Astrophotography newbie question

[Bmanners]

Ok, I've been insired by the photos shown on this and other sites but haven't really put the effort in to have a go myself. That was until I saw the competition on this site for beginners. I now have a purpose and motivation to get off my lazy behind and take some photos.

So first step is to find out how do this astrophotography thing....lots of reading on the internet. Next grap a camera and wack it onto a scope...easy right?,.,,,wrong. I managed to figure out how to remove the lense from a bullet camera I have and made an adaptor for it so I could use the afocal method. So far so good. Actually viewing something was quite difficult as the camera seems to have a much smaller FOV than an ep. After a bit of trouble I managed to get Jupiter in the camera's FOV but I couldn't get a sharp focus. I recorded a few minutes of video anyhow so I have images to learn how to use the software for image manipulation.

The equipment I have is a 76mm reflector (wobbletronic), a sony EXVIEW HAD CCD (480lines) bullet camera feeding a panasonic camcorder which can then download onto a PC. I tried with a 3x barlow and with just the camera either way I couldn't get good focus.

So my questions are:
- why is that an ep can get good focus on jupiter but the camera can't? is the camera not alighned right, does the camera highlight the limitations of my scope, is the scope not aligned well enough for what I am trying to do?
- Is this type of camera suitable for this type of job?
- whats the best software to process the avi file?
- Am I being a little too ambitous trying to image Jupiter with this equipment?

I think I have attached a frame grab from the video....not sure where it went though....

Cheers
Brett

[Bmanners]

ops, I meant to say prime focus not afocal.

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

Whew! I'll try to answer some of your question, make a couple of observations and try to give you a direction to go.

1. If you are removing the lens of your camera and putting it inplace of the eyepiece that is called prime focus. Afocal is when you leave the camera lens on and shoot through the eyepiece. Each technique has it pluses and minuses.

2. You have said you "then download onto a PC" so I'll assume you aren't viewing live on the pc but on the camcorder screen. Is there anyway you can view live on your PC screen rather than the camera screen? That will make you life a lot easier. Either way try to focus on something easy like the moon then swing to the planet.

3. Part of your problem seems to be over exposure. Is there anyway you can manually adjust things like the frame rate, exposure value, brightness and gain? (the last one is probably asking alot ) With your setup if you process the avie and the moons are that visible then you have something set too hight.

4. The field of view will be very small. If you camera chip is anything like the ToUcam in size (both pixel and physical) then it will compare to the magnification of a 6mm (and approx field of view of a plossl) eyepiece. Add a barlow and the field of view shrinks considerably.

5. Do you leave the diagonal in when shooting with the camera or do you take the diagonal out. With some scope you will have to leave the diagonal in whether you are using eyepieces of a camera. If you have taken the diagonal out to capture, put an eyepiece in and see if you can reach focus then. If not then you will need to leave the diagonal in.

6. I'm not familiar with your camera but it shouldn't make any difference. Focusing shouldn't have anything to do with the camera. However you "may" have to leave the lens on and shoot afocally.

7. Save you files as uncompressed avies if possible and process them in Registax

8. 76mm is fine. It's the flimsy mount that is the problem. Do a goodle search on stiffening a wobbly mount. There are sure to be heaps of info out there.

9. Lucky last. Try to avoid filming Jupiter for too long. It rotates very fast and filming for too long will blurr features. The higher the magnification the shorter the shot with 90 sec for fairly high mag. You should be right for a couple of minutes though.

[davidpretorius]

make sure you enter into the comp.

make syre you describe what you have (as you have here) and what you have done to get your image. there is a section to ask questions and guys can help teach you how to process

first thing is to lessen the exposure, as your jupiter is very bright

registax is the one to go for version 3.0.1.24 for avi processing

mikes article is very good atricle on starting out (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/index.p...63,201,0,0,1,0)

Start with the biggest ep first on say the moon to get the hang of things and then try jupiter.

A great start

[Bmanners]

Update,

I've downloaded registax and installed it, looks like there is a heap to learn in the image processing alone. I just clicked a few random buttons and the attached image popped out, impressive software.

As for reducing the exposure...that could be tricky. The camera is a sealed unit with a video out so unless there is a small pot deep inside that can be used to adjust the exposure then I might need to pull apart my webcam and have a go with that. Wait a minute, how do you control the exposure etc for a webcam? software I assume. Using the webcam will introduce its own problems as I dont have a laptop (hence using the camcorder). I guess a long USB extension could work but that will make focusing rather difficult.

Can I get the same effect by using a filter?

1ponders: whats a diagonal?

Cheers
Brett

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

That shot has much less grain after stacking. Get the exposure right and you will be laughing.

A star diagonal is the right angle mirror that goes into the scope to make viewing easier. See here