First attempts using philips cam

[johnnykikakat]

Hi, last night was fun but way too hot and blurry, I finally gave it a try.  First try at the moon tycho, and Saturn.

The focuser doesn't go close enough to bring the cam into focus properly. I'm not sure how to get round that but I'm having fun trying to get to grips with it all.

I used autoStakert for the bouncy blurry Saturn with no barlow (don't have one that works with my 1500 focus) and I stacked a few frames of the moon.

Do things really start to clear up a bit in the winter months?

Any advice you can give me ref: getting Saturn to look better would be appreciated, it looks so much better through the scope !!:)

 

[RuralBill]

Very good first try, better than mine

the focus looks a tad off....

Bill

[Fuelbender001]

A good first try,ya the focus is off for sure.hard to help with out knowing all the equipment you use.

[SteveNickolls]

These are good first efforts, well done. Focusing will become second nature and it is difficult at first focusing on a highly magnified image which dances when you merely touch the focuser or the wind blows or the atmosphere does its worst. It shows the value of patience and a decent, sturdy mount.

Good luck on your adventures.

Cheers,

Steve

[PeterCPC]

Keep going - focus is crucial so use a Bahtinov mask on a nearby star and maybe a Barlow. The exposure/gain is too high. You'll get there.

 

Peter

[johnnykikakat]

5 hours ago, Fuelbender001 said:

A good first try,ya the focus is off for sure.hard to help with out knowing all the equipment you use.

Thank you, someone suggested a b.mask but the problem i have is the focuser in wound in close and to its limit and wont go in any further.

Im using a revelation 12" Dob. (very wobbly) but im getting there. Once ive located a target i focus into toward it and it gets clearer and clearer until bump stop and i know a little closer and

it would be in focus. Im using the philips Toucam II flashed up with a 1/4 adapter and its pushed all the way in to the body (to try and get it closer).

Its great through eyepieces but would be great to capture a few frames in focus to represent what i can see.

Thanks again

[PeterCPC]

You may get focus if you use a Barlow.

Peter

[RuralBill]

15 minutes ago, PeterCPC said:

You may get focus if you use a Barlow.

Peter

Yes for sure, drop a 1.5 or 2x Barlow in, and you won't need to get the focuser in quite so far..... And you will get a bigger image too

Bill

[cjdawson]

Yep, focusing is an issue there.   First thing that you need to sort is the ability to achieve focus.  You'll probably need to modify the scope to do that - I have no idea how to go about it, just know that others have had to do the same.  Depending on the scope, this can mean anything from shortening tubes, to changing the focuser mechanism, to literally cutting the scope up and removing a piece of tube!

Apart from that, the image looks overexposed, but not by a long way.   Once you sort out the focusing issue the rest should fall into place by itself.

 

For the moon and planets, you might want to consider a Hartman mask instead of a Bhatinov - both are great tools, but they work in slightly different ways.  The Bhatinov is great for getting a point source (a star) into focus, this is then fantastic when you move on to a nearby DSO and take a photo as the distances are normally comparible.   However for the planets and the moon, I'd look to try out a hartman mask first.  The reason is that the planets and moon are not point sources, also the focal point for them is in a slight different place to the stars.  Hell, the moon even has different focal points, depending on if you are capturing the limb, or the central region.   The hartman works in this scenario as you are able to placed the two or three defocused images over one another, when they all merge into a single image - and you get a nice crisp shot of the lunar surface, you are in focus, remove the mask and the contrast shoots up.    Same goes for planets.     The hartman falls over when trying to focus on a star as the sweet spot for focus is when the images are over each other, however when the images are close, they merge and I've found that it's impossible to tell when for a single star, the images are properly merged or just close but not quite.

 

Both kinds of mark have their uses, both have their pitfalls, but used correctly both can be a great asset.  Besides, as you can make both from a piece of cardboard, it's not like you really have to choose one over the other.

[johnnykikakat]

Thanks for all the advice, I'll get a 2x Barlow first (1.6) as my 2.5x is too much and I still have the focus depth problem. Apparently there's a recessed 2to1.25 adapter available but expensive. It would work though as I'm only out of focus by about 3 to 4mm. Thanks again 

[Stub Mandrel]

RGB align in Registax will help a bit as well, although expect the blue channel to be a bit smeared because of atmospheric effects.

[johnnykikakat]

1 hour ago, Stub Mandrel said:

RGB align in Registax will help a bit as well, although expect the blue channel to be a bit smeared because of atmospheric effects.

Thank you, I've yet to do that, that's just straight off autostakkert at the moment.

[RuralBill]

2 hours ago, johnnykikakat said:

Thanks for all the advice, I'll get a 2x Barlow first (1.6) as my 2.5x is too much and I still have the focus depth problem. Apparently there's a recessed 2to1.25 adapter available but expensive. It would work though as I'm only out of focus by about 3 to 4mm. Thanks again 

If you get a Barlow that has a Removeable lens assembly, like the revelation ones, you can then screw the lens onto the nosepiece of the camera and that would reduce the man to around 1.5, so you will have the best of both worlds then.

Bill

[Stub Mandrel]

I've read posts about people moving the mirror forwards by 4 or 5mm on some scopes. Are the screws on your scope long enough to do this?

[Stub Mandrel]

1 hour ago, johnnykikakat said:

Thank you, I've yet to do that, that's just straight off autostakkert at the moment.

Do try it, I had a quick try using a screen grab and it does make an improvement.