Help with Saturn image

[red dwalf]

second time out with the web cam and tried an image of Saturn (of course) first image with moon came out quite good but for some reason this image of Saturn has no features at all, can anyone help as it`s just a yellow blob.

with thanks

equipment in use use is:-

Skywatcher 130p

2x barlow

philips webcam spc900nc

registax 5

[legion48]

It's far too bright and any features have been burnt out. Try lowering the gain until it looks natural on screen.

[MeerkatinBKK]

Are you using the auto-exposure setting in your capture software? Your result looks identical to my first effort; there is so much dark sky and only a small planet that the software ramps up exposure to compensate for all the darkness, over-exposing Saturn.

Your moon shot would have been OK because there would be enough light over the whole chip that the auto settings would be close to ideal.

As Legion says above, turn off auto-exp if on and try playing with the gain and exposure settings and see how you go (I'm using 1/25s and 5fps for Saturn at the moment with - from memory - very little if any gain, but my scope lets in a bit more light).

Hope this helps, and good luck!

Nick

[red dwalf]

Thanks chaps for the replys, I did have the auto exposure turned on at the camera settings, did this the first time for the Moon and got a nice picture so left it on for Saturn thinking it would need same settings, will have a good play around with it next time, so many settings to look at I came all over dizzy and confused and not knowing what to do ! also found it very hard to get Saturn in the picture to start with and track it.

once again thanks and i`ll have another try when weather permits, very addictive persuit.

[beamish]

RD, are you using WcCrtl to help with the cam settings ? It's a free app that can work alongside capture programmes like K3 and make life sooo much easier ! Just need to open the Camera dailogue in K3 1st then disable Auto functions then back to WcCtrl and connect to cam and off you go, the beauty being you can see things change "live" on the K3 screen.

WcCtrl - Description

Karlo

[red dwalf]

Thanks Karlo, for the reply, i`m using wxastrocapture for avi files, i belive that i can adjust the cam settings in this program although it`s all very new to me at the moment and the amount of adjustments that can be made are mind boggling, also given that the adjustments have fancy names i`ve never heard of before does not help much

[beamish]

Sorry RD, didn't mean to make things even more confusing. I'm sure that MartinB 's got a good w.cam imaging tutorial here or on his Hme page. Or just google, there's a few about and TBH it'll help a great deal.

It's all about finding the balancing point tween seeing the object on screenand foreseeing the effect of stacking shedloads of frames Yeah technical term that !

Finding enough FPS and shutter speed to capture the object thru the turbulance whilst holding enough gain to sustain the image too !

It'll come ! my 1st w/cam run was a massive 30 frames !! that was 2yrs ago ( I think), my latest Saturn avi ran to 2Gb and 3500 frames

Here help's always at hand.

Karlo

[Mikea]

Hey Red! It might be just a blob to you, but it's obviously Saturn. Well done!!

[MidnightSun]

Thanks chaps for the replys, I did have the auto exposure turned on at the camera settings, did this the first time for the Moon and got a nice picture so left it on for Saturn thinking it would need same settings, will have a good play around with it next time, so many settings to look at I came all over dizzy and confused and not knowing what to do ! also found it very hard to get Saturn in the picture to start with and track it.

once again thanks and i`ll have another try when weather permits, very addictive persuit.

My first attempt at planetary with a "webcam" was about a month ago, and looked exactly like yours'. You have gotten some good advice with turning down the gain, auto exp. etc. After 3-4 nights with playing with the controls, they'lll start looking better. It is addictive which is good because that means you'll have no problem getting out there and improving.....Good Luck....