[shaneaust (Mick)]

Not sure if this is the right forum area for this, but here goes.

After months of experimenting with my Kodak C340 digital cam, I **finally** got a decent (to me, anyway!) shot of Saturn last night. I've attached it, after having tarted it up using PaintShop Pro.

I remember reading - on this website - about the problems involved in getting really good images of planets and other objects, especially DSOs. There were a couple of rules listed that stuck with me:

1) Get a good camera (or a REAL good one for DSOs)

2) Have an equatorial scope mount that will also be able to move with the earth's movement, in order to get as much light as possible, for the object being photographed.

Okay, so far.

The problem I'd been having with Saturn and my (cheap) digital cam was over-exposure - I was setting a shutter speed of 4 seconds, which was too much. So I adjusted, instead, the ISO setting (and take my word for it - I am no font of knowledge as to what adjusting the ISO actually does...I was simply experimenting and found that an ISO of 100 gave me the attached pic).

This raises my question - would not photographing Saturn, for example, using the rules I mentioned above result in an overexposed image, too? What I'm talking about here is tracking it across the sky for maybe 30 seconds with the camera and scope.

Or are equatorial mounts with a tracking system attached used primarily for imaging DSOs, which are much fainter than the planets in our solar system?

Thanks.

Mick