Jupiter and its 4 largest moons

[Yidoboy]

I don't know which method would produce the best results, but I imagine the drift method would be easier to do as you would be touching the controls less. Does your telescope to shake when you touch the controls? If it does I would think the drift method would be better. I would try a few test captures both ways and see if one way or the other produces better results.

I would think the hardest part for you would be getting a good focus, it takes me at least 10 minutes to get a focus I am happy with and that is with the planet sitting still in the middle of the sensor! There again, I suppose you could always set your focus using Polaris and a Bahtinov mask.

Cheers,

Chris

I don't know which method would produce the best results, but I imagine the drift method would be easier to do as you would be touching the controls less. Does your telescope to shake when you touch the controls? If it does I would think the drift method would be better. I would try a few test captures both ways and see if one way or the other produces better results.

I would think the hardest part for you would be getting a good focus, it takes me at least 10 minutes to get a focus I am happy with and that is with the planet sitting still in the middle of the sensor! There again, I suppose you could always set your focus using Polaris and a Bahtinov mask.

Cheers,

Chris

It does tend to shake if I'm honest but PIPP works a treat as does Registax with discarding the rubbish frames. As I said, all of my images have been manually taken and I'm quite impressed with the results - especially my last shot of Jupiter.

I'll give the drift method a go....

[Ultrapenguin]

Chris is correct that the drift method is limited to the number of frames that can be collected before the target drifts out of frames which limits the number of frames dramatically often leaving less than 300! This is the primary reason why when i bought my first "new" scope i went for the full set of motors and a motorised focuser which brings me onto Yidoboys question, I also tried using slow motion controls both on my 76mm refrac and the SW130 with both I found the disturbance of touching the controls made the final result worse, please note both scopes had quite poor quality EQ mounts and the slow motions on the 150PL I now have would probably be ok. When I was using the drift method I decided not to worry about only having a few frames, I would get about 30 seconds - 1 minute of video each time but that video was usually good quality, I also never used above 10 FPS or the compresion just killed any detail.

I always remebered what I was told by a much more experienced astronomer "when stacking frames you only need one or two to contain real detail and your final image wil be great" and for the most part I found thsi to be true, 300 frames is not much but still has a good chance of getting a good frame or two and anyway you can always stack you resultant frames together too.

[Yidoboy]

How do I combine 2 images in GIMP? I've taken 2 avi's, run them through PIPP and RS6 ut I can't see anywhere in GIMP that lets me merge 2 images????

[Ultrapenguin]

you have to paste the second image as another layer, you can then define its tranparency, very transparent at first for allignment and then non tranparent to show jupiter, you may have to do some tidying as teh over exposed jupiter wil be slightly larger.

[Yidoboy]

Sorry for being stupid here...but I can't figure out how to do it.....I think I've opened 2 images by clicking 'Open as layers' and then choosing the 2 images I want to use but then I get stuck! I can only see one image and I can't see any way of changing the transparency...nor can I see both images.

[stellawolf]

Super image well done

[Ultrapenguin]

@Yidoboy I have pasted below a link to an online tutorial that shows how to use layers, post here if you still have problems. I would also very much like to see your end result

http://www.simmerspaintshop.com/forums/f35-gimp-tutorials/using-manipulating-layers-gimp-512/

[Yidoboy]

@Yidoboy I would also very much like to see your end result

http://www.simmerspa...ayers-gimp-512/

I wouldn't get too excited just yet....it took me god knows how long to get a picture of Jupiter that I'm happy with!!!

[Atlas]

I wouldn't get too excited just yet....it took me god knows how long to get a picture of Jupiter that I'm happy with!!!

That'll be a never ending quest I'm afraid. I have yet to see anyone who is 100% happy with an image.