Hi guys.
Took some Saturn and Jupiter avi's this morning, and I processed the Jupiter ones first, so here it is!
This was my first time imaging the gas giant since last years apparition, so I was excited to see what she'd look like - I now had a 5x powermate whereas last year I only had a 2.4x or 3x barlow.
After capturing Saturn at 1:00am, I left the scope setup and left the ToUcam and Powermate in the focuser, so I didn't need to refocus. When I got up at 4:15am, i just plugged the laptop in, centered the planet in the finderscope and whallah it was on the screen already focused!
This image shows Jupiter's GRS and the moon Callisto to the lower right. I took 3 avi's with different settings, and this one had a higher gain and gamma, and brought the moon out where the other 2 didn't capture it.
The avi's were captured at 10fps for 90 seconds, giving only 900 frames to work with. I stacked about 500-600 for this result, as the seeing was above average at 6.5/10. One thing that i'm sure we'll notice during this Jupiter season, is that the guys with the LU and Firewire high-frame rate cameras will most likely end up with a much smoother result, able to capture many more frames in that 90 seconds.
Jupiter was 30° altitude when this was captured.
I'm quite pleased with my first Jupiter for the year, and am really looking forward to imaging this beauty when it's bigger and higher!
Comments welcome.
First Jupiter of 2006!
