Images to show beginners what you can see

[davidpretorius]

Hi Guys,

Have seen a coouple of more threads on what you will see thru a telescope re colour and detail. So from the 26th march, here is a single frame from the avi that has been quality sorted by birds ppmcentre, no registax.

I have reduced it down from the 1600x to try and show say 250x, 400x, 800x & 1600x

Also I have tried to mimic the way the planet looks to the eye.

now this was fantastic seeing conditions, and of course I have only a single frame, not any movement, but am I right in saying that on those great nights, this is what you can see??

Any comments, as I thought it may be useful for posting as a sticky to show what in relity you can see. I can then add to this the normal poor seeing etc


Edit, bottom row is the 250x and then top row l->r is 400, 800, 1600 etc - will be different for different screen re****ions I suppose

[ving]

hey, thats pretty good dave. its probably pretty close... I probably see just a tad more contrast.
:)

[davidpretorius]

thanks ving, so slightly darker?

[ving]

no contrasty... but only ever so slightly :)

[davidpretorius]

vingo,
hows this

[ving]

looks good. thats my view on a really good night :D

[asimov]

Yes mate, thats pretty close to how I remember it through the eyepiece...It's been awhile since I looked at jupiter though. I must do a 'refresher course' soon.

[Starkler]

I would say thats about the detail I would see in medium seeing, but as Vingsta says, with more contrast with the bands being darker.

On just occasion, the atmosphere froze solid for me and I saw astonishing details, white ovals and the works for about 10 seconds, and then it was gone :sadeyes:

[OneOfOne]

I think it's an excellent idea. One of the problems is that lots of people think they will see exactly what they see on TV and in books when they first look through the eyepiece. I think this may put a few people off the hobby or make them think that the usual astro images are of something that doesn't actually exist, when it actually does, it is just that the human eye is, well, almost blind! I would love to know what an animal like an Eagle sees when they look at the night sky, assuming they do. Maybe you should start a whole series and put in some shots of M42 (wrong thread I know) and clusters as well as the Moon, Saturn etc.

Sometimes I wish someone had produced a book of images that are what you would see through a scope and forget about the highly processed images. Sort of WYSIWYG if you like. Perhaps with images from 4, 6, 8 and 10 inch scopes to show how much more you will see. Maybe you could try stopping down your scope and take a series of Jupiter at the same scale, but different apertures to show the benefits of a larger bucket.

[davidpretorius]

Yes, i think dso's as well over the range over aperture and seeing conditions

[ving]

I had that once. it was early evening and still just a tad light. jupiter was at about 15 degrees and sinking... and for just a few second the seeing was absolutely perfect and i could see it all. and this was with my andrews s500 6.5mm, which is why i dont bag this EP out :)

[Starcrazzy]

Hi guys,
What would you say is the max mag for jup??i have heard that you loose alot once you go over 300 and i must sy when i try to get much more then that it washes out dramaticaly...Mabe cause im useing generic eyepieces but ive got a good celestron ultima on the way (thanks steve)...mabye that will make a bit of diff...it seems strange, that i sem to be able to mag the heck out of saturn and still get good images but not the same for jup??anyone else found this??

[ving]

hi SC, a cheap barlow with work negatively with any eyepiece... are you barlowing? what sort of barlow are you using if you are?

[cjmarsh81]

DP. A series on DSO's would be good. I love looking at them but can never work out which one I am looking at. How about taking pictures of all known objects and posting them? :rofl::rofl:

[ving]

dave doesnt really do dsOs. he is a planet guy :)

[Starkler]

Ezystyles has been working hard on this. I think by years end he will have completed the Messier and 1/2 of the ngc catalogue :lol:

[wavelandscott]

I like the idea of a pictures for beginners series...aligning expectations is pretty important...

[JohnG]

Here is a picture of M 41 to show what a fairly large open cluster would look like through the eyepiece, 4 second shot.

JohnG

[davidpretorius]

Spot on John, that is a great shot. thanks. I will start adding to a list with your permission of course.

[JohnG]

Not a problem, here's a shot of NGC 104 to give an idea of image scale.

JohnG