Saturn

[northcanadian]

Hi all:

Tried again last week... Using a 9.25 sct, dbk21 and 2.5x powermate.

This was about 750 stacked (30fps) through registax v5. The seeing conditions would have been greatly improved if Saturn was not over my neighbour's wood stove chimney which was belching smoke...lol

Still trying to get the settings better on the dbk21. Wondering what would be a good number of frames to work with for Saturn?

Thanks for any and all suggestions.

Cheers

[JamesF]

I think you might be a bit out with the focus there. No surprise if you're trying to focus through the heat haze from someone else's chimney. An RGB align might help, too. Could be worth trying with an IR filter too, if you don't already have one. Otherwise I'd suggest you perhaps have too high a setting for gamma or saturation.

As regards capture times, I usually go for about six minutes. The theoretical maximum depends on your setup. I wrote everything up as I understand it here:

Focal Ratio and Capture Length for Planetary Imaging | www.tanstaafl.co.uk

My figures were calculated for the pixel size on an SPC900 and work out as 350 seconds divided by the focal length in metres for the maximum capture time for Saturn. In practice you can probably push that a lot further without too much pain.

James

[northcanadian]

Thanks so much for the information...I guess, aside from clear skies I need a warm night where the neighbour won't be stoking up the wood stove...lol

Cheers

[neil phillips]

The camera settings also look way out. C9,25 should still get the cassini even under terrible conditions. My advice is learn about camera settings on the net. theres quite few around by googling.

[northcanadian]

Thank you...will check that out some more...wish they would have supplied some sort of tutorial with the camera

Cheers

[si@nite]

Hi northen canadian welcome back, what codec are you using rgb24. SIMON.

[northcanadian]

Hi again Simon...am using y800 and debayering...seems like I'm getting settings wrong and focussing still a challenge

Cheers

Roger

[si@nite]

Hi again Simon...am using y800 and debayering...seems like I'm getting settings wrong and focussing still a challenge

Cheers

Roger

Try RGB 24, gain up a bit, seems to work for me, Neils right should be gettin the cassini . also focusing does look an issue. SIMON.

[Space Cowboy]

Make sure gamma is on the default of 100 and gain needs to be about 80%. The exposure histogram should be around 50% full.

[Clayton]

Looks OK to me, apart from the seeing/focus issue. Try again when the heat haze is not present.

[neil phillips]

Looks OK to me, apart from the seeing/focus issue. Try again when the heat haze is not present.

Actually i just figured why i thought Rob had gone nuts, Im on a dongle here, GIF just turns into a multi cloured blur

Apologies Rob thought you was losing it for a sec. I really do need to look at image format before i speak. Sorry North canadian it looked like that because GIF dies on my dongle. Most dont post GIFS as static images so i was caught out on this. disregard my comments i cant really see the image properly, unless you post a jpeg. better still png

Cheers

[northcanadian]

Thank you all for your suggestions for improving my imaging attempts.

I seem to be having problems (aside from focussing) with the ic capture settings...though I have tried many different. Would a capture program like Sharpcap work with my dbk21?

Neil...I have reposted image as a png. The images on this site are awesome and an inspiration to me to work towards improving my own efforts.

Thanks again

Cheers

[SandboxGeneral]

Thank you all for your suggestions for improving my imaging attempts.

I seem to be having problems (aside from focussing) with the ic capture settings...though I have tried many different. Would a capture program like Sharpcap work with my dbk21?

Neil...I have reposted image as a png. The images on this site are awesome and an inspiration to me to work towards improving my own efforts.

Thanks again

Cheers

Despite the troubles you're having with clarity, that is one really cool picture! I don't know much about this stuff, but when you're looking at Saturn, or other planets, do you see stars and such in your field of view? I only ask because in your photo here, I don't see anything else but the planet and wondered why.

Cheers!

[northcanadian]

Hi Sandbox General:

I am still a novice at this but here are a couple of suggestions. When I am observing Jupiter (9.25 sct) usually I can see up to 4 of it's moons quite clearly. When I image (dbk21) the moons usually appear to disappear due to the exposure required to capture Jupiter. To actually capture the moons I find that overexposure is required to bring them out. I don't 'capture' the stars for the same reason I gather.

Cheers