Saturn & Jupiter from newbie 05/02/06

[EzyStyles]

Hi,

Once again i took these pics by holding my digital camera up against the eyepiece. Will be getting a Meade's DSI next week very soon so hopefully I can take even better pics.

[janoskiss]

When I looked at the thumbnails while reading your post saying "took these pics by holding my digital camera up against the eyepiece" I thought you were just being plain silly and taking the mickey...

That is impressive stuff for hand-held astrophotos!! I can't wait to see what you will manage to do with the DSI.

:thumbsup:

[EzyStyles]

Many thanks Steve :) btw, i might stick with my QX. I'm getting used to the wide view. :D

I seem to be getting an error in RegiStax something about "Floating Point" everytime i try to stack huge .avi files. Anyone getting this?

[iceman]

Registax doesn't handle large files very well. How big is the avi? You can try splitting it (using virtual dub or similar) to smaller avi's.

Nice reuslts for handheld. However is your newt tracked?

If it's not, I'm worried about what sort of results you're expecting from the DSI.

[EzyStyles]

thanks mike. ummm no. its not tracked ? btw, have you sent me the DSI? :D :D

[iceman]

I was only given your address today, i'll send it tomorrow.

Without tracking, I don't envy you with the DSI. It might be ok for short exposures on planets/moon, but forget about doing long exposures until you have a solid accrately tracking mount.

[janoskiss]

Just watch yourself! Wide views tend to get addictive, and expensive. :P

Would love to know more about the QX. There is a QX thread going; I think a lot of people would be interested how it does in your demanding f4 scope. ;)

If the DSI can take movies (i.e., long series of short exposure frames), and you have lots of hard disk space and processing power, you could probably still do heaps of stuff with it even without tracking. You have an EQ mount though. To get tracking, it should be easy enough to stick a motor on the RA axis... but how wobbly is that EQ...?

[ving]

our mike (iceman) started imaging without any tracking at all... his images werent half bad :)

keep it up man, cant wait to see how the dsi goes :)

[EzyStyles]

no probs mike. express post it should take 2 business days. Do you have the software to it?

how do you find the DSI with nebula's/galaxies? If you have any images from the DSI, please send it to ezystyles@hotmail.com would be much appreciated.

hmm i don't have a tracking mount just a slow-mo EQ. I know tracking mounts are quite high in prices, do i really have to have one?

[EzyStyles]

The QX is quite nice actually now that im use to it. Eye relief is great, images are more clearer and brings in more light. Too much light when using it at the moon. A motor on the RA axis? sorry Steve im too new to all these but learning heaps. Is it an item which i can simply purchase eg: at Bintel and mount it? The mount it self is quite tough, not too wobbly but still get the shakes when trying to focus on an object eg: saturn/jupiter and especially mars.

Thanks David. Hopefully tonight is a good night for more images. :) fingers crossed.

[iceman]

No, but check this thread - this is where I got it from :)
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=6235&highlight=DSI


I have an EQ platform, but it doesn't track accurately enough to use the DSI for long exposure stuff.


Yes, you won't be able to do long exposures without tracking. You can use the DSI for short-exposure planetary stuff. You can probably turn the slow mo knobs to keep the planet in the field of view.

Check out this article I wrote about imaging with a dob.. while you don't have a dob, it's really about imaging without tracking so it will still apply to you.

Astrophotography with a dob (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/index.php?id=63,201,0,0,1,0)

[Robert_T]

Hey Ezi Styles, after your efforts with handheld we'll be expecting big things when you're armed with the DSI. Best of luck and look forwad to seeing those images rolling in:)

[EzyStyles]

Many thanks Mike. The links helped me out alot. oh btw, check your PM just send you one :)

thanks for the confident Robert. See how the DSI goes. As i don't have tracking besides slow-mo, hopefully i can still get better pics of jupiter/saturn :)

[davidpretorius]

great shots mate,

in six months, you will want tracking so your planets can be imaged by higher magnification, which means $$ and then you will want rock solid tracking for galaxies and nebulas etc and that means $$$$.

Enjoy the journey. Even though i now have tracking, i loved the non tracking days and what i learnt out of it. I am very proud of my first non tracked pics and you should be very proud of yours as well!!!