Understanding Planetary Imaging Parameters

[Macavity]

There are MANY different articles on Planetary imaging - Discussing
optimal setups - aperture, f/number "arc-seconds per pixel" etc. etc.
Great Stuff! But trying to translate this into the (my) real world?

My setup is a MAK150 f/12 (f=1800) with optional 2x 2" Barlow...
I am using the ASI120MC (colour) camera with 3.5 micron pixels.

I'm using FireCapture to image Jupiter, I'm Barlowing my MAK150
(by 2x) to give f/24 (f=3600 approx.), I reckon 0.2 arc sec / pixel?
I'm taking 60 second Avi's to keep rotational blurring reasonable...

DID I GET most of the "about right"? (Starting to worry now) 

[Freddie]

You could easily double the AVI duration as rotation will not be a problem at that image scale

[Macavity]

Thank you, Freddie. Just the sort of information I was looking for...

I suspect there is a bit of latitude in such things, but I will now experiment
with longer duration exposures. Frankly the best way for me to increase
the number of events will be for me to buy a rather "faster" Laptop.
 

[jsmoraes]

Quote

I am using the ASI120MC

I have one. And we have problems.

ASI120MC is a USB problematic camera. It has control to set the percentual use of USB communication to minimize it.

You must see how frames are dropped and how frames are captured. Because of USB communication some frames are not transferred to computer. And as the AVI on computer can not stop (or wait), the previous frame is repeated. One, two , three, four .... times.

So you tihink that you did 60 seconds with ... let say ... one or two thounsands frames. How much were repeated ?

If planetary needs  "lucky frames" (without any atmospherre distoriton) ....

Usually the dropped frames are less than captured. I think that the actual number transfered is the dropped. The manual doesn't talk nothing aobut this.

It is hard to do both number equal or quite similar.

Adjust of gain to reduce speed (higher values for time exposition) may help.