First ever Jupiter (rubbish conditions)

[NiteGawper]

On Monday 19th Oct I finally got the time (but not really the conditions) to try and image Jupiter.

The scope was very hastily set-up, the clouds were rolling past with ever increasing menace

Focusing was a nightmare and I think it was way off, which is why as soon as I get the shipping quote from JMI, there will be a MOTOFOCUS on it's way from the States!!

Using my Skywatcher 127 MAK, 2x Barlow and a Philips SPC900 webcam I took a few short .avi files and had a go at stacking one in RegiStax.

Where the clouds had sometimes blocked out Jupiter, there were sections of blank .avi which really messed up the frame alignment, so I had to edit the .avi to remove the blank sections before using in RegiStax!!

Anyhoo, it won't win any prizes, but it's my first Jupiter and I'm kinda happy

[Jaffa007]

After all that hard work, editing etc, I say you should be happy with what you've achieved!! You can see the bands, well done!!

[NiteGawper]

Thanks James...

[jgs001]

Jupiter is still pretty low, the conditions were against you, and using a barlow just makes life difficult with such a long focal length scope and a webcam (I've never succeeded with a barlow on my Skymax), the exposure settings really don't like being high enough to get the brightness... But.. you've done well, the bands are visible.

[Clayton]

I hope you don't mind but I just adjusted the levels in CS3 to brighten it up a bit.

Without knowing what you did I am guessing that it may have been under exposed with a little too much gain??

What settings and f ratio were you using?

BTW not too bad for a first try:icon_salut:

[AztecastroMcJ]

gud effort

James

[NiteGawper]

Thanks all for your kind replies...

John, I think I will try it without the Barlow and see if I can focus better. Ta...

Clayton, I really should make better notes, I'll see if I can remember the settings I used, but cheers for brightening it up - I have always thought it's as much about the processing as it is about the capturing!!

Andy...

[andy68]

On Monday 19th Oct I finally got the time (but not really the conditions) to try and image Jupiter.

The scope was very hastily set-up, the clouds were rolling past with ever increasing menace

Focusing was a nightmare and I think it was way off, which is why as soon as I get the shipping quote from JMI, there will be a MOTOFOCUS on it's way from the States!!

Using my Skywatcher 127 MAK, 2x Barlow and a Philips SPC900 webcam I took a few short .avi files and had a go at stacking one in RegiStax.

Where the clouds had sometimes blocked out Jupiter, there were sections of blank .avi which really messed up the frame alignment, so I had to edit the .avi to remove the blank sections before using in RegiStax!!

Anyhoo, it won't win any prizes, but it's my first Jupiter and I'm kinda happy

well done mate