Starting with Neximage, what am I doing wrong?

[eli71]

Finally, this weekend I could use my new Neximage. Though the outcome was little disappointing. I don,t know what I was doing wrong. I try all the possible combination with AMP program, but I couldn,t achieve seeing the planet at the screen. Only when I try putting the camera on top the eyecepiece could I see saturn. What am I doing wrong? Do I need to have a barlow to make focus? Thanks in advance for your help.

[Rihard]

The object is most likely out of the relatively narrow field of view and you might need to double check the focus.

You should try to point at an object during the day (like a roof, an antenna, a far window ) and see what happens.

With the barlow the field of view might become narrower making the centering even more difficult, but it will be nice to use a barlow to increase the subject size.

You may also try Sharpcap, a lot of people in the forum love it.

Clear Skies.

[eli71]

Thanks Tziuriky I,ll try Sharcap. Although if the problem is that the object is out of the field of view. I don,t know what more to do to focus. I use the 9mm eyepiece to center, and I put the camera right away. Anybody there with the combination of Nexstar 127 slt and neximage?

[wyx]

You are probably not seeing anything because you are so far out of focus and/or the ccd may not be directly in centre. Try it in the day time on a far away object and note where it focuses then look through your finder and realign it to match the camera rather than your eye. Only other thing to suggest is turn up the gain/brightness in your capture software. Good luck its not easy, Saturn moves very fast, some nights I can't get anything either.

Sent from my GT-I8150 using Tapatalk 2

[Skybrowser]

^{One other thing to try might be to increase the gain setting as this will brighten an out of focus object. When I first started I found the focus to be miles out - the planet was always or more often than not actually "there" on the laptop screen but it was too dark as well as out of focus and virtually invisible. Once you have it nailed and in view, back the gain down again and focus it as sharp as you can. Sounds easy but takes a bit of practice (and can be incredibly frustrating too!).}

[eli71]

You are probably not seeing anything because you are so far out of focus and/or the ccd may not be directly in centre. Try it in the day time on a far away object and note where it focuses then look through your finder and realign it to match the camera rather than your eye.

I have tried during day and you ,re right. I,ll prove the aligment as you say. thanks

^{One other thing to try might be to increase the gain setting as this will brighten an out of focus object. When I first started I found the focus to be miles out - the planet was always or more often than not actually "there" on the laptop screen but it was too dark as well as out of focus and virtually invisible. Once you have it nailed and in view, back the gain down again and focus it as sharp as you can. Sounds easy but takes a bit of practice (and can be incredibly frustrating too!).}

I will insist thanks.

[eli71]

Well , second try it,s made and saturn finally its there . It ,s rubbish I know. Now starts the difficult part. Learning to capture and postprocessing of the video. Any tips? And some questions how long should be the video? the same for planets & the moon?. thanks in advance for your help

[JamesF]

I think the problem there may be that you have the gain turned up too high. Saturn is a very hard target for imaging with a 127 Mak at the moment. It's just too dim and too low in the sky to get good results. I'd wait for Jupiter to start practising on to be honest. You should get much better results and learn much more in the process.

I wrote up some information on capture times that may be of use here:

http://www.tanstaafl.co.uk/2012/03/focal-ratio-capture-length-planetary-imaging/

James

[eli71]

Thanks James, for the advice and the link.