First shots with LPI

[JohnH]

Got a new toy to use with the ETX90 - and it isn't cloudy! I got the LPI mostly to use as a guidecam but am very pleased with my first go at the moon with it...all defaults in the software, this is a mosaic of shots 3, 4 and 5. The first two shots were a blurry mess as I forgot to choose track in the s/ware, I let the camera run for 180secs which I think is excessive however, like I said first light, very happy.

[h0ughy]

very nice!

[ballaratdragons]

John,
Well done!

That pic looks clearer than the ones they use to advertise the LPI and the NexImage!

p.s. I have that Earthquake feeling again. Sorry.
I stuck that in here instead of wasting space with starting another thread!

[iceman]

Very nice first effort John! You'll be a pro in no time!

[JohnH]

Thanks Ken,

I guess the sharpness is due to Meade's optics, the Mak design and a small appature (90mm). I am happy because this is the first moon shot I have that shows something like what you can see at the eyepiece, my other shots at prime with the DSLR were dissapointing and soft - due to lack of magnification and seeing problems I suppose....but then I never tried stacking those shots....not sure of the best approach for lunar photos with a DSLR. If I want to get in close on some of those interesting lunar features how should I proceed - do I barlow the LPI and/or use eyepiece projection or the DSLR or ...? So much to learn...

[iceman]

Definitely barlow the LPI. The LPI will always give you far greater results than a single shot DSLR, just because you can take many more shots in a short period of time and reject the ones in bad seeing.

[Striker]

Great stuff John....isn't so much fun doing imaging.

[ving]

nice one john. that pic is super crisp! :)

[Dennis]

Very nice mosaic John - the LPI is quite a marvel isn't it. Excellent results for your first night out!

Cheers

Dennis

[davidpretorius]

silly question, what is an lpi?

[Dennis]

Lunar & Planetary Imager

See here http://www.meade.com/autostar/lpi.html

[davidpretorius]

thanks, so a you can use a webcam (tuocam) or an lpi or is a webcam also a lpi.

this lingo is hard for a noobie, i was really keen to get one of the I.M.H.O's until asimov explained what one was!!!!

[Dennis]

Hi Dave

You almost have it! A Toucam is basically a video camera - it takes movies, stores tham as .avi files on your computer, and then specialist software "grabs" the best individual frames and combines them to give a final image.

The LPI is basically a still camera. It takes lots of individual shots, maybe 2 per second, and then you can combine these "in camera", so the final image displays on your computer screen - no messing around with movie files like Erwin.

Cheers

Dennis

[davidpretorius]

thanks denis, what is everyone's preferred method and comparison of cost?

[davidpretorius]

http://www.cloudynights.com/documents/meadelpi2.pdf

answering my own question

[davidpretorius]

I have just finished reading this link, it is simply brilliant!

[Iddon]

that is a great image - certainly better than my LPI results thus far.

[Ganymede]

Nice shot John!

I just recently bought an LPI myself, haven't been able to come up with a nice result like yours yet tho'. Are you using Registax?

Kev.

[JohnH]

Ganymeade, No special treatment was used to get that result, I just got lucky, perhaps the seeing was especially good but it did not seem to be, I focused carefully and used the defaults in the AutostarSuite s/ware for the MOON and let then let frames accumulate for three minutes. The only post processing was very mild noise removal with Neat Image, the ETX optics did the rest...

[JohnH]

Still experimenting with the LPI, I had some cable issues but I think they are resolved shot a few more images last night in what seemed to be poor seeing but a few turned out ok. Iceman cleaned this one up for me (thanks), it is a shot of the S Polar region (I cannot name the features yet sorry I am too new to moon imaging/geography), stack of best 50 images taken with Autostarsuite,the LPI and an Orion shorty Barlow through the ETX90...