First Webcam shot on Jupiter, Help !

[twin-kle1007]

Hi all,

I used my webcam for the first time tonight and the image I am getting just seems to over exposed. Any ideas?

I used a Celestron C8 NGT, Logitec Quickcam 4000, 15 frames per second.

I used WX Astrocapture to capture the footage and just opening the program back up now, there appears to be a load of settings to do with Exposure (Brightness, Gamma, Gain, Shut). I've packed up for the night now but any advice on this would be appreciated and I will test it again tomorrow hopefully.

Many thanks,

Paul

[Bizibilder]

Looks to be very overexposed. I would suggest saetting the gain as low as you can and trying various exposure settings. Take 1000frames at each setting and then stack them. You will soon get an idea of what will work best for your set-up.

[Jannis]

That's very overexposed, yes. You don't have it on auto exposure i guess? If so, set it to manual.

I don't have much experience with webcam capturing other then that i use it for my guiding system.

First thing to change is the gain - push it down as much as you can. All the way if possible.

Shutter might be useful to adjust as well. I'd set it as slow as possible to get as little noise as possible - as in theoretically 1/30 sec exposure if you capture at 30 FPS. Note you might need a (much) faster shutter speed then this to freeze the planet though, it's not easy to smoothly and perfectly track a planet at that focal lenght.

Then i'd just play around a bit with the other settings untill it looks ok and not clipped.

But I'm sure someone else with more webcam imaging experience will come help out more with better and more direct recommendations (and correct me if i'm wrong)...

[Daddystu]

Hi. Yes it looks overexposed. The moons are very clearly visible which is usually a sign that you need to drop the exposure bar. Also, add in your x2 barlow to increase the image size once you have the exp sorted. You should be able to see a few cloud bands and hints of other 'surface' features on your capture. Hit start and get as many frames as poss. for stacking.

[Oily]

Try using SharpCap(capture software) and watch the tuts on youtube from astronomy shed,very informative.I followed them and this is my very first image:

[twin-kle1007]

Brilliant advice, thanks guys. I didn't even realise these setting were there until afterwards so they must have been on auto.

Clear skies pending, I'll have another crack tonight and play with the settings, particularly the gain and shutter bars.

Thanks again !

[knobby]

Fingers crossed... Tonight looks good

[twin-kle1007]

Well, I dropped the Gain and lowered the FPS, then had to play around for ages in Registax to try and bring any details out. It's a slightly better image but not brilliant, very fustrating as I know I should be achieving better images than this. Will try Sharpcap maybe next time as suggested above as the tutorials look pretty good.

[Jannis]

It's a nice start there. I never got any good jupiter pics either, but i only used a DSLR though.

You can clearly see some details there.