This is my first post here although I have been a long time reader (and buyer of eyepieces from other members).
These are my first two Saturn pics. Afocal, using a 6mm TMB Planetary II, with 2x Barlow, unguided 10 inch Skywatcher Flextube.
I used my Canon a590is in video mode to take a whole series of clips. It was very difficult to get the telescope in the right place for each clip so that Saturn would drift through the field of view! Focussing was not easy either with that camera.
I used Avidemux, Autostakkert2, Registax and Image Analyzer.
Thanks to Mike for his "Astrophotography with a dob" article, which pointed me in the right direction.
Thanks Mariusz. They were taken on 30 and 31 May. Since then we haven't had too many clear nights here. Tonight was pretty steady, I had some good views of Saturn through the binoviewers. Saturns always been one of my favourites - it was the first object I saw through the telescope that I recognised immediately.
The video was taken with my point and shoot camera at 20 fps, colour, 4x zoom. I took 27 short clips where I tried to get Saturn to drift across the frame diagonally. It was tricky getting the dob lined up to achieve that, and there were quite a few clips where it missed the frame entirely or only drifted through near the edge. I used avidemux to edit the video clips to remove the frames where Saturn was not entirely within the frame, and then joined the clips together into one long clip. I used castrator to produce a clip where Saturn was cropped and centred.
It was a little while ago now, but I am pretty sure I used the sharpening in Autostakkert, then adjusted the wavelets,gamma, brightness and contrast with Registax. I then used Image Analyzer to sharpen and
smooth. Finally I reduced the size of the images.
I took another pic later (2 July) which was quite a bit sharper, and I did a lot less processing of this one. I only adjusted the first and second wavelet sliders in Registax, and not by much. I used Image Analyzer to adjust the white balance, brightness and contrast, and colour, and to sharpen and smooth.
John these images are great, well done.
