Jupiter, Venus, Mars and the Moon

[Chrissyo]

Well, its been a little while since I posted any pictures. This is only a few of them, I forgot to get some from the Laptop where I muck around with photoshop.

The first is Jupiter I took last night.

Following that is a quick and dirty experiment I made with my video camera and tripod to see what a zoomed picture of Jupiter next to Venus would look like. Apparently it has trouble focusing into proper dots.

Next is my second ever Mars shot I took last week or so. I think I am finally getting some surface detail in places. :D

The next two are just of the moon. I suck at taking full globe pictures. Anyone got any ideas of how to sort of.. bring out more contrast between details? I just finished making an apeture mask as I read it increases contrast for brighter objects. Will test it with the moon when it comes back.

Finally is my first ever picture of Venus. Not very interesting planet. :P Oh yeah, this Venus and the top Jupiter one was taken using the apeture mask.

Anyway, enjoy. Imaging with a dob is hard work :zzz2:

[h0ughy]

nice solar system imaging there Chrissyo!

[toetoe]

Great pics Chris, thanks for sharing..

[Mick]

Great collection Chris I like your Venus photo it's nice and clear. I have never been able to take a good shot of cloudy Venus, the apeture mask looks like the goods.

[Dennis]

Those are very good images; quite a smorgasbord of celestial objects - well done, especially using a Dob! (I struggle with a guided equatorial!)

Cheers

Dennis

[[1ponders]]

Way to go Chrissyo. :cool2: I second Mick. Its not easy to get a even semi decent image of venus and yours is definately more than semi decent. There seems to be some stretching or squashing of your first Jupiter shot and bottom moon shot. Did you try to scale them down in PS?

[Chrissyo]

Nah, all these images are fresh from Registax. Later today I might stick them on the laptop and have a muck around with photoshop.

[davidpretorius]

great stuff, (mental note, need an aperture mask)

[netwolf]

Chrissyo, excelent shots. I too am considering making a mask, i hear they are also good for spliting multi stars like Antares etc.

May i ask what telescope you took these shots with?

[Chrissyo]

I used my 10 inch dobsonian with my homemade camera bracket and video camera for the pictures of the planets and moon, and just the video camera and a tripod for the Jupiter + Venus shot.

As for the mask, it was literally a 30min job (would have been quicker but I was chatting on the internet at the same time :P ) made out of a cardboard box bottom. Really easy to make, and so far pretty good for pictures. Might make a hartmann mask using the same materials just for the heck of it. :D

[davidpretorius]

to a noobie, what is the difference between a aperture mask and a hartmann mask?

[netwolf]

Chrissyo,

How to you track? Manual Hand Tracking or are you using a pltform etc?

[Chrissyo]

Nothing electronic or fancy. I just put the object in the field of view of the scope, and let it drift through, then reposition it and repeat.

[ballaratdragons]

They are excellent Chrissyo!

Nothing wrong with your collimation, that's for sure.

[asimov]

Very cool shots! Well done. After trying to capture venus tonight, yours looks really good compared to mine. It's a hard one to capture successfully!