First gap in clouds for LPI

[Sheap]

I was trying to get used to the LPI with the moon through thin parts of the clouds, and i saw a largish hole appear.
I would of had more, but im not that familiar with the program yet.
Thanks again to Asimov for the donation of the LPI to the competition.
One of the moon pictures was through the clouds, but i thought it showed some alright detail, so i figured id keep it.
My laptop at the moment is rather slow at using the software, im going to have to try speed it up a little, its about 7 years old. As a result of its slowness, aswell as my lack of tracking, each of these is only from about 1 to 2 images.

[Sheap]

im starting to get a good taste for astrophotography, but i cant get all the detaill my scope is capable of. Im thinking of getting a barlow, but they seem to vary in price a bit, are the cheaper ones not worth getting?
Also with my slowish computer only getting a few frames a second through the LPI at best, will a barlow make it impossible to actually get anything?
What does tracking cost for a dobsonian?
With all these questions what would i do without this forum?

[asimov]

I think using it with a barlow will be quite difficult without tracking.,..Actually I take that back..it IS difficult! I've tried it. :) I gave up real quick using it with a barlow.

What scope are you using again? (focal length)

Nice 1st pics BTW! Well done.

[Sheap]

d=200 F=1200
so its f/6

[acropolite]

Good start Sheap, from memory I think Mike (Iceman) managed to get quite good results without tracking and with a barlow.

[[1ponders]]

But then we've often wondered about that :screwy: until his wife had him commited for a few months. But he still insisted on writing Astrophotography with a Dob (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/index.php?id=63,201,0,0,1,0)

[Sheap]

By the way, with the LPI is it only useable with the LPI software? or is there third party software it can be used with? im just thinking that maybe it will run faster with a different program.

[[1ponders]]

Hi Sheap

You can use the LPI with K3CCDTools to take an avi and process with Registax. Only thing is you can't adjust the exposure setting (from memory, I think it's stuck on 1/50 sec) It works fine , but in this configuration it's not up with the ToUcam.

[Sheap]

Ive downloaded K3CCDTools 1, there hasnt been any gaps in the cloud cover (going on 2 weeks now except during the day and the short break i got those pics in), so i just tried to check if it worked without the scope involved, and i cant get any image like i can with the LPI software. Do i need to register and get k3ccdtools 3? or do i just need to set up 1?

[ballaratdragons]

don't know if you can step the LPI up to USB2. It speeds up the Toucam.

[[1ponders]]

K3 V1 should be enough. I haven't used V1 for so long I can't remember. :P

[CoombellKid]

You can also access the LPI via the "Import" item under the file menu in
Photoshop. Well in version 7 you can anyways. I've always wondered
if you can access the ToUcam via that menu, but I dont have one. It's
a strange and basic lil shell it works in. Although I haven't played around
in it much, only once infact. So that goes to show you how useful it
was. All I can remember was the luna images were pretty sharp, and the
resolution seemed to be stuck on 50%.

regards.CS

Rob

[[1ponders]]

That was it, 50% (whatever that is supposed to mean) not 1/50, thanks Rob

[Sheap]

ive now used it with K3 V3 which worked well, but i cant get anything from V1, on the site it has a table which lists LPI with long exposure as unsuported by 1, i thought at first it meant i just coulndt do long exposure, now im thinking ill have to register V3 :(
after ive processed the videos i got of jupiter, (not amazing, they were through clouds, and when the clouds actually broke for a couple of seconds, it didnt help, it just whited out jupiter, because i was capturing at the time)

[ozzmosis]

that is a very good link., i read it and found lots of usefull information ,i even went and got a logitech pro 4000 :)

mike goes in detail about Astrophotography, well some detail the most importent, which i found very informative and am sure my images will come out better.:)

[[1ponders]]

You will be thankful you got V3 in the end Sheap. It has lots of bells and whistles, expecially if you later decide to get into autoguiding and dso photography.

Keep an eye on it though as it seems to still have a bug or two. Occasionally it will appear to hang while taking an avi, but is infact still recording :shrug:, particularly if switching between running programs

[ving]

eek!
heading off into the heedy world of astro pics there sheap :D
good luck :D