Jupiter

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.

--
Troy Piggins

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 draw-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.

(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.

In article , 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.



You got a spot on your lens !

greg

* Damn 35 F Rain - Staying Warm Inside Is Winning Today wrote :
* Troy Piggins wrote :

[---=| Quote block shrinked by t-prot: 11 lines snipped |=---]
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 draw-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.

Yes, this image was stacked from around 2500 frames of an avi
file using Registax. Suspect that's the technique you're
referring to.

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.

How does one stop down the aperture of a fixed aperture scope?
The bare scope is f/10. With the 2.5x powermate it becomes an
equivalent f/25. I haven't heard of people using those masks
you're referring to. I'll look into it. Thanks.

--
Troy Piggins

* Rich wrote :
On Oct 23, 11:43Â*am, Troy Piggins wrote:
[---=| Quote block shrinked by t-prot: 14 lines snipped |=---]
tweaking of the collimation which should give a sharper image.
Will have to try that next time, haven't done it before.

You need at least 25,000mm to really shoot Jupiter. Nice shot at
5000mm though.

Anthony Wesley, the guy who discovered the that most recent
impact scar on Jupiter, takes these sort of shots with an
effective focal length of around 9000mm.

http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/a...4&d=1256210105

I'd be extremely happy if I can get anywhere near as good as
that. Have you ever tried to image with something of the sort of
focal lengths you're suggesting with back-yard amatuer gear? I'd
love to see examples.

--
Troy Piggins

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.Nice one, Troy.

Beats my webcam-through-ETX attempt (of ten years ago):
http://faxmentis.org/html/jpg/jupiter-7-11-99.jpg

Since yours is 2500 stacked images, how come the moon is a dot, not a line?
:-)

--
Jeff R.

* Jeff R. wrote :
Troy Piggins wrote:
[---=| Quote block shrinked by t-prot: 11 lines snipped |=---]
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.Nice one, Troy.

Beats my webcam-through-ETX attempt (of ten years ago):
http://faxmentis.org/html/jpg/jupiter-7-11-99.jpg

Still, not bad

Since yours is 2500 stacked images, how come the moon is a dot, not a line?
:-)

They were taken over 90 seconds Not sure, but suspect even
that may have been too long. Maybe should have kept it down to
60 secs or so. Jupiter spins so fast you have to get in and get
out real quick, so you're using as fast a fps as you can get.
Some guys are shooting 45-60fps. The avi file size I took for
this was 1.5GB! Just to get a measly little 15kB image!

--
Troy Piggins

Troy Piggins wrote:
* Jeff R. wrote :
Troy Piggins wrote:
[---=| Quote block shrinked by t-prot: 11 lines snipped |=---]
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.Nice one,
Troy.

Beats my webcam-through-ETX attempt (of ten years ago):
http://faxmentis.org/html/jpg/jupiter-7-11-99.jpg

Still, not bad

Since yours is 2500 stacked images, how come the moon is a dot, not
a line? :-)

They were taken over 90 seconds Not sure, but suspect even
that may have been too long. Maybe should have kept it down to
60 secs or so. Jupiter spins so fast you have to get in and get
out real quick, so you're using as fast a fps as you can get.
Some guys are shooting 45-60fps. The avi file size I took for
this was 1.5GB! Just to get a measly little 15kB image!

Cooled camera?
Hand or auto-guided?
Suburban location? Country?

(fun, idd'n it!)

--
Jeff R.

* Jeff R. wrote :
Troy Piggins wrote:
[---=| Quote block shrinked by t-prot: 19 lines snipped |=---]
that may have been too long. Maybe should have kept it down to
60 secs or so. Jupiter spins so fast you have to get in and get
out real quick, so you're using as fast a fps as you can get.
Some guys are shooting 45-60fps. The avi file size I took for
this was 1.5GB! Just to get a measly little 15kB image!

Cooled camera?

Nope. This one:
http://www.theimagingsource.com/en_U...yer/dbk21au04/

I'm considering (don't tell my wife) a cooled CCD for longer
exposure, deep sky stuff. They're the duck's nuts. But won't be
getting the top of the line ones. They go for $10k or multiples
thereof. Reckon something like this will do me:

http://web.aanet.com.au/~gama/QHY8.html

Hand or auto-guided?

No guiding. Not for 90 secs or so. Mount was just tracking
sidereal rate on its own.

Suburban location? Country?

Centre of Brisbane. Don't think you could find a much more light
polluted location in Queensland

Fortunately light pollution doesn't seem to affect planetary
imaging so much because the targets are so bright. I'm talking
Jupiter, Saturn, Venus, Mars, even Mercury here. For Uranus and
Neptune you use more deep sky imaging techniques I think - longer
exposures and light pollution does come into it a bit.

This sort of stuff it's more about atmospheric conditions, the
jetstream, and scope focus and collimation. I have yet to come
to terms with tweaking all that.

(fun, idd'n it!)

Oh, ya!

--
Troy Piggins