Mars and Saturn

[Mickoid (Michael)]

My first ever shot of Mars and one of many shots of Saturn I took just after midnight this morning from Melbourne. Can't wait for both these planets to reach opposition and get a bit bigger. Had to use a 3x Barlow with my 9mm eyepiece to get the image of Mars to a reasonable size. This made it about 330X magnification on my 1000mm f5 Newtonian, consequently I was pushing the limits of both scope and cheap eyepieces to get this. Had to remove some CA in post processing but mostly the images were clean. I shot Saturn at 3200iso because it was so dim, hence the increased noise. Hope you like them.

[rustigsmed (Russell)]

nice work, great detail on mars especially.

[Rick Parrott]

They are GREAT shots!

[Mickoid (Michael)]

Thanks for your compliments guys. I was pretty pleased with the results given the fair seeing conditions. As you said, especially with Mars. I have done better on Saturn with better seeing but as this was my first experience in shooting Mars, I had nothing to compare to. However, going by what I've seen of Mars in the Images section, I'm not far off the mark with what they're getting with equipment 5X the price of mine.

It was my intention to show what you can do with basic eyepieces/barlows that come with an intermediate scope when you buy one. A decent DSLR and Registax, are also imperative for planetary work but you can pick up good used ones for under $300. Pipp is another free download that's great for stabilising and converting the camera's video .mov to .avi for Registax.

However, as with any astrophotography, a stable, transparent astmosphere plays a huge role in obtaining sharp clear results.

[Anth10 (Anthony M)]

These images capture detail that most amateurs would be proud of.Well done!
Your skills in astrophotography have certainly compensated for your so called modest setup keep up your fine work.

[Robert_T]

Originally Posted by Mickoid

Thanks for your compliments guys. I was pretty pleased with the results given the fair seeing conditions. As you said, especially with Mars. I have done better on Saturn with better seeing but as this was my first experience in shooting Mars, I had nothing to compare to. However, going by what I've seen of Mars in the Images section, I'm not far off the mark with what their getting with equipment 5X the price of mine.

It was my intention to show what you can do with basic eyepieces/barlows that come with an intermediate scope when you buy one. A decent DSLR and Registax, are also imperative for planetary work but you can pick up good used ones for under $300. Pipp is another free download that's great for stabilising and converting the camera's video .mov to .avi for Registax.

However, as with any astrophotography, a stable, transparent astmosphere plays a huge role in obtaining sharp clear results.

the Mars one is superb...are you using eyepiece projection? I imaged mars extensively during the Opposition around 2007/8 (can't recall exact, but see my avatar pic) using aC9.25 plus the best mono camera for planetary at that time, filter wheels, and software etc and frankly fell slightly short of this. Well done!

[5ash (Philip)]

Nice images , you told us a little about your equipment but not what it is. What telescope are you using?
Philip

[Mickoid (Michael)]

Thanks Phillip and Robert. Most of the details about the equipment I used were in the original post. Yes I used eyepiece projection with a Canon 550d using the movie crop mode at 60fps, at 800iso. I'm not sure the make of my scope, it's made in China but looks like one of those Saxon 2000 series 8 inch newtonians on an Eq5 mount. I stuck on a RA motor which helps keep the image relatively stable in the view finder during the video capture. This was about a 2min grab. I thought the seeing was only fair that morning but Registax really pulled out some detail.