Nice shots though. Get that camera adapter on there John (or did you decide to use it this time) and crank away, use the timer and pop off 70 or 100 shots.
And perhaps even kick the drive into gear? Iv'e tried using astro-stack & registax, but it was an exercise in frustration, so I gave up. Not sure what I would do with a hundred pics of mars..I keep hearing registax is great but we didn't get along. Unless they've come up with a better version these days?
Looks like rain again tonight, damn it. Ok, They all have to be taken on the same camera settings, all cropped to the same size as bitmaps, is this correct? Would it pay to take a dark frame as well?
Yep same settings is good. What's your max exposure time. If its good seeing then you might get away with 1/10 sec. Try it at 1/25 and see how you go. Don't do any cropping before processing them in registax. You can take them as jpegs, but if you have a bmp setting use that for less compression of the images. Dark frame???, depends on how much noise your camera generates. 1/45 sec - personally I wouldn't worry about it. Once you've taken them, you can load them into Registax and view each image and accept or discard it from the stacking process. More on that later once you've collected a few.
I've got plenty of exposure time for this subject. (max 4 secs) from memory, 1/25th was too slow (over exposure) but that would depend on magnification no doubt. Would it be better if they were slightly under exposed...only a tad, I mean. I'll have a bit of a play as to the best exposure rate versus magnification. That's a lot of work...100 shots with this setup!? time delay is 10 secs only. Can they be taken over a 2 night stint? (probably not) Sorry for all the questions, answer at your convenience.
Slightly underexposed would be probably be better. You can alway increase brightness and contrast with processing, but if something is too over exposed it may not be retrieveable. I've not imaged mars yet (I'm a late night, not early morning person. ) but that seemed to work for me with Saturn and Jupiter. I'm only suggesting 100 shots to give you more images to make your final selection from. which camera adapter do you have? And can you camera to both multiple exposures (say 10) with an initial 10sec delay. Just trying to remove as much shake as possible. Over two nights it won't be much but it will be enough to notice when you stack. Here's your chance to make an animated gif of mars' rotation Just take as many as you feel like taking. Tracking will certainly be a must. And Mike's got a program from somewhere/someone (bird??) for centering images before stacking so if there is too much difference in the position of the planet in the images, Registax won't choke.
How many images did you take for your top ones? were they single images? If so then doubley congratulations.
Thanks for all the info thus far mate. I made an adapter (home-made) to directly couple the camera to the diagonal on the refractor. 10 sec delay is more than enough to allow for vibration/wobble etc.. I can't really use the big reflector for this project...the drives not good enough (yet)
All my images on here are 1 image only. Lately I've been collimating the refractor with the diagonal in place. I get better results this way, despite the general consensus that it should be done without the diagonal in place.
I'll give U a hoy when I've got a heap of DECENT pics!
Hi Paul. Just to let you know, I downloaded registax (again) & had a thorough play with it. I did a stack of 4 images of saturn taken 2 yrs ago. I found it easier to convert to a bitmap...(the cameras default is jpg)... after stacking etc etc etc I then changed it back to jpeg. Tonight (5th) might be the last oportunity for awhile (weather coming) to get 50 odd images of mars.
Avies are certainly acceptable. That's how we nomally do it. Just depends on the quality of the output. Give it a go and see what happens. If it registax doesn't like it or the results don't work out mars will be around for long enough to give the single image run a go.
Speaking of compression, make sure your camera is on its lowest compression setting for taking the avies and photos
In avi mode the settings are automatic, one can't muck with it at all..I predict it won't work but you never know your luck..This camera takes very good terrestrial stills but avi mode is pretty 'rough'. Output seems low quality. We'll see how it go's.
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Iv'e tried using astro-stack & registax, but it was an exercise in frustration, so I gave up. Not sure what I would do with a hundred pics of mars..I keep hearing registax is great but we didn't get along. Unless they've come up with a better version these days?
) but that seemed to work for me with Saturn and Jupiter. I'm only suggesting 100 shots to give you more images to make your final selection from. which camera adapter do you have? And can you camera to both multiple exposures (say 10) with an initial 10sec delay. Just trying to remove as much shake as possible. Over two nights it won't be much but it will be enough to notice when you stack. Here's your chance to make an animated gif of mars' rotation 
