Despite having to get up early for work the next day, the sky just looked too tempting to waste before retiring to bed. I grabbed the SW Esprit 100 out of the box and set it up to shoot seven 60 second video grabs of Jupiter using the eyepiece projection method with the Canon 550d. The result was I made a 7 frame animation of Jupiter rotating. Seeing started off good but it deteriorated to average so I gave up and changed the camera over to prime focus for some deep sky. The only object visible from where I'd positioned the mount for Jupiter was Centaurus A. I shot 30 x 60 second subs at 800 iso for this one as this was about all the light polluted skies could manage without sky glow taking over. I love the versatility of this Esprit 100 and the optics aren't half bad either!
Thanks Alex and Peter. Yes, there are some fine examples of Ngc 5128 on this forum from members with a range of scopes and locations. I'd like to try this one again from a dark sky site somewhere. It was always going to be tough with a 4 inch getting any detail from it in a red zone but I wanted to give it a go anyway. I enjoy the challenge!
Great shots. Did you use a barlow/televue for Jupiter or is it just a close crop? I'd love to know how you did it as I have an Esprit 100 and haven't tried any planetary because I didn't think I had the focal length.
Kevin, I used a 2x Barlow in conjunction with a 9mm eyepiece which gives me a mag of 122x. The video file is cropped in PIPP. I find with set up I'm right at the end of the Esprit 100's backfocus and the T adapter is just hanging in there. I think if I was to try a shorter focal length eyepiece such a 5mm to get more magnification, then I probably wouldn't get focus.
