First ever view of Jupiter last night

[drummerp]

At about 23:00 last night, I looked out of the window and to my surprise there it was fairly low in the sky but really bright and I knew straight away that I was looking at Jupiter for the first time ever.

I quickly grabbed the bins and then before the cloud came in I grabbed my skywatcher 130P with my phillips 840K webcam and a barlow.

I didn't have time to allign the scope or even connect the motor drive but the views through the scope on its own were really clear. I could see 4 of its moons and even make out 2 of Jupiters bandings/rings arround it in colour.

Now capturing the Moon with the webcam is fine but the last couple of months I tried to image Saturn and the results were poor. Last night, even though I had no tracking set up and I was only able to capture about 150 frames befor it drifted the results were still very poor. I just cant seam to get to grips with the webcam for planetary imaging.

I tried all the programs (wxAstro capture) settings whilst viewing the planet on the lappy but this was no good. The image through the cam just seamed to be over exposed all the time and I couldn't get the same detail on the lappy as I could just viewing with a 15mm lens.

Even though I only had low frame rates and I knew the images were rubbish I tried to process them last night using Registrax and it made them a little clearer but not even worth a go putting them through photoshop.

Can someone really help me try and capture a decent image of a planet or if someone is going to the salisbury star party, give me a couple of hours of their time helping me set everything up to capture loads of frames of Jupiter and maybe also show me how to use registrax properly??????? please

These were the best I could do last night before the clouds came in, so you can see why I'm so frustrated.......

If I kwew how, I would also post a copy of the raw frames/movie before I put it through registrax.

Cheers

Neil

[arad85]

Looks like your focus is out a bit. Gain up too high on first image. You want to be aiming for multiple low contrast (but with some detail) images - much like your second image. Gain up, gamma down, relatively short exposure time and lots of them.

As to registax, you need to select how many frames will be processed once you have aligned them with the slider at the bottom of the first screen. I assume you are selecting a high number

[arad85]

PS. You have taken the camera out of automatic mode haven't you (you need to set gain, gamma, exposure times...)

[drummerp]

PS. You have taken the camera out of automatic mode haven't you (you need to set gain, gamma, exposure times...)

Hi Arad85,

Yes the Auto mode is off.

I've just put another shot of 304 frames through registrax again, I alligned them and at the bottom, the slider reports that 93.8% are of low quality would this be the reason why their not being processed any better because the quality is low???

Cheers

Neil

[arad85]

Mine says stack size 599 of 600 [Low quality 93.8%]. Not sure what the Low quality actually refers to though. The important thing is the stack size - that is how many frames will be stacked. To give you some idea what you are aiming for in the avi file, here is a single frame out of the AVI that generated the image in http://stargazerslounge.com/imaging-planetary/83311-jupiter-io-europa-14th-july.html

[arad85]

BTW, it takes a while of fiddling to get the exposure etc.. settings right. If your mounts aren't auto tracking so you have the planet in the field of view for extended periods, it's going to be a lot of trial and error....

[drummerp]

In the frames I have, I dont have one thats as good as the single image above. Does that mean I need to keep trying the settings on the webcam whilst its in view???

Maybe tonight, I'll try and allign the scope early so I can track it accurately and be able to adjust the settings and then capture a few thousand frames.

Cheers

Neil

[Leegsi]

Looked outside late last night and saw what I thought was Jupiter.

Planing on getting my scope out tonight to get a better view.

What should I expect to see as I have the same scope as you (Skywatcher 130P)

[drummerp]

Looked outside late last night and saw what I thought was Jupiter.

Planing on getting my scope out tonight to get a better view.

What should I expect to see as I have the same scope as you (Skywatcher 130P)

The image was really clear as its mag is really good for viewing. With a 2x barlow and a 15mm lens I could make out at least 4 moons and the coloured bandings arround it. I just wish I could capture a good image of it to show you.

Cheers

Neil

[GazOC]

Mine says stack size 599 of 600 [Low quality 93.8%]. Not sure what the Low quality actually refers to though. The important thing is the stack size - that is how many frames will be stacked. To give you some idea what you are aiming for in the avi file, here is a single frame out of the AVI that generated the image in http://stargazerslounge.com/imaging-planetary/83311-jupiter-io-europa-14th-july.html

Low quality is the cut off point where Registax discards any frames it thinks are below this quality. In the example above you don't really have enough frames to discard too many but as the program as only discarded 1 frame I'd be tempted to up the quality threshold and try and get rid of some more of the poorer frames.

Remember to set one of your best frames as the 'standard' for Registax to use when it estimating quality, don't just let it run through on its own.