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Saturn tonight (23rd)


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Just been out and managed this image of saturn from 50seconds of video. Im really pleased with it but I cannot for the life of me find saturn through a barlow when im using the webcam, any ideas? I would love to try an image using the 2x barlow but really struggling.

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That really is a very good image. Bags and bags of potential. In my experience of simply observing Saturn without any kind of tracking (Go-To), the more magnification you throw at it...............it just races across the FOV of the scope and is gone in the blink of an eye.

Cropping your image i think works very well. Getting rid of the space around it really makes the image pop out more. Most of the work involved in getting a good image is not in getting the image itself but in the post processing.

p.s.~~~take more then 50 seconds of movie and stack it. This will improve the image also. Your Cassini Division is pretty promennnt there.

Its an image i would be VERY proud to be the owner of.

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Hi,

Saturn can be a difficult one to get on the chip of a webcam with a barlow, so here’s my method...

I tend to start with a 20mm eyepiece and centre Saturn. I then switch to something between 15mm -10mm and re-centre and do a final check with one of my highest power eyepieces before switching the eyepiece for the webcam.

Initially I use the auto settings on the capture software which should give you a bright donut on the screen. You may well have to chase this donut a bit to get it in the centre but use only small mount movements. Having the finder scope well aligned is a HUGE help. This should allow you to focus until you get the recognisable shape of Saturn before tweaking the software.

Hope this helps

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Once you have the planet on the chip with the webcam running bring up the reticule feature on the top bar and centre the image by tweaking ra/dec.

Then turn up the brightness setting and pop in the barlow, you will now have to focus out quite a way ,slowly, and the image should come into view.

You need to be centred well because it doesn't take much to lose it off the chip.

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Thankyou for all the great comments, Im really enjoying the 127mak and im really pleased with the results. I only get about an hour to setup and view. Can't wait for Jupiter to come back just out of intrest how big visually is jupiter compared to saturn?

Hopefully tonight I will have a go with the barlow, trouble is if it takes longer then 20 mins I get frustrated and just want to watch saturn!Hopefully when I get my new laptop back from being repaired I should get a trip out to a dark sight see how much difference it makes.

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Your image looks very well focused and detailed.

I'd say Jupiter would be about a 3rd to a half again larger visually than Saturns sphere. The only Saturn under my profile pictures is imaged with a x3 barlow and Jupiter with the x2 barlow. Have a look.

I can't think that you'd gain much in imaging the planets from a dark site, it's mainly for being able to find DSO's easily and produce better images of them. I suppose If you didn't have to image over the roofs of nearby houses the air would be stiller.

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You may have some 'slop' in your barlow and webcam. I use a Neximage and the barrel is nowhere near 1.25", so I centre the image in the 8mm ep [on a Nexstar 4SE] set the AmCap software on full auto then replace the ep with the camera, the image is usally on the screen at the top. A refocus and recentre later and I add the barlow with the screws on the scope and the barlow in the same orientation. A little movement will have the planet recentred.

Also remember that the barlow will decrease the brightness of the planet.

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Hi YA JonnyK, thats amazing mate, I only do visual work, you really have done a great job with Saturn - and all from 127mm of aperture - what sticks out for me is the detail in the banding on the globe, the difference in the portion of the rings actually in front of the globe as opposed to being against a dark sky - really nice, catching the Cassini as well with the rings closing up at such an acute angle, visually, with Saturn so low down this apparition and the rings really not ideally placed for actually observing the Cassini division really does show a fantastic image there, visually, take it from me - the amount of detail captured there is stunning, it just shows that 5" aperture on most nights will proportionally out perform much larger apertures - nice 1. Paul.

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Nice image Jonny, after reading on here about the xbox cam and not being able to find a philips I bought a 360viewcam from amazon and this is my saturn. I took 1000 frames with sharpcap and used a 2xbarlow.

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Thanks again for the kind comments. I really am hooked now but unfortunately I have AP!!!Been dreaaming about an edge 1400HD but short of a lottery win it's just a dream :(. I am amazed at what you can image with very little outlay. I didn't think I would be that interested in imaging when I was first looking at telescopes but I like the idea of playing with videos and pictures on those all to frequent cloudy nights!I keep wandering over to the imaging section on here but the jargon over there is worst then that on the triathlon forum I go on!

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Nice image Jonny, after reading on here about the xbox cam and not being able to find a philips I bought a 360viewcam from amazon and this is my saturn. I took 1000 frames with sharpcap and used a 2xbarlow.

Thats a very nice image, can I ask how difficult you found it getting saturn on the screen when you had your Barlow in?What scope are you using?

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