Jupiter + GRS, 28/04/2005

[iceman (Mike)]

Hi guys.

Went out to image Jupiter again last night, with the 10" dob + ToUcam.

Seeing was fair to good, by no means great. I guess that's how I feel about the results.

Also, I'm in dust donut hell.. I tried to clean my ToUcam chip (both with air-spray then lens-cleaning fluid on a cotton bud), and I removed some dust, but replaced it with more. Check out this single frame from a 2.4x + 2x stacked barlow avi.

When combining the avi's, I used virtual dub to delete all the bad frames where the planet crosses the dust donuts.

In the image below, the top row (+ the one by itself in the 2nd row) were taken using the 2.4x barlow (~3050mm) at the beginning of the session when seeing was ok. The third row was taken using the 2x barlow (2500mm) when the seeing got worse. The bottom row was taken at newt prime focus (1250mm).

The left of each "pair" is straight out of registax, the right of each pair is processed in astraimage.

Feedback welcome.

[Thiink]

After a night of trying to image Jupiter afocally with the dob (last night), I respect those images of yours so much more now Ice!

The detail in the last picture is great, its just missing the barlowed image scale!

[iceman (Mike)]

haha thanks Simon! It's something everyone should try just once

My afocal shots of Jupiter and Saturn never turned out very good

Did you have an adapter, or hand-hold?

[Thiink]

I had the camera on a tripod, but that in its self is a challenge. Constantly adjusting everything including the tripod only to lose the image and have to move everything out of the road again was getting frustrating, and that was only with a 25mm and 2x barlow! I'd hate to try it with anything with greater mag!

If I try it again I will be using a camera adapter. It's going to be a laugh processing what I have (wasn't allowed last night after I packed everything up, it was already 12:30!). I'm not expecting anything more than a big blurry nothing, and I won't be posting that.

[iceman (Mike)]

ah the ol' tripod, that's what I use. It is very frustrating.. you're best to start with the moon, it's much easier and if you use a 32mm eyepiece then it stays in the field-of-view long enough not to be toooo frustrating. What camera are you using?

[Robby]

Your on fire Mike,
Your making great progress on your imaging. Roll on Mars!
Cheers

[Thiink]

Camera is just a 4MP Kodak point and shoot. Here's one of the images I managed to get last night. As you can see, compared to your dob images, mine look like, well, crap! You are the dob image master.

http://users.on.net/~sjeriksson/img/...ce/jupiter.jpg

[seeker372011 (Narayan)]

Mike;


great images...
I cant get anything half as good even though I have a tracking Eq mount

tell you what I actually like the prme focus image the best for clarity

let me know when you find a solution for dust on the TouCam chip
like you I have tried the puffer and also propyl alchol but ..not really good

luckily I use it more often than not for guiding not imaging but still

[beren]

Thats awesome work Mike, i like the top third one the best , you must have the patience of a saint , well deserved results congrats

[Comet Hunter]

The last image has a lot of detail Ice, nice work!

[iceman (Mike)]

Thanks for the comments guys, they're not my best Jupiter shots, a little better seeing and I would've been happier, with the increased image scale of the 2.4x barlow.

Just need to clean the ToUcam now and i'll be happy.

Simon, that's a great shot for a first attempt at afocal! Nice job!