Newbie Planetary Imaging Q

[Notty]

Hi there, I tried to have a go at imaging Mars last night with my QHY5L-IIC on my SW 200PDS, but I think I am missing a trick here bacause I could not get any kind of image on the screen.  I'm not a total noob as I've used the camera before quite a lot for solar imaging but never planetary and the 200PDS is a new scope too, but this is my first time trying to film a planet.    The trouble was though try as I might I could not get any kind of image to repeat on the screen.  The scope was definitely pointing at it as I had previously been looking at it through a 12" eyepiece and a 3xBarlow bang in the centre, but nothing but black on the screen, all focus points and no matter how close/far up or down the tube I put the camera with/without its extension ring.

I tried all resolutions thinking initially I'd want the lowest for the higher frame rate, and set the exposures all the way up to the max at 50ms.

I know the camera is working fine because I shot some lovely moon vids.

Does anyone know why I might be having this problem?  Very frustrating given the conditions last night!

Many thanks

Andy

[hobsey]

I will be watching this thread as I had the same thing the other week.

I will be trying again tonight, so hopefully pick up some tips ready.

[oldpink]

did you try changing the software settings, for Mars & Saturn I have to up the frame time and gain to get it on screen
where as Jupiter being so bright I have to back everything off a bit

[hobsey]

I think mine might have been a case of not aligned properly and it was zooming straight past my target.

[SW130p]

I did exactly the same thing last night I had it all lined up in the ep but soon as I put in the camera nothing. I played about and eventually got it. Focusing was very minute as not to miss it and easily comes and goes. you have to get the alignment spot on too, it might be  in the ep but different on the camera. Heres my very first Mars Taken last night with a Skywatcher 130p, Heq5, Logitech webcam and 2x barlow. Stacked in registax 6 .

[hobsey]

Thats a great image, hell of a lot better than I got with a dedicated planetary camera.

My captures were so awful, I deleted them all.

[oldpink]

Thats a great image, hell of a lot better than I got with a dedicated planetary camera.

My captures were so awful, I deleted them all.

did you try processing any of the captures

a lot of the time my captures look terrible but after running them through PIPP & Registax I'm often surprised at the results

[PeterCPC]

I have had these issues - it's due to the small sensor size as well as exposure/gain etc. If you ensure your finderscope (not red dot) is very accurately aligned with the main scope you should be able to centre using that.

Peter

[hobsey]

did you try processing any of the captures

a lot of the time my captures look terrible but after running them through PIPP & Registax I'm often surprised at the results

Yeah, I was far from happy with the results.

It was more of a practice run seeing if I can get an image on scree and practice aligning the mount.

[tekkydave]

Notty, what capture software are you using? Maybe the exposure time and gain need tweaking. Also try imaging with the largest image size first to make sure you have the target on the chip.

[rob0971]

Notty,

The exposure time is not limited to 50ms. You can turn it right up to 1 sec & more to get the planet on screen (although you shouldn't need to go any way near that high). You can then alter the gain & gamma & lower the exposure to get a decent frame rate.