Planetary imaging with kit lens

[Charming Potato]

Hello. Jupiter is visible at a favorable spot at night these days. I was wondering if it is possible to image it with a kit lens 50-250 @250mm F6.4 with a DSLR crop sensor (Nikon Z50, APS-C)? If so, what is the optimal way of doing so? Imaging? Video frames?

Is it required to take calibration frames for it for it? Specially flats since I have some smudges on my camera sensor and lens. What program is used for it? From what I have seen, all the images are taken as videos using a dedicated astro camera and some sort of scope. I found the following images where it was still shots stacked somehow?

 

I do have SA GTi mount.

[Mandy D]

@Charming Potato You are not going to get a very large image of Jupiter on your sensor with 250 mm focal length. As the Z50 shoots 4k video, that might be the better way to do this. I would not worry about the smudges on the sensor as these will disappear during stacking as long as you do not use a tracking mount and simply let Jupiter drift through the field of view whilst imaging.

Use PIPP to pre-process and crop the frames from the video, then stack in Autostakkert (AS3!).

I've not checked how the Z50 uses it's sensor for video, but at 4k it could be using 1:1 pixel to video. My D800 scales the resolution from a big chunk of the sensor down to 1080P so the effective pixels are huge and the resolution is poor in video, so I shoot lots of stills and stack those.

Have a look at this and enter your camera and lens details to see how small Jupiter will be on your sensor:

http://astronomy.tools/calculators/field_of_view/

The attached image is what I got for your camera and 250 mm lens.

I use a 1200 mm focal length telescope with the D800 and when I imaged Jupiter it covered something like 60 pixels across my sensor. So, at 250 mm you are not going to get much of an image, even with the smaller pixels on the Z50.

I would have a look for a small, cheap, Maksutov-Cassegrain with long focal length and use that for imaging Jupiter. Here is an ex-demo one from Rother Valley Optics. The Skymax 127 has a 1900 mm focal length and at £249 it is a cost-effective solution:

https://www.rothervalleyoptics.co.uk/ex-demo-skywatcher-skymax-127t-optical-tube-assembly.html

[Charming Potato]

Thank you for sharing your insight. Unfortunately, at this time I do not have the money to spend on this hobby. I guess I will stick to the easier targets for now and keep learning with what I have. Thank you!