Jupiter + Moons 21st March

[SteveBz]

Hi Guys,

Last night was a beautiful night and I went out intending to get M81/2, but just ended up with the OTA hitting the tripod, when suddenly I noticed this bright star in the East, so pulled out a Barlow and took a number of images on the Nikon.

Because of the Barlow at 2.5x, the image jumped all over the place and focus was really hard to achieve.  Really I need to get the electric focuser working.  Anyway here is the result of a 4 sec image for the moons and a .2 sec image for the planet combined and cropped with GIMP.

Then I tried with the Webcam, but again focus was an issue.

Steve 

[Mr niall]

That's still pretty fab, only got my first view of Jupiter on Friday night - all four moons, nearly blew my socks off! Don't think I'll get bored of it anytime soon! Can you image planets ok with a dslr? Thought I read somewhere the sensors were too large or something? 

[SteveBz]

2 hours ago, Mr niall said:

That's still pretty fab, only got my first view of Jupiter on Friday night - all four moons, nearly blew my socks off! Don't think I'll get bored of it anytime soon! Can you image planets ok with a dslr? Thought I read somewhere the sensors were too large or something? 

I did use a DSLR with a 2.5 x Barlow, but with two exposures.  .2 sec for the planet and 4 secs for the moons.  This 4 secs over-exposes the main planet, so you cut and paste the .2 sec planet (with correct expoure for the planet) over the 4 sec exposure showing the moons, then you get the planet with its rings AND the moons.

Then I tried it with a webcam and got a bigger image, but it was bouncing around so much I couldn't get it in focus, or still enough, so I left it until I get my auto-focuser working.

Good luck,

Steve.