Eyepiece projection: Having problems with image focus

[Tom Dworschak]

Last week the seeing here in Atlanta Georgia was above average, and I enjoyed excellent views of both Jupiter and Saturn with the Baader Morpheus 14mm (200x) and 12.5mm (224x) EPs.

 

Equipment: Celestron CPC11 with alt-az mount, Starlight Feather Touch micro focuser, Baader Planetarium Morpheus EP, Astromania UV & IR-cutoff CCD filter, Baader 2” ClickLock (no diagonal, no barlow).

 

But I when tried to capture some images with eyepiece projection, everything was completely out of focus.  I used both Canon Mark III and IV full-format cameras set to manual focus with a shutter release cable, and a variety of shutter speeds (2 seconds to 1/30th second) and ISO settings (100 to 6400).  I used the recommended Baader set-up, with the #2958080 T-adapter and #2958550 T-Ring with a 40mm extension to achieve the necessary 55mm backspace for the 14mm EP.  

 

Any thoughts on what I’m doing wrong would be greatly appreciated!

Tom D

[michael8554]

Hi Tom

It would be worth posting this in the Planetary Imaging section, along with a shot of your camera and eyepiece setup.

Planetary imaging is not usually carried out by taking single frames.

It's usually carried out by taking long duration high-speed video sequences with a Planetary Imaging camera.

Or with a DSLR, 5x LiveView video recording.

Then software such as AutoStakkert! throws out blurred frames in the video, and Stacks the rest that aren't blurred by atmospheric movement.

However, your single image is a typical result, due to the high magnification and atmospherics.

Michael

[Elp]

Video or lots of images, my last run on Jupiter was around 5000 images captured within around 10-15 minutes.

Your image is typical of seeing conditions, one second it's sharp, next second it's blurry. Did you make sure your focus was as best as possible (takes a lot of trial and error prior to starting the capturing sequence if done manually).