Saturn

jgs001

jgs001

Brian Cox
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John
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Just thought I'd share this one, it's pretty poor really... The conditions have just been horrible...

GSO 150mm RC scope (1370mm), with a 2x Barlow (2740mm) using a QHY5v guide camera (23290mm in 35mm eq). 300 of 1000 frames of video, stacked in registax, wavelets, high pass sharpen and a gentle curve.

saturn2x.jpg
 
John that is fantastic. My efforts have come nowhere near that quality. I'm only using the D90 though and no stacking. I wonder what the D90 on video mode would be like. Oh for some clear sky's. I thought it was going to be good tonight and then the cloud rolled in.:bang: Would that image stand being enlarged to 800x600 or whatever?


Oh and what does wavelets do to the stacking?
 
Poor quality, huh! If I had something like that, it'd be framed and hung on the wall of my study with great pride.

Your astro-photography just amazes me; and you seem to do it with such ease (y)
 
Wow! That's amazing. One day I'll own a telescope ... One day ...
 
Thats really good considering how far Saturn is away from Earth, well done (y)
 
Thanks guys (y)

Doog said:
John that is fantastic. My efforts have come nowhere near that quality. I'm only using the D90 though and no stacking. I wonder what the D90 on video mode would be like. Oh for some clear sky's. I thought it was going to be good tonight and then the cloud rolled in.:bang: Would that image stand being enlarged to 800x600 or whatever?


Oh and what does wavelets do to the stacking?
Click to expand...

Dougie, the D90, isn't ideal, the sensor is too big... you could try the video mode, it'd probably work well, particularly if it uses only a small portion of the sensor.

Not sure it'll stand being enlarged, I can take a look... this is the size of the capture... I actually use a ROI (Region of Interest) setting in the capture software (guess you'd call it a crop during capture) as that way I could get a higher frame rate on the video stream.

Wavelets are not part of stacking, but the PP after stacking, they are a sharpening tool, easily overdone, but they really do make a huge difference in the results.
 
Nah, it's definitely photoshopped ;):p

Joking aside, I would be very pleased with it (y)
 
Actually, it was GIMPed :D :razz: I've not got PS on that lappy..

Thanks very much Kelly (y)
 
It's hard to get your head round the 'less is more' principle where sensors and astro photography are concerned, that's a really nice shot. My efforts to capture Saturn have all been jellyfished, my scope is a bit too small to be able to handle the high magnifications combined with the unstable skies over this last month or so.
 
Wow, I love that, not sure I understand the list of kit, any chance of a pic of that.?
 
Thanks all

Steep said:
It's hard to get your head round the 'less is more' principle where sensors and astro photography are concerned, that's a really nice shot. My efforts to capture Saturn have all been jellyfished, my scope is a bit too small to be able to handle the high magnifications combined with the unstable skies over this last month or so.
Click to expand...

It's quite hard to explain, although Pete Lawrence does a pretty good job in the sky at night this month in the article on planetary imaging. As for jellyfish... I know what you mean... You say too small... but my best planetary image was with an 80mm refractor on Jupiter last year, with a 5x barlow. I actually am beginning to think that in poor seeing, the smaller scopes win out... the limit then not being resolution but the jellyfish view...

mj4456 said:
Wow, I love that, not sure I understand the list of kit, any chance of a pic of that.?
Click to expand...

Please excuse the rather poor photo...

IMG_7958.jpg


The scope is the white one on the right, the camera the red disk on the rear of the blue scope. At the time, I only had the white scope mounted, and didn't use the dual mount bar.
 
Really like that shot, its a good achievement. I haven't seen Saturn yet. Have bothered much looking into the night sky since Jupiter went away...

Must have a look some night with the Bino's!
 
Thanks guys... It's a bit noisy, my planetary camera has to have it's gain pushed to hard for this sort of magnification really.
 
jgs001 said:
Just thought I'd share this one, it's pretty poor really... The conditions have just been horrible...

GSO 150mm RC scope (1370mm), with a 2x Barlow (2740mm) using a QHY5v guide camera (23290mm in 35mm eq). 300 of 1000 frames of video, stacked in registax, wavelets, high pass sharpen and a gentle curve.

saturn2x.jpg
Click to expand...

I haven't got a clue what the setup means but the pic is absolutely awesome.(y)
 
That picture is great! I can't even see saturn that clearly through a telescope.
 
Thanks guys... Lazer, the capture and processing of the AVI helps to deal with the atmospheric wobbles that causes the distortion you get through a scope. Unless of course you're using a reflector of some sort and the mirrors need collimating (which is going to make it much worse).
 
Thanks ladies. Sue, Saturn can be seen unaided, although it does look like a bright star. A pair of 10x50 binoculars will reveal it's an odd shape... but you really need to get up to at least 80x magnification to get to see the ring with separation, and it's one of those moments no one ever forgets and makes you go WOW!!!.
 
Very nice, can easily make out the bands and some separate rings. How did you work out the 23290mm in 35mm figure? I've always been curious about that :)
 
Thanks. Take the focal length of the scope, multiply by the barlow and any tubes used. Multiply by 8.5x as that's the approx crop factor of the camera sensor. I only include it as a rough estimate on here, I don't include it on the astro forums.
 
Thanks Carl
 
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