My very first image

[mswhin63 (Malcolm)]

I found following the resources link ppmcentre software, brilliant and very intellgent to centre the planet on a 400 x 400 canvas.

It make alignment a lot better, also easy to sort the images, deleting poor one and keeping the better one for Registax.

As for the moon, it is too difficult for me to use alignment as the video is in constant motion across the canvas but found registax to sharpen the image using wavelets.

I really like Advanced Video Editing for taking snapshot of the AVI into bitmaps because I can watch the video and click a single button to save a frame that I need to create the mosaic. I use VirtuaDlub to append planetary AVI's giving me many more frames.

One thing I am getting nerous mostly is to clean the primary mirror, I rather not touch optics especially the mirror but i know that if i want to get super clear images I am going to have to do it sometime.

[p3nn (James)]

You'd be surprised how much you can get away with on the mirror b4 you'd notice it. I think the biggest issue is collimation. The better collimated the sharper your images. Even a simple star test will show if the collimation is out. Just watch were the shadow of the secondary mirror is when you go out of focus if at lower magnifications