First Light with PD1

[hadyn42]

Hello Guys

Well we have had a great clear night tonight and I managed to see some good star clusters, planes and a few satellites passing by.

The trouble came when I tried to view the moon later on, I set the camera up to the recommended settings to see, planets and the moon and  all I got was a big blur on screen. I adjusted the brightness, contrast etc in my software capture programs. I tried sharpcap, gstar4, powerdirect, to name a few and no matter what I did the moon swamped my display. I even altered the settings on the PD1 and it was still the same.  Am I doing something really silly here? By the way the stars were very clear and pin sharp, looks like overloading the camera to me. The moons brightness was too much me thinks......I didn't capture any video guys, I just viewed the sky on my laptop as this was my first night time testing....

Hoping you can help me please guys??

Best regards,  Hadyn - Isle of Man

[johnno]

Hi Hadyn, them recommendations are just a guide, and then you would need to fine tune it. what was your settings ? If its to bright, you need to have a faster shutter/ exposure speed and sens up to off.

[shirva]

John is bang on..imaged the moon last week and sense off and had to crank the shutter speed right up to stop it over exposing. ..if you think about it the video camera is just a modded dslr ..Davy

[Carl Reade]

Hi Hadyn heres a shot I took when using a 200mm lens about a month ago lucky I kept the menu on screen. Sense up has to be off and as the guys say fast shutter speed. A moon filter will help as well.

Hopefully useful Carl

[Dragon Man]

Yeah Haydn, I turn my camera down to around 1000th of a second (1/1000) for the Moon then adjust with brightness and contrast.

If it is still too bright I go to 1/2000.

[hadyn42]

Hello Guys

Thank you all again for your great  help.

I don't think I tried the shutter speed as high as 1,000 etc guys. I probably just gave up after an hour as it was getting late and I wanted to be up early in the morning. But I will have another bash at it tonight, clear skies willing.  Its nice and sunny here at the moment and the weather forecast has given it clear here again for tonight.

Thanks again guys...

Kindest regards, Hadyn - IOM

[Dragon Man]

Haydn, just keep turning down the exposure time until you have contrast on the Moon and you can maker out the craters.

Like I said, I use about 1/1000 with my ED80, but if you have a larger aperture you may need to go a lot further 1/5000 or even more.

[bomberbaz]

glad I found this as this is exactly what I have been suffering with. However I also found that the Orion Nebula was way too bright the other night and causing the same problem as Hyden42 had with the moon. What would be the best way to compensate for this. (Hope a contributor to this thread is still available) Anybody able to help?

Steve

[johnno]

Hi Steve, which scope was you using @ F/  ? as this can have a big effect on settings with a video camera.

I've lost a lot of my captured images as the hdd packed up but have a couple on the other pc. This was taken with a ED80 @ F7.5, ir filter and a Samsung 2000p which is similar to a PD1,

 I think it was x512 sense up - agc off- brightness 1 -. the other images I've lost with different settings, and you can see how little detail there is in this image

I think the best image I had was with the agc set to low or mid and x512 and tweaked the video grabber settings. but like I said the scope F ratio will play a big part on the camera settings.

[bomberbaz]

cheers johnno, I was using the 12" flextube and thats a F4.9. think i might try a reducer next time to increase the FOV and play around with the sense, gamma and AGC. Also need to speed up the shutter I think for planetary. I am fairly confident that this is where my problem lies and its all about finding what works. Also think i will install sharpcap instead of the default programme it came with, I think this is more versatile. i found loads more info after posting this but thanks anyway, I need as much info as I possibly can get.

Steve

[johnno]

yes I think you would be better off using a FR for M42 with that scope  it will be a very fast scope about F2.5, start off about X256 and agc low and  just knock it up a notch at a time, it's a bit of time consuming because you have to wait for the integration  to finish its cycle.  Sharpcap is a good software to use

[bomberbaz]

btw Johnno these were my efforts last night, over exposed as you can see. I was using the recomended settings on this and was a little disapointed with what I got, hence me asking all the questions.

I need more time on some dso's to learn a little more about the settings. Think next chance i get i will try with a globular, probs m13 and see if I can get something a little shprper on that before i move onto more complex dso's & planets in colour. 

Steve

[johnno]

Steve, looking at them images.   did you use a reducer and  ir filter. The reason I ask it looks like you have star bloat, you can get this if you don't use a IR filter and your overexposed and this can also give you the effect of star bloat. Can you remember what the settings you was using. M42 can be a bit tricky to get right because you can easily overexpose the core . 

The first one is better....I would of still dropped the exposure time more almost to the level of mine and recheck your focus to make sure you can get the stars a bit more tighter, and then work on the settings, like I said before the recommended settings are only a guide to get you on the right track. You need to find the right balance between senseup and agc. senseup is your exposure the higher you go the longer  the exposure , agc  amplifies the signal. Lower agc will give you a cleaner picture  at the expense of a longer exposure. A higher agc will give you shorter exposures at the expense of more picture noise. But don't give up I know it can be a ball ache, and it is a learning curve trying to suss out what effect all the settings on the camera does.

I've just bought another  camera a lot more complicated than the Samsung and i'm going through the same things as you with it.

So the two area's I would concentrate on are senseup and agc. to find a good balance between  them. Start with agc off, play with the senseup to get a decent picture and then use agc and set it to low, if it looks over exposed go back to senseup and turn it down a notch,

Once you've got a grip to what the settings do and the effect they have on your image, everything  will fall into place . Believe you me, I've at times felt like kicking it down the garden 

have fun John

[johnno]

Exposure:
BRIGHTNESS = 1
SHUTTER = MANUAL
for DSO's stat at x64 and go upwards from there
AGC = LOW (for DSO's)
= OFF for Moon and planets)
SENS_UP = OFF
White balance = MANUAL
Backlight off
DAY/NIGHT = COLOR
SPECIAL
... Image adjust / Sharpness between 1-5

Steve , is your shutter set to manual and sensup to off ?

[bomberbaz]

 Believe you me, I've at times felt like kicking it down the garden 

have fun John

Hahahaha, cheers John, cheered me up. Ok one of the core issues is not using a reducer. The camera in my scope is effectively 250x mag, far too much. Next I will try your suggestions above next chance i get, just want a decent clear night and i will start with someting easy-ish such as a small open cluster or a glod, just to get to grips with things and like you say, what does what. 

Thanks for the replies John, reply do appreciate it.

ps, copied the info into a word document, i will be getting hubble-esq results before you know it, hehe 

Steve

[johnno]

how about M57 with your scope that should be ezzy pezzy

[bomberbaz]

yeah good shout John, i was thinking about doing a nebula using a narrowband filter but for now a straight image should be a good place to start with

cheers