Saturn 21/04/10

[Clayton]

Sorry to be so long between posts:rolleyes:

I have been otherwise occupied:) Too long a story to go into just now:)

I caught wind:rolleyes: of the news that the "Jet Stream" was leaving the vicinity for the moment and decided to have a go at Saturn:rolleyes:

200mm Newt, 2x barlow + extension, 1/25th@ 10fps x 300sec. About 200 frames straight out of Registax V5

[Space Cowboy]

Thats a quality image for sure!

[Clayton]

And another:)

[Astorix]

great shot! well done!

[arad85]

Hi Clayton. Yup - nice shots, but the colour balance seems a tad out - the first one is orange, the second magenta. I'm guessing a bit of playing with the colour sliders and you'll have a much better image...

[Space Cowboy]

Hope you don't mind me doing this but I think such a quality image should be shown off more...don't be shy!

[neil phillips]

Hi Clayton Saturn is tough this year isnt it. I like the first shot quite tight.

As a experiment not sure what exposures your webcam will slow down to, but under calm air ive been capturing at exposures slower than 1/ 15th secs at between 4800mm and 7200mm fl for 6 minuets givig 5000 plus frames for 1/15th secs, and half that for very slow exposures.but so far the slow exposure captures have been working best, at about 70 to 80% gain, some 5000mm focal length.

Ive compared the 1/15th 5000 frame stacks to the slower exposure fewer frame stacks, and on the 10" often the more dynamic slower speed is needed for saturns low brightness.

The 12" is different in as much as i can shoot 5000 frames at 70% gain 1/15th secs exposure but with larger optics the levels are still very healthy

So for smaller scopes its the low brightness that makes it hard to get banding, and reaching healthy magnification, at least 4000 mm fl for a 8"scope or sightly higher, I know thiis advice breaks usual methods, But from what ive seen so far, go up in mag slightly, 4500 mm FL is possible, then slow the exposure for a healthy level, under good seeing you wiill get some good frames, dont worry when jupiter is back ill be trying 30 fps with the DBK, but different problems require different solutions, Ramis asked me how i did it, Hope what ive dsscussed here can be of use to you clayton, and others. Some may disagree but its working for me.

[beamish]

Well I found that interesting Neil.

As for the images-I just love that first image, including the colour

[AztecastroMcJ]

nice1 Clayton

gud detail

prefer the Golden colour

thx for tips again Neil

[Kokatha man]

Nice one Rob:icon_salut: - thanks for the heads up yesty arvo.....I reckon if you hadn't I wouldn't have bothered what with burnt-out getting diddly-squat the night before.....

But it turned out okay - in fact I reckon reaching 8/10 here for a little while, and when you replied that the seeing had taken a tumble I had already discovered the same thing!

But just before midnight I took a late night walk and reckon 'cos of the stillness and sound transmission of the waves breaking on the beach plus star twinkle etc it had come back up.....but I was well-satisfied with what I had already captured and wanted to try Jupiter in the morning; so I didn't go back out (I'd covered the scope up and switched the lappy etc off too.....)

Have already processed the first avi (a "paint dryer" framerate one) and am happy but think i can improve its outcome - I have numerous more and at 15fps the image onscreen was as good as I've seen.....hopefully there's a corker in my processing in-basket....!

[Clayton]

Thats a quality image for sure!

Thank's Stuart, Astorix, Karlo, and Aztec...

And I like your repro Stuart

Arad85 The colour is a bit out. It's not easy with the old lappy:( as there is no way to really calibrate the screen, so my captures tend to be a bit off, and last night I was too tired to make any further effort to correct the colour:D

Thanks for the tips Neil I am happy to try anything and would love to be able to work at a larger scale unfortunately there are a number of obstacles at present. My longest available exposure is 1/25sec, I only have a 2x Barlow and extension to bump it up to 2.7x

Last night I bumped some of my avi's up to 5000 frames but the capture program corrupted them, so I dropped back to 3000 frames for the rest of the night. Interestingly in an attempt to recover the video's using Virtualdub the program actually repaired the avi's and allowed me to save them, which means I can now use them in Registax:hello2:

Happy that I didn't give you a "bum steer" KM, and I hope you got some good stuff:)

I had a bit of a scare with my lappy and a glass of red so whilst it is still working, it is currently minus it's keyboard and running on a USB keyboard keyboard:rolleyes: