Very first attempt at a planet

[Dave T]

Hi all,

I am relatively new to astrophotography, this year in fact. I have spent my first night out attempting to image Jupiter. After some time actually getting the planet in my field of view I shot a series of one minute webcam video’s. I kept the gain and frame rate as low as possible to try and keep the noise down. Then used Registax 5 to align & stack. After that a little work in PS but nothing drastic.

I simply used polar alignment and sidereal tracking, everything seemed fine in that Jupiter stayed put !

I was hoping for a spot of feedback and constructive criticism if people have time ...

Cheers,

Dave

[Bizibilder]

Exellent image! But you need to tone down that blue quite a bit!!

[Earl]

Nice, a touch blue I have had a tinker, hope you dont mind.

[The Warthog]

I'd be happy to show that to my friends and family, if I did astrophotography. It looks pretty much like what I see through the ep. Good first effort!

[Dave T]

Hi all,

Excellent, thanks for the feedback !

You are so right about the blue cast. Not worries Eary_uk thats

exactly the type of feedback I was hoping for. Your modified (blue

reduced version) is alot more pleasing on the eye. Did you achieve

that in photoshop ? Which colour mixer did you use ?

I was determined to have a crack at the image without first looking

a alot of other images. Was concerned I might inadvertently copy

the style of another image.

Thanks .....

[oldfruit]

I think you have got an excellent shot there. Not only a lot of detail on Jupiter, but 3 of the moons too. Keep it up, good work.

[Dave-Ryan]

Nice work Dave T.

You never told us what equipment you used, telescope, mount, etc.

[Dave T]

Hi Dave-Ryan,

Just about all the gear I have is in my signature

I used the following gear :

Skywatcher 80ED Pro

HEQ-5 Pro mount

Philips SPC900NC web-cam

Baader 12.5mm Orthoscopic eyepiece

Astro Eng AC646 projection adapter

Baader IR cut filter

Captured video using Sharpcap

Stacked & aligned in Registax 5

Took 1 min of video at 5fps with minimum gain. I removed the

mirror/star diagonal and replaced it with an extension tube.

Used a Bahtinov mask to achieve focus on a bright star before

slewing to Jupiter.

It was alot of fun !!!!

[Dave-Ryan]

I did read your signature but I didn't think it possible to get images of Jupiter that size using an ED80. I have a similar scope myself and, weather permiting I might give this a go with mine.

I also own a 10" LX200 and my images of Jupiter taken with a LPI are only about the same size as yours taken with the ED80. Ill see if I can find one of my images to compare the size.

[Dave-Ryan]

Here's one of my Jupiter images taken in 2005 with a 10" LX200 and an LPI.

[Luke]

Well done, Dave, an excellent first attempt at a planet, I would be very chuffed with that, with moons in view and nice clear banding.

[grumpy]

hi,

im just about to start up astrophotography and was thinking of getting a 80ED but was going to use if for deep-sky. so was just woundering if you have used it for deep-sky or not ?

if you have whats the image like ?

P.S very nice image by the way, i will be very happy to get images like that first try when i start up

[Dave T]

Hi Dave-Ryan,

I am using eyepiece projection to give me the focal length

I need to get a decent size image.

On my ED80 I would say the camera CCD was about say 60mm

from the 12.5mm eyepiece optics.

So this gives me an amplification factor of (60 - 12.5) / 12.5 = 3.8

My scope effective focal length becomes ~ (600 x 3.8) = 2280mm

So this is in excess of your LX200. But obviously you have a much larger aperture which I think i'm right in saying gives you a better ability to resolve detail. So I think we should get similar sized images but you'll get more detail for the same seeing conditions.

Hope this is correct ????

Regards,

Dave

[Dave T]

My mistake Dave-Ryan ...... LX200 10" is 2500mm (thats a big fella)

[Dave T]

Hi Grumpy,

I bought my 80ED scope specifically for doing deep sky imaging. I

only had a crack at Jupiter because of the moon being soooo bright

and limiting my long exposures - and obviously because it was

something new and fun

The 80ED is only 600mm so you have to be a bit carefull in terms of

target selection. No point trying to image some tiny little galaxy that

really requires ... something like that 10" LX200 ! But there are loads

of really nice targets that are great for a slightly more widefield gear.

Personally I like the widefield Nebula and large clusters. Also tracking

at a shorter focal length is much easier. My take was I would start off widefield because it's easier and much cheaper than going really deep. Then if I get on ok I'll upgrade things later. I do wish I had

gone for the EQ6 mount rather than the HEQ-5. This is because I

am payload limited to ~15kg and so the big scopes are not an option.

Working the numbers I will probably upgrade to the GSO 8" Ritchey-Chrétien carbon fibre model at only ~6.2kg. Then sit the 80ED and

new scope togther for the best of both worlds.

I have attached an image I took about a week ago of Andromeda

taken with the 80ED. I have only taken a few images as just getting

off the ground ...... dam clouds

Cheers,

Dave

[astroimpulse]

Your images are to be proud of. They're very very good.

You need to tone down the red in M31 (I think) like you needed to tone down the blue in Jupiter. But that's a cracking image. You've got me buzzing for Webcam imaging.

[grumpy]

thats an excellent image of Andromeda , even though im a fair way off from getting images like that, i would be very happy with a 80ED if i could produce images like that.

[Regan]

Very nice pics Dave well done

[Dave-Ryan]

Very nice images Dave T.

Looks like I need to look into eyepiece projection.

[Dave T]

Hi guys,

Thanks for the positive feedback. Makes me wanna get back out there for another dose of the cold stuff .... maybe less money on telescope gear and more on decent clothes ???

As I said the Andromeda image was taken with the 80ED but not with

eyepiece projection but at prime focus.

So optical chain was :

80ED + IDAS LPS + Baader IR cut + WO FF III + Canon 450D (self mod)

So my effective focal length was 510mm and scope speed ~f/5.9,

maybe a bit slower because of filter loss, say f/6.5 ???

Had a look back at the notes. Did 15 x 3min exposures and 5 x 3min

darks. No bias or flats ... too cold by then

Then through Deepskystacker and processed in PS.

Thanks for the colour feedback, maybe i'm colour blind ? Got a

Jupiter that's too cool and an Andromeda that's too warm !

Cloudy again ....

Dave

[astroimpulse]

You're images are fantastic IMHO. The colour is something that can be tweaked out quickly. You've done the hard part...and very well at that.

[wbm156]

very nice, i'd be over the moon with them

[carldr]

Hi Dave,

Could you explain how the webcam, projection adapter, eyepiece and extension tube fit together? Looking at the AC646 to see how it fits together with the webcam and eyepiece, it's not obvious to me.

I made an attempt with my new SPC900 tonight, but couldn't get anything like the image you did. I was trying using the star diagonal and a 2x Barlow (and then two 2x Barlows!) though, and given the price of the adapter and extension tube, it's worth giving your way a shot.

Regards,

Carl.