My first imaging attempts - Jupiter, Saturn, the Moon

[rev_dom]

Hi everyone,

I've only had a telescope for a couple of weeks, and there's so much to learn. At this stage my scope doesn't have motordrives, so I'm limiting my astrophotography attempts to the moon and planets.

I have a Fuji XT-1 camera and a Skywatcher Explorer 200p / 1000 scope. I think my next major purchase will be motordrives, and at some point in the far off future I'll probably buy a camera more suited to this sort of work. Would value early suggestions on camera choices (I won't want to spend a fortune when I do eventually get round to it)

The moon shot was taken by simply attaching the camera to the scope directly, and it's a single exposure processed in Lightroom & Photoshop.

The shots of Jupiter and Saturn were both taken by attaching the camera to a 2x Barlow, which also contained a 10mm eyepiece. I used HD video to take a minute or two of each planet, tracking manually, and then loaded the videos into Pipp before stacking them with Registax. They are far from perfect - I had to shoot at ISO 6400 so there's a lot of noise - but I'm pleased with them. I don't really know what I'm doing yet, but have found that fiddling with the wavelets really helps to bring out detail (as well as, of course, adding detail to the noise!)

Anyway - let me know what you think. I'd really appreciate any suggestions - for example, I'm using the camera in HD 60fps mode - would I be better off at a lower resolution and a lower framerate (so I can decrease the ISO)?

Thanks for reading and looking - and thanks in advance for your help.

Dom

[Grotemobile]

Very good for a first attempt.

The lunar one has come out

very well, for a  single exposure.

Steve

[xtreemchaos]

very good pics mate,you must be well happy"i would be" outsanding shot of the moon loads of detail for a single shot.i look forward to seeing what you can do when you get your tracklng motors.thanks for sharing.all the best charl.

[Marky1973]

Great first shots... as others have said, the moon shot is fantastic!

[rev_dom]

Thank you all - I decided long before I got the scope that I want to create a whole series of lunar images, which I'm going to eventually compile into a printed album for my shelf / coffee table. A very amateur moon atlas - that kind of thing. So this moon shot is the first of many (and, indeed, I've got a few more already!) 

Glad you like it!

Is there anything I can do with my current setup to improve the planetary images? Like I've said, I'm planning to get motors (probably for Christmas!) and then maybe at some point I'll buy a dedicated astronomy camera. But I want to get the best out of my current setup and I'm not convinced I'm doing that, yet. There's no point in buying new gear if I'm not using the current stuff as well as I can. Any suggestions / ideas?

[Relpet]

Thank you all - I decided long before I got the scope that I want to create a whole series of lunar images, which I'm going to eventually compile into a printed album for my shelf / coffee table. A very amateur moon atlas - that kind of thing. So this moon shot is the first of many (and, indeed, I've got a few more already!) 

Glad you like it!

Is there anything I can do with my current setup to improve the planetary images? Like I've said, I'm planning to get motors (probably for Christmas!) and then maybe at some point I'll buy a dedicated astronomy camera. But I want to get the best out of my current setup and I'm not convinced I'm doing that, yet. There's no point in buying new gear if I'm not using the current stuff as well as I can. Any suggestions / ideas?

As your Fuji sells for about £1000, body only, I'd be inclined to try to get the best out of it.  It might be worth contacting your nearest astronomical society to get some serious practical advice from experienced imagers.  In the meantime I notice the spec for this camera has the option of subject tracking at 8fps.  Have you tried that?  Nothing to lose

[northcanadian]

Those are very nice Dom!

[slim80]

Great work dom The lunar shot is very good for a single exposure .well done mate

[robbie c]

Cracking shots and as said the moon image has come out really well

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