A few planets - 21/11/12 - First try

[deckardbr]

Dear all,

I can finally post some results. :-)

Pictures were taken from my living room (I know I know... but that's the only night option I have mid week).

Neptune

Taken with Canon Rebel XTI at prime focus... as is, no processing.

Jupiter

Taken with a webcam (video) and then stacked using RegiStax without tweaking any parameter (got it today... no idea how to use it).

A couple of questions:

1. What software do you use for video capture? The one that came with the webcam is... hideous!

2. Struggled to get the right exposure for Jupiter while capturing the video. Maybe it was the software... maybe me. Any advice on how to manage that?

Thanks!

Andrea

[JamesF]

Many people use SharpCap for image capture. It can display the capture histogram that allows you to tweak gain and exposure to get an image that's bright enough.

What webcam are you using?

James

[deckardbr]

Software is AmCap, which is probably the dumbed down version of SharpCap (same suffix ). It came with the Modern Astronomy Planetary imager webcam.

Used it for the first time today and took me a good 20 minutes before I could see a bit more than a bright white circle. Not very user friendly when it came to make adjustments...!

Thanks James, I'll try that one.

[deckardbr]

...and I just found that there is a copy of SharpCap on the same installation CD. ARGH.

[JamesF]

You can also download the latest version from http://www.sharpcap.co.uk/

James