Jupiter and Io, 15th August

[Screwdriverone]

Hi Again,

Here is another capture from Saturday night, this time with Io showing in the corner.

Slightly different look to my previous Jupiter post and again, tips welcome as are criticisms.

I am happy though to have a moon visible at last. YAY! :D

Thanks for looking.

Image Details;

Object: Jupiter
Elevation: 54 degrees
Date: Saturday 15/08/2009
Time: 11:49 UTC ( 21:49 AEST)
Seeing: 7-8/10
Scope: Skywatcher FlexDob - 12 inch
Mag: 3 x ED Barlow
Camera: Philips Toucam SPC900NC
# of Frames: 130
CMI: 357.56
CMII: 162.22
Capture & Processing: K3CCDtools, Virtual Dub, PCFE, Astra Image Pro, Registax 4, Gimp.

Cheers for now

Chris

[DavidU]

Nice crisp shot Chris. I must try this with my SW12"

[Screwdriverone]

Thanks David,

For sure, get out there and have a go, I am a bit annoyed I have been so lazy and wimpy in the cold. :(

Cheers

Chris

[DavidU]

Killa job doing it without a drive/guiding ! strewth

[Screwdriverone]

Yeah, its a bit of a pain, but once you have the "spot" lined up in the finder to start Jupiter in, its quite simple to let her drift by and capture a few passes.

What I wouldnt give for a EQ6 though (even though it would be overloaded) and I have already thought of a few ATM mods to drive the dob using some motors.....

Chris

[iceman]

Nice start Chris!

[Dennis]

Hi Chris

Nice work Chris, there is always something inspiring when seeing such good Jupiter images posted by you DOB pushers! I’m in awe of your skills – I’d need at least 4 arms, 3 eyes and 2 brains to do this! Not to mention the patience of a saint!

Cheers

Dennis

[Lester]

I like it Chris, thanks.

[Rigel003]

Great job for an undriven dob, Chris. Nice detail and good colours.

[Quark]

Well done Chris,

To be able to achieve such good focus while pushing a Dob around is a major accomplishment, indeed. Having got your focus right have ago at longer captures, maybe 2 mins. With more data you are going to be able to stack more frames, the more the better.

Actually, thinking about how you are doing this, with the image moving around a lot on your capture screen. I reckon using virtual dub and ppmcentre would help a great deal prior to loading into Registax. All of your frames would be a lot smaller but Jup would already be centered in the frame, so Registax would likely produce a better result.

Regards
Trevor

[Screwdriverone]

Thanks Mike, it is a start, sure has rekindled my interest in getting out there and nudging.



HA HA HA Dennis, its not easy, but doable! My trick is to spin the finderscope around so one line of the cross hairs represents the line that Jupiter is travelling past the Dob so it "follows" that line towards the centre of the X on the finder. Then what I do is push it slightly past the centre X and wait for Jupiter to sliiiiiide past the camera and capture about 15-20 seconds at that mag per pass, rinse then repeat. Painful, but possible. Alex Nicholas inspired me with his dob nudging techniques.

Cheers

Chris



Hi Lester, glad to please!, :thumbsup:



Cheers Rigel, I'm hooked again I think.



Hey Trevor,

I do actually use Virtual Dub and PCFE which cuts and centres like you said and this makes Registax fly, the only problem I noticed is the field rotation over a few passes, namely I stacked about 800 frames and found that Io kept wobbling around when stacking causing a ghost moon and blurring on Joop so I ended binning the frames that were too far off.
Any tips for getting around this issue would be appreciated.

Thanks again for the interest in helping me get better at this.

Chris.