Saturn Jupiter Mars

[Quopaz]

Good weather has been hard to come by lately, but had one good morning a few days ago. Got a chance to try out the new camera, Canon 60D using the 640x480 crop mode. Had a few problems, it didn't really work with the eyepiece projection- the image was too big. So I changed to just a 2x barlow and that seemed to work OK. Unfortunately on that one good morning the red spot wasn't visible on Jupiter but I did it anyway.

[Outcast]

Nice shots Nick, particularly since you are using an non-tracking Dob.. fantastic effort

[Quopaz]

Thanks mate yeah it's hard with a dob... but also fun. With the planets up higher now than they were, they seemed to be drifting in a different direction. It took me a while to figure that out. A trick I learnt is to watch the planet in the finder scope for a while to see which way it's going, then set up just in front and hopefully it appears in the right spot on the camera screen. Doesn't always work, sometimes you miss it or just catch a bit of it, but you just keep trying till you get some good ones.

[astronobob]

Great going there, Nick, non tracking, well done, , that Juup looks really good, smooth, natural, festoons and belt detail. top stuff

[Quopaz]

Thanks Bob, I think that's my first Jup pic that really showed some festoons. One other thing with this method is that it's hard or impossible to see the cross in the finder scope when the sky is really dark. This makes it hard to aim in front of the planet to allow for drift when you can't see the cross. It is much easier when the sky is a little bit brighter, like when the sun is starting to come up or with moonlight. An illuminated cross would solve this problem, but mine doesn't have it.

[astronobob]

Like playing Darts blindfolded :D
Thinking an LED nearthe finder objective, but that means battery power - Hmmm, whats about a Glow-In-The-Dark-Sticker inside the finders dew-cap, shine headlight onto it to, wouldnt need much, a sec or three :question:

[Quopaz]

Might work, thanks I'll try it.

[Quopaz]

Have ordered an illuminated reticle finderscope. Just can't see the black cross in the dark. Yesterday morning got my best Mars to date, and I think maybe even my best Saturn both in the same session. Using a 3x barlow instead of 2x. Will be much easier using the drift method when I can see the cross.