First planetary photo

[Plossl68]

Well, here goes. This is my first picture of Jupiter, lovingly (and blindly) put together.
Long story short: I've had a Nexstar 6SE bought many years ago for visual only. It was used on a couple of camping trips with the then-young son, then put away and has gathered dust since.

A few months back I decided to give the hobby another go and bought a few preowned pieces here in IIS. The two key additions for this photo were an ASI224MC and a Baader cut filter. Then, with Jupiter high in the sky, I had a crack at planetary astrophotography.

Details are:
Bortle 7 skies
Exposures 27ms
Gain 204
Brightness 8
Top 20% of 3100 frames stacked
Workflow: ASICAP -> AS!3 -> RS wavelets -> Affinity Photo

TBH, I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing...just following YouTubes, but am blown away you can do this with such a basic scope. I'm totally hooked again :)

Any and all tips appreciated.

Cheers,
Paul

[multiweb]

Well it's essentially perfect. :thumbsup: No advice I could give.

[Hans Tucker]

For someone that claims he doesn't know what he is doing this is something. When you open up the thumbnail .. Wow .. plenty of detail. Real good first effort :thumbsup:

[Pepper]

Great effort for your first. Mine was dismal.

[Bassnut]

Thats very good!. So good in fact that the "I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing" seems a bit odd, i suspect you know exactly what your doing ;)

[Plossl68]

Thanks Fred,
I have to confess to watching a lot of YouTube before giving it a go. I used a lot of the auto settings in ASICap too. Where I have the biggest gaps are in post processing. I just played with the curves in Affinity but that was all. I’ve seen some people online doing amazing things in PS, but think I have a major learning curve there.

[Plossl68]

Cheers Steve

[Plossl68]

Thanks Hans. My last real go with the scope was all visual and that was years back. I was very (pleasantly) surprised what the ASI224 could record and then what AS!3 and RS could bring out.

[Plossl68]

Thanks Marc

[Plossl68]

Thanks Marc

[Mickoid]

You're a natural at this, I think this has determined your destiny of becoming the planetary imaging guru! Great job.:thumbsup:

[Plossl68]

Cheers Michael,
In a strange twist of irony, I was out trying to image Saturn tonight and couldn’t get the old Nexstar to properly star align for love nor money. Best not give up my day job just yet :rofl: