First few attempts at Jupiter - Mak Cass 180

[Bushy69]

Hi All,

Here are my first few images of Jupiter in April. Started with SPC900 purchased here on IIS for $40, then got the bug and purchased an ASI120MC-S.

Telescope - Skywatcher Gold Series Mak Cass 180 Pro / SW HEQ5 Pro Mount.

Image 1 - ASI120MC-S 2X Barlow (crappy Barlow, need to get a good one)
Image 2 - ASI 120MC-S Prime Focus
Image 3 - Philips SPC900 Prime Focus

The ASI Images were taken with FireCapture, the Philips with HandyAVI. All images stacked in Registax6.

Still exploring relationship between Gain/Exposure/ROI Size/Frame Rate... but getting there. Biggest issue I am having at the moment is RAM values dropping, and captured frames stalling.

Cheers,

Justin

[Atmos]

They’re really nice Justin, you’re picking up a lot of detail even with a cheap Barlow :thumbsup:

[blinky]

Looking good Justin. Is that Europa transiting?
try playing with the usb traffic settings in fire cature if you havnt already, i have mine set with the high speed ticked and about 90 . Having it set all the way up sometimes causes frame rate to slow down.

[Bushy69]

Yep was lucky to snag Europa transiting in prime focus... but that boy moves fast... by the time I got the barlow in, focused, and setting right.... gone.

I have USB traffic at 80, and that seems to keep the ram value up. Frame rates with barlow are around 55 for Gain and Shutter settings, and Histograms hovering in mid 50's low 60's.

I capture in colour, but I did read somewhere you can capture in mono and process the colour later, but when I gave that a go, the mono signal was very grainy (like I was literally using 1/3 of the cmos pixels).

Any suggestions on a 2x Barlow, as the generic one I have frim years ago (came with a budget Newtonian) is only just up to the job.

Visually focusing ATM as well, have to make a mask I think.

Cheers,

Justin

[astronobob]

Done really well there Justin :thumbsup: :thumbsup:
Details are fabulous, thus reckon your focus was pretty much Spot-On :thumbsup:
If tho you suspect your focus is out, which I doubt bu much if any - I used to increase the exposure time by double or even triple & bump the gain upto 80-90%, slew around the planet and find one of the bigger moons, center it, and then reduce the ROI area by half, then center again & expanding the window as well, this gives a magnified view to focus with, get that moon as smaller dot as can :thumbsup: you may notice a couple of tiny spikes of to one side of moon, get them as short as possible or if can eradicate all together, than focus is near perfect as one could expect to get :thumbsup:
Note: Keeping the moon in the center of chip, I believe you can select the area of the chip by drawing it with the mouse, hold & diagonal drag for rectangle/square,, for your RIO - it did with my program 'Fire-Capture' I think, free download ?
Doing this gives one a good evaluation of ones collimation :P
Hope this helps some ,,,,,,
But, as I say - You have done really well, very good, personally cant find any wrong with it, I'd be very happy with them !!!

[blinky]

check out this you tube video from one of the best in the amateur planetary imaging scene, Chris Go. just about all the tips you could hope for. He is talking about monochrome imaging but most of the info is still relevant for color.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MeZhlV7p_Y&t=1s

[Bushy69]

Thanks Bob, great advice regarding focusing on a moon... I will give that a go.

I actually find looking to close and too hard at the screen and you go crazy trying to focus, so taking a step back (even taking off my glasses) and suddenly features that I am targeting seem to be easier to see and focus.... almost peripheral vision if that makes sense.

I am very glad I upgraded to the 10:1 focuser.

About to watch that vid now Leigh, thanks for the link.

The only other problem I am having is some sort of weird time shift. Setup the scope at 11pm last night, took some videos for what seemed like about 30 minutes, checked my watch and it was 3am... not sure whats going on there. :) ;)

Cheers,

Justin

[Troy]

Looks good :thumbsup: