Imaging Saturn

[hansumman]

Hi all.

I have an Orion StarShoot Colour Imager IV, and have successfully seen Jupiter with it. But I am having great difficulty getting any image of Saturn. I have tried with & without a 2x Barlow, but still can't seem to get Saturn aligned. I am using a Celestron CPC800.

Anyone have any pointers?

Thanks.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

I have just moved this to planetary imaging. You have a better chance of getting answers there.

getting planets onto the small chip of a camera is always hard. I use a flip mirror, which allows me to centre the planet using an eyepiece, and simply flipping the mirror up redirects the image onto the chip.

[Steve Ward]

Make sure that your finderscope is very accurately aligned to start with .

Then get the planet very accurately centred using an eyepiece , start with a fairly long EP , say 20mm , then pop in a shorter one , 5-9mm to get the object bang in the middle of the FOV.

Now put in the camera and turn the settings , Gain and Exposure , up high in your capture software , you will now need to adjust the focus in or out until the planet becomes visible.

Then you can adjust the capture settings until you get the view you need , dimmer rather than brighter is better but it's a little bit 'suck it and see' regarding settings.

Happy hunting ....

[hansumman]

Thanks for the help guys, much appreciated.

[JamesF]

Yes, once you get to longer focal lengths it's so easy to miss the camera sensor entirely with just a tiny misalignment of the scope. A cheap illuminated reticle eyepiece is very helpful in this situation.

James