Jupiter first attempt 02/05/16

[johnfosteruk]

I present my first go at Jupiter, imaged with a modded lifecam VX-3000 through my Skywatcher 130. I'd love a better camera, but the investment is pointless until I have a decent mount. 

'Orrible conditions and I don't think I had focus bang on, but after about a million hours with Pipp, AS!2, Registax and Photoshop I have something resembling a planet. 

In Sharpcap I had to turn exposure and brightness right down and gamma right up to avoid capturing a big bright white ball which I think contributed to the lack of detail captured - any ideas anyone?

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Good first catch!nice couple of moons caught too

[Grotemobile]

I will second that. Not bad for a first go..

[Knighty2112]

Nice first attempt. Well done!  I'm in the same boat that can't do anything more imaging wise without a much better (and more costly) mount. 

[laudropb]

Very good for your first attempt.

[DrRobin]

Nice first image, especially given your gear.  Conditions seemed far from ideal last night so I would be pretty pleased.

I think the problems with Sharpcap is that the Lifecam driver doesn't really allow all that much control over the camera settings.  If it comes out as a white blob, it sounds like something (exposure or gain) is still running in auto.  I modified a Lifecam cinema, I know it had a few issues with settings, but think it was possible to control the exposure and gain.  Unfortunately, I no longer have it, but if you look on Gary Honis's website he has lots of help for these cameras (http://dslrmodifications.com/).

Robin

[johnfosteruk]

Thanks Robin, I'll check out Gary's Site. Out of interest I went out again tonight for the GRS - Cheers @Stu. And all I ended up with was the attached. I like it but it's pretty extreme. If I stacked colour video there was no detail whatever I did, but I was able to split the channels in Pipp and then stacked the green channel which was tidier than the other 2. With a bit of mucking around was able to coax out the GRS and some festoons/belts. I know it's got everything wrong with it but I'm quite pleased actually!!!

 

Time to save for a decent mount and camera methinks. 

[Pete Presland]

Excellent 1st Jupiter!

[johnfosteruk]

Thanks Pete.

[stepping beyond]

Nice , you caught the GRS and a lot of detail .

[Twiggles]

I wouldn't worry too much about the mount for now, I do fairly well on my 130 EQ2 with motor. Stacking should align all the shots which is why some people manage respectable planetary images even with a dob, just letting the planet move through the field of view. I admit, I have upgraded to a small 127 mak on a goto mount, but it is still a relatively cheap mount and blows about like billy oh with a light breeze!

If budget is the major hurdle (and it always is!) my advice would be to try and get a better barlow if you are still using the stock one (I currently use the revelation 2.5x barlow and I'm quite happy with my images now) and a dedicated camera. I have the Altair Astro GPCam which has given me much improved images over my modified Xbox webcam, the provided altair astro allows you to select a good Region of Interest on the image, this cuts the amount of data being captured meaning you get a faster frame rate. More frames = more to stack and hopefull a better image at the end.

Its all a steep leraning curve, but stick with it! And congrats on some good first captures!