The Planets 25, 26 and 27 June

[Laurin Dave]

My new Skywatcher Esprit 150ED arrived from FLO on Monday so I thought I'd give it a go on some planets (I've already posted an image of M27 with it on the deep sky section)…  the results I think are rather pleasing...  good seeing on both nights, particularly Tuesday.  Mars and Saturn a bit problematic as I couldn't get the ADC to correct effectively on them, I suspect because the imaging train was drooping as well as the low altitude. Also because of the relatively small aperture exposures on Saturn were between 80 and 100ms, they were 5, 8 and 20 on Venus, Mars and Jupiter respectively.  Effective focal length according to Firecapture 7000mm, which is 6.5x the Esprit focal length. This is because the ADC is between the powermate and the camera increasing its effective power.

Equipment used Esprit 150ED, Televue 1.24" 5x powermate, ZWO ADC, ZWO ASI224mc. Processed in Autostakkert Registax and for Saturn alone also Winjupos . 

Dave

[johnturley]

Hi Dave

I had some thoughts of upgrading my ES127 to an Esprit 150, what do you think of it, and how does it compare to what you had previously, assuming of course you previoulsy had a smaller scope.

John

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Very nice collection!

[Laurin Dave]

4 hours ago, johnturley said:

Hi Dave

I had some thoughts of upgrading my ES127 to an Esprit 150, what do you think of it, and how does it compare to what you had previously, assuming of course you previoulsy had a smaller scope.

John

Hi John

Only had it a few days but it seems very good on what I've done so far, I also have a William Optics GTF81 and a  10" Meade LX 20O so it sits in between in term of aperture and focal length.  It's main use will be deep sky imaging. It's horses for courses I think, it's clearly far superior at deep sky than the 10" but it's resolution I suspect is not as good if imaging planets,  although through an eyepiece the planets are simply stunning with excellent contrast,  it's field of view is only half of the GTF81 so not as good for wide field. My objective wasn't really to replace anything rather to add to my toolkit. They'll all be on a Mesu200 before too long, although maybe the LX200 will have to wait for the planets to return next year for that privilege.  No experience to know whether it's a worthwhile upgrade from what you already have.

Dave

 

[Archonom]

Wow, this Jupiter animation is simply amazing.