|
Hi Troy
Its great to see enthusiasm for high resolution planetary imaging, or indeed anything related to astronomy, and Matt has produced some top class images of Jupiter, but, here comes the but…
Behind Matt’s success lies a long apprenticeship, so factor in the learning time for developing your skills in areas such as collimating the ‘scope, reading the weather patterns (e.g. Jet Stream map), image processing, etc.
Consider also that hi-res planetary image may be too narrow an objective? For the last couple of years, in the Southern Hemisphere, we have been blessed with a very favourable apparition of Jupiter and I’m not too sure how many more years are left for us lucky souls down under?
Mars and Saturn haven’t been too well placed in comparison, but then there is always good old faithful himself – our Moon, a very rewarding target for hi-res work.
So, make sure you have a firm idea on what you want to do, make sure those objects will be around in that time frame and high up enough above the horizon to mitigate the blurring effects of our atmosphere.
If you decide to go down that path, I’m sure you’ll have a ball, but don’t be lulled into thinking that what people like Matt, Mike (Iceman) and Anthony (Bird) have achieved is easy!
Cheers
Dennis
|