Ivan and David, thanks for your advice. Yes, I have found manual focusing quite challenging on the night - mirror shift was evident when swapping between targets and I had to deal with focusing knob backlash every time.. not used to Cassegrains and the way they operate
. I hope that Peterson kit and Meade electric focuser (which I have now ordered) will make a difference.. would like to lock the primary during imaging sessions. I was also using the flip mirror from Orion for centering objects visually but could not reach parafocus with any of my Series 4000 Plossls (camera has 1.25'' adapter attached to it on SSSI end). Bintel suggested I use an eyepiece ring, has anybody else encountered this problem on LX200?
David, I am using supplied Orion AMCAP capture software which does not have the histogram, do you know of any better alternatives? I was capturing with all pixels (1280x1024) at max frame rate of 15. Camera options menu allows me to change brightness, contrast, gamma, hue, saturation, sharpness and exposure. I would appreciate some feedback from other AMCAP users as to what settings are optimal for planetary imaging (at both f10 and f20).
I had some fun recently creating a movie clip in Photoshop showing Jupiter rotation, results below. Hope to take the scope out again soon..
Cheers,
Sebastan