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Old 16-02-2017, 03:24 PM
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sil (Steve)
Not even a speck of dust

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Join Date: Jun 2012
Location: Canberra
Posts: 1,474
David, I haven't come across a dummies guide, but whats out there including the commercial astrophotography software is often aimed at pros using a mono imaging camera (basically just a cooled sensor, not what most people call a camera) along with filters and i've encountered many who will demand this is the only way to image.

Plus imaging methods can differ depending what you want to shoot. A ZWO cam is a good starting point but you can use dslr. From my own experiences I can suggest do not bother trying to get good exposure of jupiter in your camera, under exposure will help in processing but what looks exposed in camera is often over exposed (clipped to white) and ruined. Practice, practice, practice. If you are want to take a shot when a planet is at perigee dont wait until the night, spend the preceeding week taking shots of it and get your settings optimal. when you record video of a planet through a scope it appears to swim in the view due to the atmospheric effects. This is why we record video at the highest frame rate so yo hopefully capture enough frames where the distortion is small and you then stack several hundred frames to create a single stacked image to bring out details with wavelet processing. So keeping the planet in the frame of shot is important and only shoot a 2-3min video to work with (well, several of them but only work with the best not all) because the planets are rotating frames more than about 3min apart wont align well and you lose the chance of getting detail.

forget about putting a dslr on a telescope, pressing the shutter button and getting a photo like what you see in a magazine. this is not how its ever done.

do not delete your first videos when you get disappointing initial results like many beginners. as you learn you can reprocess the videos with different methods and software.

autostakkert, registax and PIPP are all free and help massively and pretty much all you need. I do most of my work with PixInsight (commercial) but still I can only match the wavelet processing in my planetary images I get using pipp + registax
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