Jupiter & Moons

[blinky]

Not too impressed with this - I was hoping to pull out more detail but I dont think the seeing was particularly good last night. This is a few hundred frames from my 8" SCT and DMK. It was that bad I did not even bother to try and barlow it up.

Anyway, any hints/tips are greatly appreciated - deep sky is my speciality and I am finding planetary very difficult!

[blinky]

I think this looks a bit better?

[Andrew*]

Looks pretty good from where I'm sitting, Craig. 'Specially for an early attempt wiht the DMK.

Just wait for better conditions, barlow it up and see what happens then!

Andrew

[brianb]

I am finding planetary very difficult!

Everyone does Actually you've done pretty well.

Nailing the focus is probably the hardest part - try reducing the gamma to get more contrast and pushing up the gain to get as short an exposure as possible - this makes it easier to focus accurately - remember to set the gamma and gain back to sensible values before capturing the image.

If imaging with RGB seperation filters, focus using the red, the steadier seeing makes it easier. Even if the filters are not quite parfocal, you'll probably get away without refocusing for the green & blue ... in any case, Jupiter rotates fast so you can't waste time fiddling with the focus (it often takes me 5 mins to get the focus accurate enough to satisfy me, especially when the seeing is dodgy). Just change the filter, check the framing and the exposure & start the capture.

[blinky]

Thanks for the tips, yep focus is the hardest thing. It's easy with a DSLR as you can use a Bahtinoff mask but with planets you have to do it all by eye.