Late Planet Season for ETX 105

[foc (Ross)]

Towards the end of the planet season and I am starting to struggle with Jupiter and Saturn if conditions are a bit unsettled. Mars turned out nicely. Just after sunset seems to be a good time at present if skies are clear. First ever image I have taken of Uranus during moonlit conditions and temperamental tracking. Hope for a better image a week or two from now. Neptune cropped and enlarged is surprisingly well defined in its image for such a small and basic scope.

[Ross G]

Wow!...great captures Ross.


I have been recently attempting planet photos with an old ETX 125 that I dusted off and hooked up but I'm not getting anywhere near the quality of your photos.


What camera are you using?


Good luck.
Ross.

[Saturnine (Jeff)]

That's impressive image detail for such a small aperture, Jupiter is getting harder to image, getting smaller and lower down in the murk after dark. May have to try Uranus over the next few months myself.

[Tony Leece]

WOW Ross that's awesome work. Neptune and Uranus too

[cometcatcher (Kevin)]

Wow, they're good. +1 on what camera?

[foc (Ross)]

Thanks guys!

Ross G...if you have dusted off your ETX-125 you are ahead of me. My ETX-105 still has some dust on it. During the day if not at work, I have to whistle nonchalantly and try and convince a curious 2 year old that all my astronomy gear are the least interesting things in the house to play with!
Without his presence I might have optimized preparations a lot more.
My selection was meant to show there is still time to get half decent images with small scopes.

Ross, Kevin mine is a ZWO ASI 120MC-S (its on the image label) which I would guess would suit at least Ross's rig well for planet imaging. I have been using it with a Baader 2.25X Barlow and have a powermate crawling slowly this way from the USA. This color camera has been on special at local suppliers like Bintel and is quite fast but not the fastest out there. When you have a small aperture long focal length scope like an ETX there does not seem to be a lot of guides for casual imagers on matching camera selection to scope and I am not sure I made the best choice for mine.

Jeff, yes Saturn is getting dim and Jupiter is going to bed early and making it hard to catch the GRS or moon transits bit it is nice to do a comparison over time like Andyc has done... I planning to do a modest small scope 4 month one for the 4 easy planets so need to capture October images. Today I selected the wrong (poor) shot of Jupiter on the 29/9 up in my rush before work. I meant the attached one before seeing for Jupiter totally collapsed at 7.30pm (did not quite catch the GRS) but I have better images from earlier in Sept.

Tony, coming from you with your big scope that is high praise!

[Mickoid (Michael)]

Great work Ross, you're a braver man than me, I've never attempted any planet past Saturn. You've done well just locating these dim planets, let alone photographing them! Great little 4 inch you have there and you have certainly demonstrated what can be achieved with smaller apertures. Well done and nicely processed!

[foc (Ross)]

Thanks Michael,
There are a lot of telescopes out there and it would be good to see more images and planets/moon posted as these are not so difficult subjects as many of the DSOs.

I have to admit that while finding the right region for Uranus and Neptune is fairly easy even with my unrefined tracking capabilities...using the stock finder on the ETX to select which dot in the local group has a appearance that indicates it is probably the planet feels more like intuition rather than science! Still it is not too bad. On the other hand, the asteroids out there at the moment at magnitude 7.4 or less are much harder (for me at my level) to quickly confirm as non stellar using this beastie and I have yet to capture an image and they may be too small to be worthwhile...or may need to wait for Ceres to get close again.