planetary imaging woes

[Somnium (Aidan)]

Thanks for the feedback John,

i am definitely envious of your images, but it is shots like that which make us mere mortals strive for perfection. it is good to know that you are getting these types of shots from Melb. i probably do need to cool down the scope for longer and i will try using Autostakkert2 and Astra image and see what i can do with post processing but i think the main areas of concern are to do with data capture. i will keep an eye on the skies and post progress.

[Somnium (Aidan)]

last night i went out, cooled my mount down for at least 2 hours with fans on, checked skippy sky (it looked promising) directed my scope to Jupiter and collimated it perfectly. turned on my camera at about 12:15 and got what i consider some of the worst footage of Jupiter in the history of man. the file size is much too big to upload here, i just wanted to get peoples thoughts. should i wait till 2 - 3 am until the city sleeps and there are fewer cars on the street before imaging ? are the predictions of skippy sky usually accurate ? or am i missing something fundamental

[ralph1]

From where I was last night, the seeing was very good up until 11:30 p.m when I went in and had fallen to pieces when I went out again at 5:30 a.m to observe Mercury. Maybe you were affected by the same bad late-night seeing?

[Somnium (Aidan)]

Maybe ... i think i must just have the worst luck with seeing conditions because i have never had a crisp view of any planet through my rig.

Originally Posted by ralph1

From where I was last night, the seeing was very good up until 11:30 p.m when I went in and had fallen to pieces when I went out again at 5:30 a.m to observe Mercury. Maybe you were affected by the same bad late-night seeing?