Mars 28th ZWO ASI 290mm mini

[Anth10 (Anthony M)]

Hi all,
I have forever struggled to get any decent resolution using the old 60D Canon and partly cause of its weight dragging down on the focuser tube at full extension for planetary, however the mini guide cam coupled with my newly purchased Celestron 3x Barlow (Thanks to my mate Mickoid) has enabled me to capture a much better result (a lot less weight and larger image scale).

Here is a capture of Mars in mono at 320x240 using Sharpcap (best 3500 frames of 40,000) before the planet really gets away...
Cheers,
Anth

PS Tried my first go at an animation for the nights session(11 separate frames from 9.37pm till 11.32pm

[John W (John Wilkinson)]

Anthony,
Nice images and animation even if in B&W. Thanks, John W.

[Tulloch (Andrew)]

Nice images - not sure how you were using the DSLR, were you recording the LiveView stream at 5x zoom (see reference here).
https://www.astropix.com/html/i_astr...esolution.html

It won't solve the weight issue, but the DSLR sensor works pretty much the same as a dedicated planetary cam...

Andrew

[Anth10 (Anthony M)]

Originally Posted by John W

Anthony,
Nice images and animation even if in B&W. Thanks, John W.

Cheers John,
I plan on going for a one shot colour camera soon enough - maybe next season.

[Anth10 (Anthony M)]

Originally Posted by Tulloch

Nice images - not sure how you were using the DSLR, were you recording the LiveView stream at 5x zoom (see reference here).
https://www.astropix.com/html/i_astr...esolution.html

It won't solve the weight issue, but the DSLR sensor works pretty much the same as a dedicated planetary cam...

Andrew

Andrew,
Thanks for your input, yeh I have tried many times prior with the DSLR and I agree the sensor does a great job particulary for DSO targets. I use the inbuilt movie crop mode which is a handy feature for planetary 640x480 and even though it is a struggle to jostle the image in the live view frame it is cumbersome and really is not helping with the lean it presents when on the end of the extender tube attached and the draw tube almost at maximum extension also!
The flexure introduces unwanted loss of clarity and for my newt which is quite heavy it is probably not suited moving forward.

Thanks again Andrew- PS your planetary work is fantastic.
Anth

[Mickoid (Michael)]

Nice shots Anthony, I've never done a Mars animation so you've beat me to it! Glad to see the Barlow is working well and we can also thank PeterM for selling it.

[multiweb (Marc)]

Outstanding details and contrast.

[Anth10 (Anthony M)]

Originally Posted by Mickoid

Nice shots Anthony, I've never done a Mars animation so you've beat me to it! Glad to see the Barlow is working well and we can also thank PeterM for selling it.

Mick,
I used PIPP Animation and seemed to do the job to my surprise as I’m not all that savvy with computer tech- the only problem was trying to get the planet angles the same as during the night I had removed and replaced the camera multiple times thus causing the images to be off tilt. Photoshop transformation fixed that up before I combined them for the gif.

Cheers

Originally Posted by multiweb

Outstanding details and contrast.

Thanks multiweb for your comments- as I said this is probably the way I’ll tackle planetary from now on and I am inspired by those who have posted during this opposition- it’s captivating to see planetary detail from our earthbound vantage point.

Anth