Jupiter, Io and Europa (15 Aug 2011 1:37am)

[The Thing]

LX90 8" UHTC, HEQ5, Moonfish 2x ED Barlow, SPC880 flashed to 900 webcam. Guided on a star with PHD (not a moon).
480/600 frames @5fps using SharpCap processed in Registax 6 using default settings and a fair bit of wavlets. No darks or flats.

A clear night at last! Juputer was 25 degrees high when I captured the avi. Hoping to do a lot more in a month or so when Jupiter is up all night. I was very pleased to get the moons in the shot.

This is full size.


Sharpcap settings (it creates a txt file for each capture):

[Philips SPC 900NC PC Camera]
Resolution=640x480
Frame Rate (fps)=5.00
Colour Space / Compression=YUY2
Exposure=-7
Brightness=64
Contrast=32
Saturation=1
Gamma=0
ColorEnable=255
BacklightCompensation=0
Gain=57

[MarkS]

Wow!  Very nice indeed!

It's a great scale and the processing gives a very natural looking result.  You must be really pleased with that image.

How was the seeing (atmospheric turbulence) - I guess it must have been pretty good to produce a detailed result like that.

Mark

[The Thing]

Thanks Mark,

I am very pleased with the scale, getting two moons in is amazing.

This is the first webcam image I've done for ages. I got an SCT to 2" adaptor to take the ED barlow so the light didn't have to negotiate a diagonal as in all my previous attempts. I also made sure collimation was spot on and focused with a bahtinov mask on a nearby star. I started imaging when Jupiter was only +10degrees altitude to get some practice.

Seeing was not great, the planet was a bit like a blancmange on a bouncy castle with a herd of kids playing on it! I think Registax 6 has done an incredible job of pulling the pixels together. Guiding helped a lot and I was surprised to be able to see a couple of stars on the webcam. The scale of the guiding image was too small to use a moon - I tried.

Next trick is to find a better spot in the garden where I can polar align and see Jupiter when it's above the trees at the back of garden. Just south of your pond would fit the bill!

[Mike]

Nice image Dunc. It's good to see people having a go at planetary images again.

[The Thing]

Thanks Mike. Jupiter is going to be big this year. I hope others give it a go.

[mickw]

Nice one Duncan

[Mac]

Very Nice.

Love the colours.

Mac.

[Carole]

Very nice Duncan.  Nice to see the SEB back again.  Where did you find clear skies last night, I looked out several times and it just seemed to be cloudy?

Carole

[The Thing]

Thanks Carole.

It was completely clear in Beckenham from about 11:45 to 01:30 when some cloud started to appear.

[Tony G]

Well done Duncan, and it's nice when you process something, and you get that little extra (Moons), which makes it even more worthwhile. 

Tony G

[PhilB]

Very nice. Jupiter's set to become an excellent target this time around.

[Fay]

Really very good Duncan, I missed seeing this. I see you used the SPC, I have one but have not used it yet.