Perils of Imaging

[Stub Mandrel]

Set up to take a time dealt of the red spot rotating around Jupiter.

Showed my daughter Mars & Jupiter in the sky & Jupiter on the screen. She was knocked out by how red Mars was. Then we had a brilliant ISS passover.

I put the scope where it wouldn't go behind a tree and just before the spot got to the middle, it started disappearing behind the workshop roof! I now know it takes me six minutes to move scope and all the gear about six feet and re-find Jupiter, so there will be a little jump near the end!

The £1 webcam was on trial again and seemed to be doing OK. I used it because it hits 25fps at higher resolution than the Lifecam, despite being a no-name cheapy (OK it came in a satin lined box!)

I moved the scope and got some footage of mars, which was very wobbly about 11:30, but my laptop ran out of hard disk! A second run gave much steadier results so fingers crossed - I could see some detail on the raw video stream.

Finally I tried to catch the IS at 12:05 with no luck at all, so I put the DSLR on the scope, a bit smug because I knew my PA was spot on for once as Mars had stayed more or less still for some 20 minutes. Then I looke for a star to focus on... and the whole sky was solid cloud; where did that come from in a few minutes?

[mikeskor]

Nice report on the frustrations of astrophotography. I wish you future clear skies, Neil.

Mike