First Saturn attempt

[nitram100]

How could this saturn be improved ?

Altair 183c cam, 250mm newt on EQ6 pro.

Took about 30,000 frames over 3 minutes, used about 30%, SER file, RGGB. . No barlow used. Some basic tweaking in registax.

Slightly blurry ? Could this be a focus issue? Finding it quite difficult to focus as soon as I touch the focuser, the planet shakes all over the screen.

 

With my equipment, do you think there is much more to be had?

 

Thanks for any advice!

Saturn 24th November.bmp

jupiter.bmp

Edited November 25, 2023 by nitram100

[nitram100]

Also tried a jupiter with a barlow, clearly a focusing issue?

[AstroMuni]

On 25/11/2023 at 09:30, nitram100 said:

Finding it quite difficult to focus as soon as I touch the focuser, the planet shakes all over the screen.

Suggest focussing on a star first and then move to planet

[woldsman]

It’s really hard without an electronic focuser so maybe worth planning that upgrade!?

[Elp]

With planets or even solar I always set the exposure high so the object is white, then focus until it's as small as you can get it, this is also usually accompanied by the edge of the circle being sharp when seeing freezes and it's in focus. Then dial back the exposure to see the surface detail and fine tune. Most setups suffer from shake, you have to get used to touching the focuser ever so slightly and turning it very very lightly (usually this means the touch is so slight it's as if you haven't moved it at all). You think focusing a telescope is difficult, try a camera lens at F2 or faster, telescope focusing is a cakewalk in comparison, a decent focuser helps, I've done it with refractors, newtonians and scts all with their default focusers.

Edited December 5, 2023 by Elp

[nitram100]

Thanks for the advice guys! Some clear skies next week so going to give it another shot

[Gerr]

Could you sharpen more in Registax? I use linked wavelets and push the first slider all the way to %100. Then use denoise and sharpen adjustments (0.4 and 1.8 work quite well for me) to your liken. 

This is Saturn from last Friday on SW200p and Zwo ASI462 colour camera. Best 1000 frames stacked out of 5000 taken. Frame rate was approx 90fps on tight ROI with Telvue 2.5x Barlow.