearly as good as what some people are getting with smaller aperture - that's the difference the weather makes. Still, I think it's a pretty enough picture, and a good starting point now that I have a working workflow to get images from the DSLR. I know full well I need to get better seeing and better primary data to work with, and that I should probably try for greater focal length - probably best for me to use the MarkII hyperion zoom and eyepiece projection for the near future until I get a 3x or 4x barlow.

Opinions or criticism most welcome

[bm1980]

Nice capture i have the same DSLR but have never used it to capture a planet i allways use my trusty spc 880 to capture the planets, i am supprised you managed to get so much detail with the larger cmos senso on the 600d.

Regards

Ben

[cathalferris]

TI did a run with Registax 5 instead of 6, and I think it ended up a bit better overall. I'm much happier with this one now.

Though it is a large sensor, the 3x zoom in the video mode is actually running in the native resolution of the chip, taking the centre 1920x1080 of the chip. Once I get the right setup to get the correct image scale or slightly oversampling, it'll greatly improve my chances of getting a better stack. As it is, Jupiter is about 180 pixels wide on the sensor so it's not too far off. It'll take a more steady night to get a better less seeing-affected video to work with. I'm very happy with the 600D at the moment - it really beats the modded Logitech camera I was trying to work with!

[tbird]

GRS nicely positioned in your image, when it's clear for me, there doesn't seem to be much happening on Jupiter.

[hayju01]

GRS nicely positioned in your image, when it's clear for me, there doesn't seem to be much happening on Jupiter.

Know exactly what you mean

[Clayton]

Nice work cathalferris