Saturn 18-3-2011

[Carole]

Went out to try to sort my guiding calibration out having consulted Craig Stark (see guiding thread).  Thought as it was almost a full Moon I'd have a go at Saturn while I was there.  I had forgotten how tricky taking planets was - how did I manage 3 years ago with an ETX!?!?!?!

Anyway:
Telescope SW ED120 2 x barlow
Phillips webcam
1865 frames captured in K3CCDtools
Stacked in Registax with some wavelets.  Colour and resolution tweaked in PS CS3
Bl****y freezing



Tried a 5 x barlow, but could not get focus.

Carole

[Mac]

Nice capture,

I think the 5x was pushing you optics over their limit,
Mac.

[Carole]

I think the 5x was pushing you optics over their limit,

Yes, I am sure you are right Mac. 
I almost tried 2 x 2 x barlows but by then I was so freezing I could hardly move my hands and decided to call it a night.

Carole

[Fay]

Good idea to get a planet, what time was that Carole?  I have grandchildren staying tonight & will show them what I can

[Carole]

Well Fay I was quite surprised how early I managed to see it. 

I started at around 9.30 (ish), but by the time I had tried my B&W modified webcam which I wasn't happy with, tried out some new capture software (Sharpcap, which I couldn't find the files after taking several "captures"), fiddled around with the guiding calibration and then changed the laptop to XP so I could use my webcam (no webcam drivers on Vista) and got focus it was getting on for 00.30 am.  So the actual capture was around midnight.

Carole

[RobertM]

Good start Carole, I think thats the first Saturn posted on the forum this year.  As Mac mentioned the x5 was pushing it but I don't think you had much choice with image scale.

[Carole]

x5 was pushing it

I don't have a head for optical statistics so I just try things out, if they work fine. 

I'll have a go with my ETX125 on the CG5 next time, just wanted to try it out on the ED120.

Carole

[MarkS]

Nice one - very clear banding.

Mark