First light (Skymax 180), May 22th

[nfotis]

Two more photos, this time with an ES 2x Barlow in front of the ASI462 camera, I think I recorded 3000 frames. F/30 isn't ideal, but it seems to work, somehow.

Stacked in Autostakkert!3, sharpened in Registax.

These are my first ever stacked photos of Jupiter and Saturn.  The HEQ5 mount is not ideal, the view shakes quite a lot when manually focusing, and that makes focusing hard - an electronic focuser should be quite helpful in attaining better focus (just ordered a cheap DC focus motor for my Crayford style focuser).

Used also a ZWO ADC, to reduce the atmospheric dispersion. Consider these a first effort, with so-so focusing, exposure etc.

 

Cheers,

N.F.

 

[Vox45]

I love you Jupiter and the Saturn is not bad at all for a first time try. Good job

[Pete Presland]

An excellent 1st light, well done to you. The Mak180 will certainly give you even better images in the future, what length were your imaging runs?

[Pete Presland]

Time length that is 🙂

[nfotis]

3 hours ago, Pete Presland said:

An excellent 1st light, well done to you. The Mak180 will certainly give you even better images in the future, what length were your imaging runs?

 

If I remember correctly, for Jupiter I was recording approximately 60s, for Saturn 70 sec (but with raised gain)? Used the IR cut filter in front of the ASI462MC.

For Jupiter, I had two shots with the 2x Barlow (I copy settings from the SharpCap text files):

Gain=300
Exposure=0.015812    (that gives approx. 64 FPS)

and

Gain=250
Exposure=0.022661  (approx. 44 FPS)

 

For Saturn I had:

Gain=400   (hence the grain)
Exposure=0.022661  (rather underexposed)

and

Gain=400
Exposure=0.018

 

Now, the moon is almost in front of Jupiter and Saturn (and there are some clouds), so I shall wait a few nights before I venture to the rooftop again. I have also a C9.25, so I'll try to shoot with it and compare results (the biggest difference should be with Saturn, since f/20 is letting many more photons per millisecond than f/30)

N.F.

 

[neil phillips]

Nice shots. Saturn is noisey, personally i would go a lot longer. Your focus and detail is good. How high is Saturn at your location ?

[vlaiv]

Those are too long exposures. Cut them down to say 5-6ms instead of 18-22ms

You can image for up to 5 minutes without having to worry about derotation and stuff. If you use AS!3 it will handle a bit of planetary rotation in that time frame.

Ideal sampling rate for 2.9µm pixel size is F/12 - so you don't really need barlow with ASI462.

Use extender to place camera about 10cm from the back of the scope. Focal length and correction of cassegrain scopes depends on distance between mirrors - scope is usually optimized to be used with prism and that adds about 10cm of optical path.

[nfotis]

On 31/05/2021 at 17:31, neil phillips said:

Nice shots. Saturn is noisey, personally i would go a lot longer. Your focus and detail is good. How high is Saturn at your location ?

 

Apologies for overlooking the answers in this topic.

I don't remember about the height, but Athens in end of May wasn't bad.

I must retry now that temperatures are falling to more humane levels (carrying stuff two levels above to the rooftop under heat is no fun at all)

N.F.

 

[nfotis]

On 31/05/2021 at 17:40, vlaiv said:

Those are too long exposures. Cut them down to say 5-6ms instead of 18-22ms

You can image for up to 5 minutes without having to worry about derotation and stuff. If you use AS!3 it will handle a bit of planetary rotation in that time frame.

Ideal sampling rate for 2.9µm pixel size is F/12 - so you don't really need barlow with ASI462.

Use extender to place camera about 10cm from the back of the scope. Focal length and correction of cassegrain scopes depends on distance between mirrors - scope is usually optimized to be used with prism and that adds about 10cm of optical path.

 

Note that I was exposing at f/30, so I wasn't able to raise the FPS without raising the gain much.

Another idea would be to try my C9.25 with 2x and 3x Barlow, to see how well it works at f/20 and f/30...

Cheers,

N.F.

 

[GrahamD]

These are great as first light images !  I wish I had something approaching your Southern latitude !  
Cheers, Graham

[orion25]

Nice first light images. I have the Orion equivalent, the SkyView 180 Pro, and I'm very pleased with it for planets and medium-bright /bright DSOs and galaxies. I especially like your Jupiter image!

Cheers, Reggie🚀

[Sinemetu63]

Nice pictures,  I like the colors in Jupiter in particular.

The comparison between MAK 180 and Sc 9.25 Is very interesting to me as they are the two opponents in a future new scope purchase ( not this year...).

CS

Paolo