Was out tonight from between 21:30 and midnight tonight. The plan was to capture some video of Saturn using my NexImage. I came across a few problems and wanted to ask for your help and maybe advise me on how to overcome these issues.
1) Using a Webcam/CMOS camera what is the best way to capture a planet?
I am using both SharpCap and iCap software.
The Moon is easy to capture obviously because it is a much bigger object in the night sky. The NexImage has a 5MP sensor so I put it on the max resolution, max gain and exposure in order to locate Saturn. I then focus it using the electronic focuser then I put the gain and exposure down and slowly minimise the resolution and increase the FPS (I tend to use offset on the x and y axis to keep Saturn centered). This is fine capturing it without using a Barlow but I want to get Saturn bigger so I chucked in a 2xBarlow and this is when it got hard.
2) Now that the image is zoomed in a lot more it is hard to centre Saturn. I was able to centre it but for some reason even though I have a mount that tracks objects in the night sky, on the screen Saturn is moving??!?!?!?!
. It moves until it goes off screen. This only appears to happen when using the 2x Barlow. I double checked if the telescope is tracking and it is so I have no idea why Saturn stays centred!
3) Once I had Saturn centered and all ready to record I hit the record button and Saturn vanished. What the hell?!?!?!
4) Also what is software trigger?? I pressed it and I think it froze the image.
I did capture some video in the end but they didn't turn out good. I think this was due to the poor seeing conditions. No clouds tonight what so ever but seeing conditions were poor.
Can anyone help me? I know I can get decent shots of the Moon but I would like to also get decent shots of Saturn and Jupiter. Once I do I will feel better about doing Astrophotography.
I found this random photo on the Internet.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-me...e=UTF8&index=1
That was taken with the same telescope as mine but with the older 1.4MP NexImage and 2x 2 Barlow Lenes.
I am sure I capable of taking something similar if not better with the NexImage 5.
I hope I can get a confidence boost
