What went wrong?

[smunns]

My second attempt at imaging seems to result in a yellow undetailed image. As a total newbie other than a pair of cheap binoculars any help and advice would be appreciated The images was taken on a skywatcher 127 barlow 2 ( cheap kind that came with it ) neximage ccd and a ir/uv filter and i used sharpcap and registax 6 with the following settings

[Philips SPC 900NC PC Camera]

Frame Divisor=1

Resolution=640x480

Frame Rate (fps)=10.00

Colour Space / Compression=YUY2

Exposure=-4

Brightness=79

Contrast=48

Saturation=44

Gamma=15

ColorEnable=255

BacklightCompensation=255

Gain=38

Am i expecting to much from my equipment, or am i which im hoping just lacking ability (as this wont cost me to improve upon ) also i have a lovely bright orange lampost just 15ft from me but alas I dont think i will have permission to move this so its somthing i will have to learn to deal with but again not sure if its being to much of a nusiance. Any help or advice is much needed the more the better as its all a learning curve for me.

Capture 13_05_2012 23_54_46.bmp

[AndyUK]

Hi there - Welcome to SGL...! I personally don't think is bad at all, and it's certainly far better than I've ever managed on Saturn, but I'm not really much of a "planetary guy" and have little to compare it to so I'm afraid I'm not able to be of much help to you (sorry )

However, hopefully one of the planetary imaging members will spot this soon and give you some pointers about what to expect from a barlowed Skymax 127...

[JamesF]

I would say probably say too much brightness and contrast, too much saturation, too much gamma, not enough gain.

I've not tried Saturn with the SPC900 for a few weeks now, but the settings I've used for images taken with pretty much the same kit are here:

http://www.tanstaafl.co.uk/solar-system-images/saturn/

You may need a touch more gain than I've used now.

The kit barlow is really not great. I'm using a GSO/Revelation 2x barlow for Saturn. I found that my Ultima 2x barlow (which is actually more like 2.4x) and my GSO 2.5x just didn't give a clear enough image for Saturn this apparition. The Tal 2x barlow would be at least as good, I'm sure, but i have no experience with it. The kit barlow isn't utterly useless though. I removed the lens from mine and use it as an extension when imaging other planets. For example the shots of Mars I've taken were with a 2.5x barlow plus the kit barlow with the lenses removed placed after that to give a bit more image scale.

James

[WayBig]

that's not a bad attempt. I've taken a few images of saturn, some i'm pleased with, though my last one came out very like yours. The consensus seemed to be that gain needed to be higher. http://stargazerslounge.com/showthread.php?t=189314

Your kit should be capable of getting some pretty good images - no need to upgrade yet!

[steppenwolf]

Better than my Saturn attempts! I'm not a planetary imager as it's deep sky that floats my boat but from a DS perspective, this looks more like a focus issue to me. Using DS imaging techniques on your image with colour saturation boost and sharpening seemed to confirm this although the image became more noisy, of course but I'd expect that.

Focus is a real challenge for both disciplines and I hope that this or something similar is the issue as it's is a no cost solution!

[smunns]

Thanks for the replies, thanks for the link jamesf most helpfull gave me alot of ideas over the sharpcap settings and what is achievable with the scope itself, next peice of spare income will go on a quality barlow. your mars images are excellent. Ive got a auto focuser think its a skywatcher one that im currently making a bracket for to fit so hopfully this will help improve my focusing, everytime i touch the focusing knob it tends to make the image almost jump of the screen, its good to know that my equipment is upto the job and its just my newbie ability that is holding me back im sure once the skys start to clear more than just the odd hour each week il get more time to practice with.

[JamesF]

I have to admit that I'm offensively pleased with some of the Mars images

The electric focuser is an absolute boon. It made life so much easier for me. The picture may be different for those people who have a small scope on a decent size mount, especially if it's on a pier, but at the moment I'm working off my EQ3-2 and tripod and the scope almost wobbles if you as much as look at it funny. Being able to sit at the laptop and wind the focus in and out whilst watching the screen rather than tweaking the focus by hand, waiting for the wobbles to settle, checking the image, finding the mirror has shifted when the focuser changed direction etc. is just so much simpler and gives me far more time for working on getting other things right.

With a (relatively) small scope Saturn is something of a pig to image at the moment. So many people seem to be getting into webcam planetary imaging though, particularly with the 127 Mak, that I'm really looking forward to the next apparition of Jupiter. It should be a much easier target. I don't think we'll be able to move for Jupiter images as we get towards the tail end of the summer

James