[pmrid (Peter)]

I'm very new to planetary imaging. And I am not ideally equipped for it - either by aptitude or equipment. But I have decided to put my toe in the water and have a paddle with what I have.

This image is with an ED127 (a North Group APO of a native F/7.5) but with the addition of a TeleVue PowerMate x2. So I am at 1900mm FL and F/15 ratio.

The camera is a ASI290MC with 2.9 micron pixels imaged using the ROI routine in StellarMate set to 640x480. That allowed me to get just under 80 fps at RAW8. RAW16 knocked the frame rate back to about 30.

Then when Jupiter was quite high (about 60 degrees altitude) and the Red Spot was coming 'round the corner, a few sequences of 5000 frames processed with PiPP, Autostakkert3 and Registax6 with a final bit of sharpening in PS5.

That's it. I'm not unhappy with the result.

But detail is still lacking. So I have begun to refurbish an old 8" Newt (A F/5 GSO job) with a resurfaced mirror and a new focuser. The extra aperture ought to put me a bit further up the Dawes limits I hope. Of course the weather has turned cloudy and wet for the moment so heaven only knows when I'll get another run at it.

Ah well.