Better Night Tonight

[Langy]

Well last night I went to a dark sky area with the first descent forecast guaranteed viewing of more than a couple of hours at best. Didn't achieve very much with such a bright moon.

So tonight just got the scope out setup on my wobbly decking along with the laptop, webcam and DSLR.

The moon was first up and the DSLR at around 1/250 sec ISO 400 and 2x Barlows got me this.

I was pretty pleased with this.

Next over to the webcam straight in the scope and I thought I would stick in a ND filter to cut down on the brightness to see if things became easier. Again quite please after processing in Registax, was being careful not to go too far with the wavelets.

Quite some difference between the DSLR with 2x Barlows and a straight webcam.

Next it was my third attempt at Jupiter as I've not been able to get anything so far. Webcam with ND filter and 2x Barlows. Recording the AVI file and managed to get some detail showing in the live feed. Gentle on the wavelets and I got the image below. I'm sure the colouring is way over the top, but I'm pleased to actually start showing some detail and not have an image that looks like a blob of pixels.

[Langy]

Oh I meant to mention that when I had finished doing all the images, with some very cold feet, I went on a bit of a browse looking for M81 and M82 that have eluded me so far.

Pointing the scope in the rough place locked off the RA axis and slowly went back and fourth with the Dec, then just moving the RA over a bit each time. All of a sudden I came across a very dim smudge and thought this has to be one of the elusive two. Couldn't see the other one close by so grabbed the laptop and onto Stellarium. Worked out which one I was looking at and where it was lined up with a couple of stars. Turning the laptop around (more like juggling) to line up with what I was seeing I nudged the scope in the right direction and there I had both M81 and M82 in the EP. Two very dim smudges, I guess the moon must be making them worse, but at last I've found something different to what I look at every time.

[oldpink]

great night tonight
I got a load of moon shots early on, moved to Jupiter got 100gb of captures to tun inc GRS and a transit
I've moved to Mars and I'm currently running 6000 frame captures, loving it and Saturn is next

[Geuse]

Sounds like a good night. Our clear sky forecast was destroyed by thick must. Well done on the Jupiter capture, I am hopefully not too far behind you on pulling through some detail.

[Pete Presland]

nice moon shots, love the way the terminator highlights everything along it! not sure about that Jupiter though, like you say a bit pink  but all part of the learning curve! and there is certainly some detail there

[Langy]

Thought I would just tweak the rather Pink Jupiter a bit and hopefully this now looks a bit better.

The main thing is that I'm pleased to actually capture some detail.