Scope at its limits??

[SCOOB_81]

Hi All!

Can I ask some quick advice from the gurus, please??

I’ve a skywatcher 130p Supatrak and considering an upgrade. I’ve had it for 5 months or so now and use it whenever the sky is clear, which is a lot more than you’d think for the north east! I actually prefer using an SPC880/900 and astrophotography to just viewing through an eyepiece, and it’s this that I want to base the next scope on. By that I mean planets rather than deep space, as, unfortunately, all but the brightest objects are drowned out with light pollution.

I’ve put up a few shots which I’ve taken through the scope and I’ve a few questions, please.

Firstly, do you think I can squeeze much more from the 130p, or do you think it is at its limits? I’d bought a laser collimator and the beam does look a little off centre on the primary mirror, but we made such a mess of collimating my dads little scope that I daren’t use it on mine! I’ve got a Tal 3x barlow which it’s fantastic for imaging, too.

Lastly, if I was to upgrade I’d like a scope that is good for planetary imaging up to around the £500 mark, and so would anyone have any suggestions, please?? I’ve been looking at a Skywatcher Mak 127 as I’ve read good reports, but open to any other suggestions.

Thanks,

Sean

[DOBBY]

£5 of petrol to a darker site ?

[WayBig]

With Saturn, you may find that less magnification, which gives a brighter image, works better.

Accurate collimation and accurate focus will definitely help the sharpness of the images - you could try making/purchasing a bahtinov or similar focussing mask to help.

Also, providing details of your image processing would help too, for example the number of frames stacked and the total number of frames in the video, together with the software used to process it.

[West End Wendy]

I'm no planetary photographer but those shots of Jupiter look extremely good to me.

[SCOOB_81]

Thanks for the replies, I really appreciate the comments and advice!

Ah, I see, sorry I'd not included any information on the shots! I guess that might be helpful. I'd used registax, stacking an image captured at 10fps over 3 minutes. It's roughly 1500 frames and I'm getting better at weeding the bad frames out.

The shot of Saturn was taken in a hury as the clouds were rolling in and I got the settings all wrong, being too dark, as you say. I'm sure I can get a better shot at lower magnification.

The moon shot is afocal, with the mrs camera stuck to the end of it with a digiscope thingy.

And cheers Dobby, not a bad idea!

[pete_l]

Well, the Mak 127 will give you roughly double the focal length. That will make focusing easier (as the "in focus" zone gets bigger with longer F/L).

How about upping the camera from a 5 FPS webcam, that sends you compressed frames to one of the Imaging Source cameras that will send yo uncompressed data?

[Beyond_Vision]

You have done really well with the Jupiter shots

Regards

Kevin

[SCOOB_81]

Well, the Mak 127 will give you roughly double the focal length. That will make focusing easier (as the "in focus" zone gets bigger with longer F/L).

How about upping the camera from a 5 FPS webcam, that sends you compressed frames to one of the Imaging Source cameras that will send yo uncompressed data?

Ah, that sounds good with the focusing on the Mak. It would make life much easier as the zone can be hard to hit with my scope/ camera.

Do you use a higher spec camera, Pete? Ive read about people using HD for imaging, I just wanted to make sure my scope was worth a little more investment in gear before blowing the cobwebs off the wallet.

Thanks!

[SCOOB_81]

You have done really well with the Jupiter shots

Regards

Kevin

Thanks for the comments, Kevin.

The Mrs thinks that I'm mad so I'm not really used to compliments!