Saturn 7/5/08

[Andrew*]

That's it - I give up on this planetary malarky. Getting it on the chip took 30 mins alone - and that's only f/15. Focus took another 10 and I still didn't get it sharp. I took 6000 frames, 50% of which were dropped (what?). I don't know how you all do it :scratch:

In the stacking I used 3000/6000 frames (heh? I thought 3000 were dropped anyway?!?). My excuse is that it wasn't so much a case of seeing and transparency tonight as peeing and pantsparency.

Anyway - here it is:

(click to enlarge)

Now I realise that I wish I'd got a long frame too, because in the eyepiece I swear I saw a wonderful line of three moons (but not the Mimas, closest to the planet) just to the west and this was confirmed in SN4. I saw 6 (east to west: Titan, Dione, Tethys, Enceladus, Rhea and Iapetus) in total. It looked great.

Andrew

[themos]

hey, Andrew, what frame rate and what camera and what capture software were you using?

[Vega]

Although it was cloud free last night, they sky was quite murkey and messy mainly due to the warm continental blast from the day. Was nice not to have to wear a coat tho

[Andrew*]

hey, Andrew, what frame rate and what camera and what capture software were you using?

5fps with K3CCD. 1/25 second exposure

[themos]

weel, at 5fps you shouldn't be dropping frames no matter what the seeing! I kill a lot of the background processes before I capture...

[Trevor]

Andy

It’s just lots of practice getting it on the chip, I will be off out again tonight for more practice

One thing though bear in mind I don’t use K3, Ed will know though, but if you are shooting at 1/25 sec exposure how can you capture 5fps might be best to try at 1/20 exposure and up the gain a bit.

[Andrew*]

Well Trevor - you seem to be muddling your maths. 1/25th of a second is 0.04 seconds, while 5fps means one frame every 0.2 seconds. Plenty of time there.

I'm using USB 1.1, and there are only the main background processes running. Unless Doctor Watson is meddling in my affairs again . EDIT: no he's not. Don't know why I'm dropping frames :scratch:

Andrew

[Andrew*]

What I don't get is why does it say during capture that 3000 frames were dropped, yet in the registax processing there were 6000 frames, of which I used 3000?!

Andrew

[Trevor]

Andy

See told you I didn’t use K3, have you tried stacking all the Avi? Not setting a cut off point in registax Saturn really benefits from lots of frames to get a smoother globe.

[MrEd]

Hi Andrew

Here are a few simple tips to help you start.

Use a wide eyepiece (20-25mm) with a crosshair

(you can get a screw in one for about £8).

Insert Barlow then eypiece and Center Planet.

Pull out eypiece half way and refocus.

Check planets position in finder.

Insert camera and focus.

(with a bit of luck you can find a par focal collar to speed up this stage)

Practice during the day on objects

Capture with a resolution of at least 640x 480.

It will be in the video source menu on K3CCD

Use the cross hair mode on K3

Try and use 10fps to start with it aids capture and focus.

Move to 5 fps only when you can produce better images.

Dropped frames will be down to To many back ground processes

(as Themos said) , an untidy hard drive,driver problems or an old laptop.

You only need about 2000 frames to get a decent image in colour.

I hope that helps

Ed

[Andrew*]

Thanks Ed. My main problem with the centring is slop in the focuser. I use a 3mm eyepiece to centre it.

Here's the final process which has got a bit more clear banding and more cassini - 150% enlarged:

(click to enlarge)

Still - it's an improvement on my last saturn so that's at least something.

Andrew