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Skywatcher 150p or 130m for planetary imaging?


PatrickO

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I'm hoping to do some planetary imaging this year. Would you think a SkyWatcher 130m or a 150p is better? I have both of these. 

My guess is that there isn't much to choose. The 130m has a slightly longer focal length (900 compared to 750), and the 150 gives about 30% more aperture. 

I'm going to use a ZWO ASI224 colour camera. 

Thanks 

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150.

It appears that 130m has spherical mirror, although, I've done some decent planetary images with said scope:

image.png.a29d8b9424cfc29e9489c9a2920f67bd.png

Ideally, you would want 150PL F/8 instead both of those, but I'm guessing you don't have one laying around?

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5 hours ago, vlaiv said:

150.

It appears that 130m has spherical mirror, although, I've done some decent planetary images with said scope:

image.png.a29d8b9424cfc29e9489c9a2920f67bd.png

Ideally, you would want 150PL F/8 instead both of those, but I'm guessing you don't have one laying around?

That's a great image. Really impressed. If you have time I'd be interested to hear your technique. 

 

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7 minutes ago, PatrickO said:

That's a great image. Really impressed. If you have time I'd be interested to hear your technique. 

 

That image was taken with QHY5IILc camera which I no longer have. It was taken by utilizing so called - lucky planetary imaging technique.

Succession of very short exposures - around 5ms is taken, usually in form of video (but be careful not to use video format that uses compression - ser file format is the best) and then it is processed in appropriate applications - PIPP for pre processing, AS!3 (autostakkert!3) for stacking and I finish the image in Registax with wavelet sharpening and final post processing (color balance and such).

If you browse planetary section of SGL - you'll find many threads discussing best "parameters" for lucky imaging. There are a few video tutorials on you tube - just search planetary imaging / lucky imaging.

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12 hours ago, vlaiv said:

That image was taken with QHY5IILc camera which I no longer have. It was taken by utilizing so called - lucky planetary imaging technique.

Succession of very short exposures - around 5ms is taken, usually in form of video (but be careful not to use video format that uses compression - ser file format is the best) and then it is processed in appropriate applications - PIPP for pre processing, AS!3 (autostakkert!3) for stacking and I finish the image in Registax with wavelet sharpening and final post processing (color balance and such).

If you browse planetary section of SGL - you'll find many threads discussing best "parameters" for lucky imaging. There are a few video tutorials on you tube - just search planetary imaging / lucky imaging.

Thanks. That's great. Very useful. 

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I had a 150p as my first scope, it was a cracking scope I viewed loads of objects in it which where bright and of good size even took a picture of Saturn through it with a galaxy S7 just held over the eyepiece. I believe the faster scopes are better and with more aperture will give some really nice views. Just my humble opinion.

saturn4.JPG

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5 hours ago, PatrickO said:

Does anyone have any thoughts on which OTA would be best for planetary imaging. 

Controversial question as the trend for planetary scopes is long focal lengths and neither of the two scopes you mention have that.  Some of the really jaw dropping images of the planets that we see on magazines taken by armatures will  have been taken through 12-14" CATs with some really expensive camera.  The reason is that there is a ratio between aperture and focal length.  So for example, if you were using a 4mm eyepiece to view Jupiter through a 6" f10 scope, and also an identical 6" f5, the image in the latter will be brighter, but smaller as the magnification is half that of the f10.  The image in the f10 will be larger, but duller with less resolution.  So the ideal is to have an f10 or f20 focal length, but also large aperture to gather more light and produce more definition. 

Out of the two I would opt for the 150P having more aperture and better mirror.  But at f5 don't expect to see a large detailed image.  The image above is very much spot on.   However, if you obtain a couple of decent barlow lenses and stack them, and have a planet that is high up and a decent seeing state then you can get something quite reasonable.  Here's an image of Jupiter, taken in 2011with an old Philips CCD webcam, through my 200p using two 2x barlows stacked to give an approx f20 focal ratio

1281137294_Jupiter19_11_2011.png.6078ff0786534d27f72713c95580fe95.png

 

Not perfect, and with todays modern cameras the resolution would be a lot better... but for what I had I was (and am) pleased with the result

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