My name is TJ and it's been 3 months since I last....

[Tim]

...took a photo of Jupiter.

To get this I set up my unused HEQ5 Pro mount in the front drive. Was a bit dodgy because the scope appeared to be pointing directly into the bedroom of the young blonde thing that lives opposite.

I wasn't sure how long you can take a sequence for, without rotation being evident, so this one was 60 secs or so.

C9.25, unguided, Celestron Neximage in RAW mode, processed in K3CCD (cant get reggie to work for me).

It's only little, the seeing was too carp with a barlow.

Cheers

TJ

[barkis]

TJ, I never though I'd ever accuse you of modesty, but you are over modest here mate.

That's an excellent Jupiter, and considering how awkward it is placed these nights, even more so.

So get rid of the sack cloth and celebrate with gusto me lad. :salute:

Ron.

PS. GRS there too.

[Doc]

I agree it's a great shot..

Can see lots of bands and maybe a shadow of one of it's moons crossing the planet.

[Tim]

Thanks.

Here he is with his little friend.

[centroid]

Given how low down Jupiter is for us this year, I'd that result is pretty damn good.

Dave

[Trevor]

That’s a great shot TJ, you nearly have a central meridian transit of the GRS

North equatorial belt and South equatorial belt are shown well.

To give an idea of rotation see this animation taken by Mike Salway: Rotation in 90 minutes.

http://www.iceinspace.com.au/downloads/20060312-jupiter_anim.gif

Details:

http://www.universetoday.com/2006/03/21/astrophoto-the-planet-jupiter-by-mike-salway/

[beamish]

Far too modest and too lucky (only 3 mnths pah ! ). Great capture TJ

karlo

[barkis]

Thanks.

Here he is with his little friend.

And little friends shadow too. It just gets better and better.

[Ant]

Very nice TJ.

I think the generally accepted value is 45 seconds - 1 minute for Jupiter before the rotation starts to become noticeable.

Ant

[Tim]

Thanks Ant. Would that then mean that you could take say a 5 min sequence, but choose only 45 secs of it for processing? That would be ok wouldnt it? Say if you cropped the best section in VD?????

I have just ordered knobs from bob, and with them am hoping to get my C9.25 collimated more betterer. If I do this, will it help to get rid of the slight blue/red fringe effect that shows on the planets before processing??

The collimation is reasonable at the moment I think, but there seems to be rather a lot of play when fitting the cameras and eyepieces etc, I dunno if that would make the difference?

Cheers

TJ

[steppenwolf]

I'd be very pleased with that especially as it is not well placed at the moment - -although it did look beautiful to the naked eye in the middle of night (this morning)!

[Tim]

Yeh, I agree Steve, while the main kit was busy imaging last night I spent a good part of the three hours just looking at Jupiter, and then when the moon rose it was even better.

TBH I spent a lot of time processing this one, slowly dragging out as much detail as I could. I'd love the frames to sharper though, would a decent barlow make a difference? And does anybody have any tips at all for getting the focus absolutely spot on??????? The technique I use at the moment is to jack up the gain quite high, then focus until the image becomes as small as possible, then turn the gain down. I suppose the hartmann mask would work as well, may try that next time.

Cheers

TJ