Help needed with ZWO ASI120MM

[MrsAppleton]

Hello everyone,

so my lovely husband has brought me this camera for my birthday, and we decided to try it out tonight....  The moon is looking lovely, Jupiter is there, as well as Saturn and Mars.  

 

But could we get a decent image of anything....  No, we couldn't!

we have downloaded 2 programmes, FireCapture and SharpCap.  We have tried just using it with a Barlow, without the Barlow, with filters...  But we just can't seem to get focused on anything.  Take Saturn for instance, it was super tiny on the screen, we could make out the shape of it, but no details or anything.  Couldn't get it any larger at all....

can someone help with an idiots guide of how to set it all up?  And whether we need to buy anything extra to enable us to get the amazing images that I see on this site?

i am so confused, and we both feel a little deflated!

Thanks in advance!

MrsAppleton

[steppenwolf]

FireCapture works brilliantly with this camera, which is the one I use for my All Sky Camera.

There are three potential issues here:-

1. not being able to achieve focus

2. expectations of magnification not being achieved -  the focal length of you telescope is is a relatively short 650mm

3. poor seeing

Planetary imaging is surprisingly difficult, so can I suggest that you start my imaging the Moon and get up to speed on that first as it will be abundantly clear when you have reached focus.

A Barlow lens will increase your magnification but planets will still appear pretty small.

Don't despair, the camera that you have been given by your generous husband is a great performer and you will resolve these issues.

Hopefully, a planetary/Lunar imager will be along soon to give you some more help.

[Joseki]

Hi, like Steve suggests I'd start with the moon.  Your problem might be that you don't have enough inward movement on your focuser (but a barlow sometimes helps enough).  However, I'd also ask whether you have the cctv lens screwed on (it shouldn't be when your using it in the telescope) - by lens I mean, if it looks like the first image on this page http://www.365astronomy.com/ZWO-ASI120MM-Monochrome-1-3-CMOS-USB2.0-Camera-with-Autoguider-Port.html then the bit that says cctv lens needs to be unscrewed and the plain 1.25" adapter screwed in instead (there's a later photo showing it without the lens on that page).

edit: oh, just found an old thread I replied to on the same topic: https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/219915-zwo-asi120mc-problems

But when you say:  " we could make out the shape of it, but no details or anything " makes me wonder whether you actually could focus - if you could see the ring.  Perhaps your brightness was just off the scale.  There's a histogram function in Sharpcap (shows the range of brightness values for different pixels, you want a good spread of values, not off the left or right).

  That 150 degree lens could be handy for this - screw it in and you can test the impact of settings in Sharpcap (for example, but probably the easiest of the two) without attaching it to your telescope (and in daylight) and get a feel for how the different setting affect the image. 

[Chris Murray]

Hia, if you have a bit of a view from your garden, you can set up and try to get focus on an object like a tree or building ( during the day), turn the exposure down, ie.. fast frame rate, rack the focuser in or out to get focus, if it looks like your getting closer by moving in but havent got enough travel then add a barlow, if you cant get far enough back, be carefull and loosen and slide the camera up the draw tube, if you get fucus this way you need an extension tube, i think though it will be inward travel that will be the problem, have a go in the day time, good luck,  chris 

[D4N]

A tip for the Barlow is if you increase the distance between it and the camera (with spacers or by not fully inserting the nosepiece of the camera into the Barlow) you may be able to increase the image scale.  This will dim the image of course so you may need to increase the gain or exposure length.