1st saturn pic with 127 mak neximage camera

[colinheath]

Hello All, well had a go at quick and dirty astro imaging tonight. wasnt even dark but just had to try it:D

I have attached my first pic. no idea what I am doing with registax or anything else for that matter and the capture was only for a few seconds as wind was up and havent sussed the tracking yet;)

Just looked at everyone elses pictures and perhaps I shouldn't have shared yet lol

[Jaffa007]

Everyone has to start somewhere mate . Good capture!

You never forget your first sight or picture of The Ringed One.

[colinheath]

yeah it was good fun and was all setup and finished in 30 mins so a little rushed. need that electric focuser for sure as was near impossible to get focus bang on. Also need to suss tracking as had to keep on screen by hand. Hopefully next time will be dark with no wind

[barkis]

Don't knock yourself Colin, anyone looking at the pic. knows exactly what it is, without having to be told. Imaging, whether planets, the moon, or stars, galaxies and nebulae, is not an easy thing to do.

You are just setting off on a long journey, and taken the first steps.

You will soon learn about focusing, exposure times, and all the ingredients that go to making a good astro picture.

Just keep doing it, and ask advice as you need it, and your results will improve dramatically.

Ron.

[Ant]

Nowt wrong with that mate.

The focus looks ok - the rings help with focus on Saturn.

It's over exposed thats all, my advice next time would be to lower the exposure (or gain) untill the disc is quite faint (but still there, if that makes sense) on the screen.

Then increase slightly and take another AVI, increase again etc etc etc.

Make a note of the exposures/gain settings for each AVI - then you have a good idea of what exposure works will on Saturn for your scope.

Keep'em coming mate.

Ant

[MidnightSun]

Yea, don't feel bad dude, my first one was the same shot... I thought, what the he**..???! Just keep at it and play with all the settings and listen and learn from those who have been there before.... You'll be surprised what you can get.

[Kokatha man]

.....before you know it you'll be going through all those "old" avi's and processed planet images and saying things like "I really should turf these out BUT they are important records of the improvements I've made these last x months....!":D

[ringz]

I'm no imager in the main, though I have had a dabble with my toucam on Jupiter, but would using a barlow give a larger image and would that be easier to get the correct exposure?

I suppose it would also make the focus and pointing harder as well though

--

Martyn

[steppenwolf]

Nothing wrong with that - much better than my first planetary image!

[colinheath]

Thanks for the kind words people:D Nice advice on the gain there also I will give that a try. Could even be tonight as the sky is clear and wind has dropped:) I have electric focuser finished now and working along with finding out how to set up tracking properly so should be good:hello2:

[colinheath]

Well here is the second lot of pics taken last night. A little better and some colour can be seen in rings. I tried varying the contrast as suggested and seemed to be much better:D

I have some questions if you dont mind;)

How long to people make a capture for on Saturn? My vids were around a minute and i am assuming need to be much longer to get more detail.

Also i used registax to process and AM cap to get video. now when I went into manual contrast the frame rate becomes manual to. I used fastest frame rate and assumed this would be ok?

The biggest one for me though is size of image and tracking. Now my images are really small. is this all you can expect with a camera like mine? should i use a barlow to increase size?

Now the tracking on my scope is miles off. I dont know if i have my latitude set wrong. one map i went to said i was 75deg but that sounds wrong and perhaps I was mixing up with altitude:icon_scratch: will go and check that as i couldn't keep image on screen for more than 4 seconds. is this about right for the sky watcher alt/az tracking mount? If so i will make a pier and mount on wedge then mod drive:D

Ok enough of me going on here are the images. get your magnifiying glass out:D