1st pic of Jupiter

[ardbeg74]

HI Guys,

Thought I'd share my first attempt at afocal / stacking. Not exactly a masterpiece but gotta start somewhere

Camera was Mrs Ardbegs Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX07.

The whole experience last night was a bit of a fiddle to say the least, trying to hold the image in the centre of the zoomed in camera while not setting off the EQ3-2 mount into a wobble and adjusting the tracking with the other hand. Lots of footage, mostly wobbles and black space... but there was that 14 seconds where it all came together and registax sorted the rest out.

Will order an afocal mounting bracket this week, im sure if the image was steady i could tease more detail out.... 

Clear Skies,

Mark

[jambouk]

That is absolutely great! Well done. Smashing image! For a first image, it's amazing. I've be playing with jupiter lately and not managed anything close to that.

James

[Dave_D]

Marvelous... i've totally failed so far to image Jupiter

[morrmorr]

well done

[stevetynant]

Awesome- well done

[Guy Wells]

Great stuff.

[Zuben Elgenubi]

That is very nice Mark, well done!

[ardbeg74]

Thanks Guys.

Just cant wait to get back out there and get some more practice in for mars opposition next year!!!

Mark

[ardbeg74]

Had some more time to re-stack, play with the wavelets and mess around in gimp.

Not going to get any more detail out but its fun to play around. Much darker now but maybe I like this one better? Though does feel like artistic licence cos the first image was closer to what i actually saw in the EP.

Anyways, clear skies to you all

Mark

[jambouk]

I think the last image is too processed; the first a little too soft. My preference would be something in between, nearer the first than the latter, but this is all a personal choice. Look at damian peach's website and see how he processes his

James

[Gomtuu]

Nice!

[Roger Fairhurst]

Nice one Ardbeg,

that's actually an amazingly good result especially considering it's your first attempt and you would appear to be using a 6" Newt on an EQ3-2 mount. I have a similar set up but have never given a thought to the idea of imaging with it. Perhaps I should reconsider??!!

Stock eyepieces eh? Wow, I am seriously impressed - even more so if you're using a Barlow as well.

Respect!

BTW, I personally much prefer the first photo, it's much closer to the type of pictures of Jupiter we are all used to seeing.

Were any of the moons visible?

Keep up the good work Ardbeg, and a drop of the old Ardbeg Islay wouldn't go amiss either... :tongue:

Kind regards

Roger

[Nigele2]

I like the first one.  I'd blow that up and wall paper with it. 

Now Nebula get back out there.  I expect to see similar at least once a week if not more

[Kirscovitch]

Very nice. I hope my first pics of Jupiter will turn out half as good.

[Nigele2]

Of course that should say Ardbeg74 and not Nebula

[ardbeg74]

Thanks everybody! Feel really encouraged to get back out there and work at it!

James, i'll take a look at what Damian is doing. I agree its a bit over processed, looking more like a marble or humbug rather than jupiter Best thing about imaging though ... there is always something to do when its cloudy outside!!!

Roger... yea if you have a digital camera its worth giving it a shot. If i can do it, so can you. Jupiter needs to be pretty high up, say 45 to 50+ alt. and the seeing needs to be reasonable. Just take a lot of footage. I took over an hour of footage just to get 14 seconds of ok footage. Even though the footage I got was no where near as good as what was in the EP, stacking and wavelets really made the difference. Try and get your polar alignment as good as you can as the FOV is going to be tiny AND you will be zoomed in on the camera, so the less tracking controls to adjust the better! Its still going to shake like crazy unless you have surgeons hands, but you only need 10 sec of good footage, so dont give up!!

I also found that I could tilt the camera a little to help track.

Moons, yea IIRC 4 were visible earlier in the evening (or was that friday). I took a break from imaging and watched europa transit for a bit. That was nice. One moon was visible in the original footage but seems to have averaged out during stacking...

Nigele2 - hehe, yea it pixelates quite quickly on zoom, be like lego on your walls Just about to order an afocal mounting bracket so hopefully i should get better footage to work with weather permitting...

Clear skies

Mark