My first Saturn image! 28/5/2017 4.5" reflector

[A budding astronomer 146]

Hello all! , I wanna share with you guys the images I took of one of our celestial neighbours, Saturn. I went outside my garden tonight at 11:30PM and I looked south, I was greeted with Scorpius dazzling over the Wicklow mountains, as well as Saturn. I got all my equipment out, i aligned my GoTo mount with the stars Polaris and Rasalhague and I was off. I took some nice images of Saturn but my best one was with a 1/73 exposure with the Neximage Burst.

Please tell me what you think of the image! I would really like to know how I can improve the image.

The telescope I used was a Celestron 114 LCM 4.5" reflector.

Thanks and clear skies!

Adam

[Galen Gilmore 708]

Nice image for a first! My first was a horribly overexposed blob. 

Does your camera have a video function? If so you should download registax, it's a free program that takes video clips and stacks all the individual frames to create a sharper, less noisy image. I don't have experience with it but I heard it is a very useful program that others could give you more advice on.  

[Peco4321 1,726]

I also take video clips of planets with my canon 1100d, I have to run them through a free program called PIPP to convert to avi, then stack a percentage of the frames in either Registax or Autostakkert2, both free downloads. Registax lets you then mess with image, wavelets, and other stuff I'm not sure what it all means but you just experiment to see what works to sharpen the image. 

Great image by the way. 

[astroman001 2,350]

My first image looked like that. Onwards and upwards.

Peter

[CraigT82 3,308]

Thats's pretty good indeed for a first image... well done!  With the neximage burst ca you shoot video files?  That would allow you to align and stack hundreds/thousands of images.  Also a barlow might help with getting a larger image, but be aware it will be larger but not sharper!

[A budding astronomer 146]

11 hours ago, Galen Gilmore said:

Nice image for a first! My first was a horribly overexposed blob. 

Does your camera have a video function? If so you should download registax, it's a free program that takes video clips and stacks all the individual frames to create a sharper, less noisy image. I don't have experience with it but I heard it is a very useful program that others could give you more advice on.  

 

5 hours ago, Peco4321 said:

I also take video clips of planets with my canon 1100d, I have to run them through a free program called PIPP to convert to avi, then stack a percentage of the frames in either Registax or Autostakkert2, both free downloads. Registax lets you then mess with image, wavelets, and other stuff I'm not sure what it all means but you just experiment to see what works to sharpen the image. 

Great image by the way. 

 

2 hours ago, CraigT82 said:

Thats's pretty good indeed for a first image... well done!  With the neximage burst ca you shoot video files?  That would allow you to align and stack hundreds/thousands of images.  Also a barlow might help with getting a larger image, but be aware it will be larger but not sharper!

Thanks you guys! I do take videos actually, each one being 2000 frames at 10 FPS. I was referring to the final image I got from stacking the videos. I don't have a barlow lens to use sadly, but I may look into buying one.

[Peco4321 1,726]

I have managed to image Jupiter and Saturn using the technique of eyepiece projection, with either a 10mm or even my 6mm ep in a connector,taking video clips then stacking. Not brilliant results but fairly acceptable. 

[Stub Mandrel 12,971]

Barlow is a very cheap way of getting a bigger image. Combined with x3 drizzle in Autostakkert you can start to get some detail out of your target.