saturn with webcam

[Charlie_132]

Is it possible to get pictures of saturn or even get it in focus with a skywatcher 130p and modified webcam ? I'm trying tonight with no luck atalll .. I've done venus and mars though

Can someone give me some tips

[Tiddles]

Certainly possible. You may need a little more exposure or gain to capture Saturn, its not as bright as Venus or Mars. Also harder to get in the fov. Its not as bright and the sensor will take longer to react, if it flits across, you will not see it.

[Tiddles]

My effort, 150P and a modd'd xbox camera.

[Charlie_132]

thats a good picture, im still having no luck with saturn, im just using sharpcap defult settings, i managed to pick it up out of focus but then i couldnt find it again

could you take a very quick pic of venus and mars ? my pictues look nothing like that in detail

[Skybrowser]

turn your gain up to see it on the laptop screen, then once you've nailed it, back down the gain. Doing this will make sure you can then get better focus if needed.

[austringer]

ahh! just spent a fruitless 30 mins trying to get Saturn using xbox webcam & sharpcap - never thought of fiddling with the gain - doh!

mind you, trying to keep everything still & centred using a camera tripod is masochistic in the extreme!

first time I've actually seen saturn though - wow!

[Astrosurf]

Yep, I push the gain and exposure right up first and take them down again. Possibly OTT but it does the trick for me!

Alexxx

[Tiddles]

With a dob you don't get long to adjust things before its gone again.

[Charlie_132]

I've tried turning gain right up and still nothing, I can't pick it up atall

What time is the moon rising tonight ? Is it worth me staying up to get some photos or will it be too bright

[Sully]

Charlie,

These are the settings I've used with my 130;

[Philips SPC 900NC PC Camera]

Frame Divisor=1

Resolution=640x480

Frame Rate (fps)=10.00

Colour Space / Compression=YUY2

Exposure=-7

Brightness=48

Contrast=23

Saturation=-3

Gamma=0

ColorEnable=255

BacklightCompensation=0

Gain=32

And the result;

[Charlie_132]

I have it in my view on cam now but I can't pick up any detail looks like a circle with 2 things poking out

[Sully]

It won't look like much until you put it through registax afterwards, try about a 750-1000 frames.

Just remember to turn the gain back down so its quite faint

[Charlie_132]

What program do you use my logitech cam doesn't have half those settings display it only had 4 or 5

[Sully]

Sharpcap, but I'm no expert by a long way, I don't know if it will support a Logitech but give it a try.

[Charlie_132]

ive just managed to get 3 videos of saturn, just looks like two things poking out either side so its a matter of getting the best video and putting it through registax im guessing ?

what i did notice was that with a 130p dob its marginal (the distance you have the poles) as to wether do pick saturn up or not ... very hard, hopefully i have enough footage to have a decent picuture now though!

[Charlie_132]

what does this message mean on registax

" is not a valid integer value

it keeps coming up when i click on the picture

[Charlie_132]

am i doing something wrong with registax ?

heres what i do ... 1. select video 2. pick frame. 3. align points. 4. click align 5. click limit. 6. click stack (maybe twice)

heres a picture of saturn i got, being my first time taking a real good picture i dont know if its any good ... i tried venus and mars earlier but no great pictures of them

heres the one i got of saturn ... nothing great (using skywatcher 130p) have to zoom in, its at the top.

SATURN.bmp

[dav1d]

Lolz.

I've just spent three hours trying to just get Saturn into the FOV with an almost identical setup to yours, Charlie. Three times, it just whipped across the screen thanks to my clumsy adjustments. So if you've managed to actually get it centred so you can see the ears, I'd say you're doing well so far.

I finally gave in due to burgeoning cloud cover, but it got me thinking about slow controls and worm gears and clutches and suchlike - actually being able to massage it into the FOV rather than jerk & luck.

Having said that, It looks glorious (if rather tiny) through the 10mm, so I may just give afocal a go with a camera adapter.

I could say it was a wasted evening as I didn't achieve the result I was after, but I've been outside on a beautiful spring evening with a bottle of pink wine watching Saturn fly by through the gaps in the clouds. I can't honestly say that it was time wasted.

If the weather holds, same agin tomorrow

[Charlie_132]

haha! its not all bad, atleast you had a good evening and some wine

i found out somehting interesting tonight ... i can view saturn from my bedroom with all the upstairs lights out, which is a massive advantage as its toooo cold for me tonight!

i doubt i will get a better picture then what i already have tonight, its too time consuming for me.

aim for tomorrow is:

decent picture of venus

picture of jupiter and maybe moons -- how did you manage to get a picture of jupiter with the 2 strips going across it ? or even pick u p the stripe ? i only see a white ball with a few tiny dots as moons

im thinking about getting up one morning when its forecasted to be good - to try and find mercury. i see saturn from my garden at 8:30pm so i might have a good chance of seeng mercury ?

[dav1d]

Also, having gone through several gigabytes of nothing on registax in search of a good frame, I did find one where my ham-fisted handling of the scope caused Saturn to make a light trail almost exactly like a comically oversized... appendage.

Made my night. And no, I'm not posting a pic.

[Charlie_132]

Haha why not ?!

I'm awaiting the moon rising over my next door neighbours tree ... Tempted to go and cut it down, I can see the moon glowing through it but obviously need it to rise above