First ever !

[Geuse]

Hi Guys,

Hope you are all having clear skies. 

So i only just got a scope at Xmas - Astromaster 76EQ and i recently purchased an Orion USB Eyepiece II. I have been trying for about 6 weeks and been unable to pick up a thing with the camera, until tonight.

I just wondered if there is anything i could do with this video to get something resembling an image. It is obviously very bright, would it always be like this and if not how do i remedy? 

I have got Registax & DSS downloaded and i also have a trial edition of Lightroom.

Any help would be appreciated, please see the link - 

Thanks 

[jjqpr]

Thats still pretty cool, ther emight be some capture settinsg for the camera you could adjust to reduce brightness, though you'll probably lose the moons then ...im sure someone will be able to offer some advice as I'm a total noobie myself, but that was still cool to watch

[Geuse]

Thats still pretty cool, ther emight be some capture settinsg for the camera you could adjust to reduce brightness, though you'll probably lose the moons then ...im sure someone will be able to offer some advice as I'm a total noobie myself, but that was still cool to watch

Thanks ! 

I was somewhat akin to a young chap on xmas day when i managed to catch it  !

[glowingturnip]

what camera is it ?  presumably a webcam ?

If so, there should be settings somewhere in your capture software for exposure and for gain - reduce both.  I use a freeware capture program called Sharpcap that is pretty easy to use.

Gain is sort of equivalent to ISO, so really the lower the better so long as you're getting a decent image, otherwise it gets grainy.  Exposure is equivalent to shutter speed, so balance the two.  If the seeing is bad (ie if you're seeing lots of wobble on the screen caused by atmospheric turbulence) then you'll want a lower exposure and compensate with higher gain.  The video above has good seeing.

Hope that helps ?

[Russe]

Nice attempt! You captured the Jovian moons, alright!! You can't process Jupiter though, as it's overexposed. As above, adjusting the gain will loose the moons (u can combine the moons with a pic of Jupiter later) but show you surface detail on Jupiter.

Good luck!!

[Langy]

Well done for your first capture.

You have the moons, but if you want detail in Jupiter as others have said you need to reduce the exposure / brightness.

I'm still struggling on getting this myself with my converted xBox webcam. Last night when I put it in with 2x Barlows I ended up with a large halo around Jupiter.

When I do lower the exposure I end up with a pixelated image so still trying and not giving up.

If you are just after an image rather than video putting it through Registax may give you that, but you will not get any more detail.

[Knight of Clear Skies]

I can also recommend Sharpcap. To get the exposure level right point at Jupiter and open the histogram display, and adjust until the curve is somewhere in the middle and not bunched at one end. Once you get that right the display may look something like this (randomly taken off YouTube):

Atmospheric turbulence will shake the image around. Stacking the image and sharpening it (wavelets in Registax) will then bring out a lot more detail. Here's my first attempt on Saturn, I managed to turn a blurry video into this:

Hope that is of some help, and good luck.

[Super Hans]

I'm a newby too, but I found that using a Barlow on my little 80mm refractor cuts down the light just enough to allow my webcam to pick out the cloud belts; I also use a filter just to bring out the contrast a bit more.

[Charic]

A good 1st attempt and its clear to those that know, that your looking at Jupiter with its Moons. 

The advice above is sound enough, but your limited by the telescopes aperture. A larger aperture will give you more contrast and resolution. As it is at present, Jupiter to the naked eye is just like a very bright star. It needs a decent amount of aperture to allow you to see the detail. 

That said, thread no #8 is not to dissimilar in aperture size, but has managed to capture more detail on the planet.

Start with your longest focal length and work upwards until you see your target as best as possible. As long as you have some detail, even at a lower power, software will allow you to crop and re-size the final image, but from the original image, there's  not much left you can do with Jupiter to enhance anything.

[Geuse]

Thanks for all the advice guys.

Just waiting on the clouds to clear and its round 2 ! 

This could get addictive.

[Russe]

"Could"???!!!

Lol