First attempt at Jupiter 18/08/2009...

mbaddah (Mo) · #1 19-08-2009, 01:39 PM

Thought I'd post my first attempt at Jupiter last night through my 10" dob...

Seeing was terrible, I don't know if it was from nearby fire that happened few days ago or not but Jupiter looked hazey even in my 10mm Pentax (could clearly see the GRS last week).

Trying to focus and keep Jupiuter in FOV was like trying to balance a basketball on your nose! Not sure if there's an easier way or not but trying to keep the SPC900NC with a 2X barlow while it zooms by is quite a challenge. K3ccd slow refresh rate didn't help either

Any help, tips, feedback greatly appreciated. Thanks =)

DavidU (Dave) · #2 19-08-2009, 02:55 PM

Thats a great effort ! Try a 3x-5x barlow.

Mike21 (Michael) · #3 19-08-2009, 07:30 PM

Champion effort! I'm learning on Jupiter too. It'd be a bit presumptuous of me to give critism, but I know enough to know that David is right. This is the one field of astronomy in which magnification is everything. Having said that, I can only cope with a 2.5x Barlow myself; I haven't learnt how to balance the basketball either.

mbaddah (Mo) · #4 19-08-2009, 09:45 PM

Thanks guys. I assume it would travel faster through the fov with a 3x barlow???

Quark (Trevor) · #5 19-08-2009, 09:51 PM

The image would travel a lot faster with more magnification as the FOV will get increasingly narrower. To capture the planets at high mags is the province of the equatorial mount. To experiment with a Dob is fine but to get good quality results will be an extreme challenge.

Regards
Trevor

Rigel003 (Graeme) · #6 19-08-2009, 09:54 PM

Is your scope not driven? If so I take my hat off to you. Lots of detail captured under difficult circumstances. Can you give us details of the capture parameters?

iceman (Mike) · #7 20-08-2009, 04:23 AM

yeh if you're using a dob, don't increase the magnification any more - it will increase your frustration by 3x-5x as well

It's a great start for the methods! Well done.

mbaddah (Mo) · #8 20-08-2009, 11:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rigel003

Is your scope not driven? If so I take my hat off to you. Lots of detail captured under difficult circumstances. Can you give us details of the capture parameters?

yep no drive just the dob mount!

Using k3ccd tools v1, I set it to capture at 15fps (ًseeing was terrible) and pulled the refresh/shutter speed all the way down. Saturation was little high. Other than that everything was auto.

It did crash a lot on me, not too sure if there's another better utility out there???