Thread: Jupiter
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Old October 23rd 09, 05:19 PM posted to rec.photo.digital,aus.photo
Damn 35 F. Rain - Staying Warm Inside Is Winning Today
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Posts: 4
Default Jupiter

(silly typo correction)

On Sat, 24 Oct 2009 01:43:38 +1000, Troy Piggins
wrote:

The astrophotography has been keeping me occupied lately. This
is my first attempt at planetary imaging. Lots to learn, I know.
Don't see much astrophotography here so thought I'd share.

Taken with a 8" f/10 scope with a 2.5x powermate (like a
teleconvertor) giving it an equivalent focal length of around
5000mm. Camera was a DBK21 CCD camera.

The dark spot is the shadow of one of the moons, and you can just
make out the Great Red Spot at the top.

http://piggo.com/~troy/photos/2009/2...er091023_1.jpg

All up I'm pretty happy with it. Suspect the scope needs some
tweaking of the collimation which should give a sharper image.
Will have to try that next time, haven't done it before.


Much depends too on "seeing" conditions. The atmospheric stability. Most
times you just have to wait and hope for the best days. The very same
perfectly collimated optics can provide a jaw-dropping 3D-looking view of
Saturn one day, and an irregular mushy blob the next. Look into the
sharpening techniques that web-cam astrophotographers use, by combining
details from many many frames to virtually look through the turbulent
atmosphere, capturing and combining those bits of each image that are
stable and sharp.

You might also try stopping down the aperture of your telescope during bad
seeing conditions. A larger aperture means that your telescope is trying to
image through larger lower-frequency areas of atmospheric turbulence. If
the turbulence that night is mostly of the lower-frequency variety it will
help to filter it out. I keep a 6" mask handy for those times to put on my
16" scope. Apodizing masks also cure things on some days for planetary
imaging.