My First "Real" Jupiter 15/08/09

[Screwdriverone]

Hi All,

Well, after a 7 months hiatus of no imaging for one reason or another, I decided to drag R2 out to the back yard and have a go at imaging Jupiter on Saturday night with the 12" Dob.

I think the image scale could be improved a bit by asking the Father's Day fairies for a 5 x Powermate and I think the toucam is possibly at its resolution limit as the seeing seemed to be quite good.

I was a but rusty with the processing so it took a bit longer to get to the posting stage, but I am quite happy with the result, simply because there is more detail than I have ever had before and improvement will no doubt come with more practice.

Take a look and see what you think, comments and critique are welcome and thanks for looking.

Image Details;

Object: Jupiter
Elevation: 52 degrees
Date: Saturday 15/08/2009
Time: 11:36 UTC ( 21:36 AEST)
Seeing: 7-8/10
Scope: Skywatcher FlexDob - 12 inch
Mag: 3 x ED Barlow
Camera: Philips Toucam SPC900NC
# of Frames: 354
CMI: 350.07
CMII: 154.79
Capture & Processing: K3CCDtools, Virtual Dub, PCFE, Astra Image Pro, Registax 4, Gimp.

Cheers for now

Chris

[Harpspitfire]

excellant!- much realer then mine- LOL

[Screwdriverone]

Thanks Harp,

Yours are pretty good too!

Seeing and focus are the biggest obstacles, once you get both right (slave to the seeing unfortunately) the results will improve, keep at it.

Thanks

Chris

[Nightskystargaz]

Chis,

That's a nice pic. :), keep them comming.

Thanks,

Tom

[Quark]

Top effort Chris,

I think you should look at your processing. I reckon there is a lot more detail available in this image that has been, sort of smeared out by processing to heavily.

I realize that the temptation to apply more processing is always there. To much, really enhances the contrast of the bands but it also tends to smear out the fine detail that is within and between those bands.

Regards
Trevor

[Rigel003]

Good natural colours and a lot of detail there, Chris. You're undoubtably limited with frame numbers with the Dob. Maybe a tracking platform would be a better Father's Day wish than the 5x Powermate.

[tonybarry]

Sorry for the dumb question but what does the CMI and CMII refer to?

Thanks in advance,
Tony Barry

[AlexN]

Chris! Ripper!!

Good to see you back into it mate! You've done really well here, for an untracked image it shows a LOT of detail.. I remember the days of nudge nudge nudging the dob chasing jupiter.. its difficult, however you've done very well indeed! I agree with Graeme, a tracking platform might be the go! although its a bit more expensive than 5x powermate, I think your image would benefit more from tracking than it would from more magnification. Remember, you're limited to the amount of frames you can capture at this focal lenght, if you extend it more, you'll be capturing less frames, at a higher F/number, hence requiring longer exposures to properly fill the histogram, which will ultimately result in more smearing of the image...

You're on the right track mate!

Alex.

[Screwdriverone]

Hi Trevor,

Thanks for the tip, you are quite right in as much as I think I may have overcooked this due to the impatience of playing with it too much and not getting it right. A good example is the fact that I sort of prefer the unprocessed tiff file more than the final thing, I was sort of winging it as its been a while.

I will have another go I think at teasing rather than bashing the image.

Thanks

Chris

[Screwdriverone]

Thanks Tom, appreciate the compliment! Cheers



Hi Rigel,

Hmmmm, maybe a bit of a stretch for a tracking platform, however, I was thinking of knocking up some variable speed electric motors that "drive" the two axes of the dob to get that big fat planet to stay still for a little while at least! Also, not sure of an EQ mount that could handle the flex tube, or if you meant a base type platform...

Chris



Ahhh, I think they refer to the positions of the central meridien of system 1 and system 2, dunno technically what this means, but I read them off Jupiter 2 program when I was checking the UTC and the positions of the moons. I am pretty sure Trevor or Mike Salway etc could explain it better than me. Not a dumb question though.

Chris


Thanks Alex, you've gone and made me feel all warm and fuzzy now. I was getting a bit impatient with the camera programs, WX Astro Capture and K3CCD seemed to be driving me nuts after an hour or so, especially when the camera property window is visible, they stuttered the preview image which in Dob Nudge Nudge land is pretty disastrous.
Thanks for the comments, its always nice to hear from you.

Cheers

Chris