Planetary Imaging

[ruby compass]

@somber stratus FINALLY HAVE AN UV/IR CUT!! (btw its my birthday)🙏🏻

[low oar]

W happy bday

I need a ir pass 😂

[shell epoch]

Happy bday!

[teal sandal]

happy birthday man!

did u get a 585 btw

[low oar]

How do I pick a ir pass for my setup

[elder venture]

On their effectiveness and your average ability to gather data.

You would want the one that is the most practical; Gives decent data but not too much or too little light

and well, your applications for it

[sour cradle]

for basic use, pick 685 or 850

[elder venture]

thats..a way

[low oar]

Well I’m good at gathering data if that’s what you mean i use a Uranus C

[low oar]

C11 and Uranus C

[elder venture]

as in

what do you want to apply it for

so what purpose

[low oar]

Planetary

Sharper planetary

[elder venture]

so just sharpening? id go for 685

[low oar]

Well that and clouds for Venus and better banding and details

[elder venture]

850 does allow you to do some cool venus stuff and uranus stuff

it isolates the light more for a higher contrast and glare reduction

[low oar]

How much would both be?

[elder venture]

in cost?

like 50 bucks or something

[low oar]

Ah

[low oar]

Nice

Hm

I also need a better Barlow lol

@elder venture when is that summer sale on player one you showed?

[elder venture]

28th

[low oar]

Ah the 28th

[teal sandal]

what filters are best for getting detail in uranus?

I heard ch4 is good for the polar cap

[teal sandal]

what if you try 1 micron filter on uranus

[brisk yacht]

you would have to expose for like a second with a ch4 filter lol

[heavy mirage]

610nm seems to do the job

Here is a shot from 2022

[teal sandal]

woah nice, what scope did you use

[heavy mirage]

It's with a 10" scope. 5x4 minutes of IR data

[teal sandal]

oh nice

do you think that based on this data, something like an ir760 would help me get more details or nah

[heavy mirage]

What scope are you using?

And are you using a mono or osc camera?

[teal sandal]

im planning on capturing the planet with either a 12 inch dob or a 16 inch, idk what ill be using yet cuz im saving up rn. Ill def be using mono

[brisk yacht]

727 nm looks hella cool

[heavy mirage]

Based on the images 760 should be fine, just keep in mind that you'll have to increase exposure/gain as you get deeper into IR

[teal sandal]

yeah, ill keep that in mind

thank you

[ruby compass]

THANKSS

[ruby compass]

THANK YOUU

[ruby compass]

saving for it. i however got a moped so uh. obv no camera lmao

[ruby compass]

685nm.

[summer pebble]

happy bday!!!

[ruby compass]

Thank you kenneth!

[teal sandal]

Ohh I remember yea, dude a moped is very cool

[ruby compass]

Yeahh

[low oar]

Saturn this morning straight from registax

i really wish i used a barlow here seeing was insane

and collimation was dialed

[low oar]

Saturn this morning

[flint siren]

Good shot, try smoother wavelets

[untold spear]

Mars 21/7/25

[native plume]

small

[stuck basin]

That’s pretty good what was the setup you used?

Also how high was mars above the horizon?

[native plume]

saturn n titan
i think i was slightly out of focus

[ruby compass]

Nah dont think so

[native plume]

theres the weird ring thing but i forgot what causes it
idk it could be also weather or processing

[ruby compass]

Stacking errora

Errors*

[native plume]

might try reprocessing using other videos

[ruby compass]

What did u stack in?

[native plume]

pipp -> autostakkert -> registax

[ruby compass]

Pipp is useless for planetary btw

Also just use astrosurface for everything

Processing and stacking

[native plume]

astrosurface?

[ruby compass]

Ya

Yea*

[terse night]

Dispersion

I had the same issue

[flint siren]

Airy rings ?

[native plume]

idk its this thing

[flint siren]

Collimation error or pinched optics

Or even seeing sometimes

[rain mauve]

i had the same issue also

[flint siren]

That doesn't look like dispersion

[native plume]

it could be collimation but seeing was also eh so idrk at this point lol

[flint siren]

Still a nice shot

[rain mauve]

Idk edge looks weird

[flint siren]

Yeah i know was just making a comment on Rubolo's post

[rain mauve]

Oh my badd

Sorry

[flint siren]

No worries

[terse night]

Yeah I'm not sure what it is

A user here suggested that it might be an internal reflection

Flocking the barlow fixed it for them

[flint siren]

Nah that looks like astigmatism

[terse night]

The Barlow is an achromat and I was doing luminance. I guess that could do it too, seeing was also quite poor

[flint siren]

Sided blurring means something is out of shape in ur optical train

That's not chromatism, it would look like convolution

Seeing cannot produce this too

It's astigmo (imo)

[terse night]

Mmh

I'll try to image with a single channel (or NB even) to rule out the stuff I said

[low oar]

Thoughts on this processing

[untold spear]

around 40°

[untold spear]

skywatcher 200p

[untold spear]

not that much for manual tracking, sometimes my autostakkert acting up if I didn't centralized initially

[stuck basin]

How did you get such good details with only 1200 mm?

How high in the sky was saturn and how much time did you get @untold spear

[untold spear]

Saturn 83°, I usually derotate for 15-18 min only

[untold spear]

2400mm* cuz I use barlow

Jup jup this morning after I woke up late

[rain mauve]

Bottom of the Saturn looks green

[untold spear]

Well.. kinda supposed to be greenish

[rain mauve]

I see

[untold spear]

Too much wavelets, I usually avoid that just bcs the shadow looks "unnatural" to me

[rain mauve]

Idk bout color, I thought it would be yellow

[low oar]

Yea that’s what it’s supposed to look like

[cloud copper]

A bit too oversharpened for my taste thb

[stuck basin]

Oh so that’s my problem, I’m only getting 2-5 mins

And I’m dining it pretty low

[stuck basin]

Why is no one talking about just how close Saturn and Neptune are?

Can someone please try to tak a picture of both in one image? I don’t have the equipment or skills and I would really like to see it be done

[thin aspen]

Still not close enough to get detail in both

[stuck basin]

I know but it would still be cool

[thick heron]

Seen them both in one scope. Basically two dots.

[ruby compass]

Autostakkert does that for me no mather what. Astrosurface works 100x better for me lol

[low oar]

Saturn this morning please provide feedback

[thick heron]

It's Saturn.

[low oar]

yoooooo

valid thanks ethan 👍

[low oar]

Saturn this morning on July 27th

my best yet

[terse night]

Looks very nice

[low oar]

thank you

[teal sandal]

lovely image of saturn

whats that blue band under the ring?

[sour cradle]

i think thats just a wee bit of ca or dispersion

[teal sandal]

yeah prolly

[low oar]

wdym

[low oar]

where?

[teal sandal]

Jups is BACKKK

[low oar]

yeaaa

[teal sandal]

doesnt seem to have changed that much

[low oar]

idk just color

[teal sandal]

alr

[low oar]

shouldnt really be any artifacts tbh

seeing was outstanding

[teal sandal]

i want one of jups bands to disappear for a little bit like it did in 2010

it looked cool lol

[low oar]

Would be nice

[elder venture]

Very pretty
White balance is a bit off, its kinda purple

[low oar]

oh rly?

i cant tell

i did make it a tad more pink and yello

could be it

[elder venture]

hold up

[elder venture]

purpl removed

[low oar]

not bad

i like my pink though

you just take it away in photoshop?

[elder venture]

what i did here was just take the png, invert it, SCNR and then invert it again

[low oar]

i aint got a clue lol

[elder venture]

just to show what it looks like when the purple is completely gone

[low oar]

yea

looks nice

im reprocessing at 20% stack instead of 10%

gonna see how different it is

so i was curious what percent of the sky planets take up, for example saturn, to show how small they are, chat gpt says saturn takes up 0.00000006% of the sky, how accurate do you think that is

[livid sierra]

Do the math and find out lol.

[low oar]

Heck naw

[low oar]

Reprocess at 20% stack per video

[elder venture]

[low oar]

😬

Thoughts on the processing

Look bad or anything?

[ruby compass]

@low oar could u send a bit of the live view? 🙂

[low oar]

sure

how to i make the ser file a video?

[ruby compass]

just record it

[low oar]

huh

its a ser

[ruby compass]

yeah

[low oar]

wym record it

[ruby compass]

like with obs or smt

[low oar]

i cant open it anywhere

[ruby compass]

you can open ser files?

[low oar]

well in auto stakkert

nvm

i figured out a way

@somber stratus how does this look to you? Acquisition settings seem good to you

or anyone??

[somber stratus]

How are we supposed to tell acquisition settings from that

[low oar]

Oh

Idk

Judging how you would record yours or something

[white prawn]

Did the video generate a settings file?

[thick heron]

It's not saturated and not extremely dark so probably fine.

But yeah impossible to tell from just a clip.

[low oar]

Oh

Ok I got it

550 gain

8 ms

And 40 gamma

[thick heron]

Framerate?

Also turn gamma off if it's on.

[ruby compass]

crazy

[low oar]

Only 125

[low oar]

Why? It cut down on some fuzzy stuff around the edges

[thick heron]

1000ms / 8ms = 125, so it's fine.

[low oar]

1000 gain?

Wait what the thousand for?

[sour cradle]

1000ms = 1 sec

[thick heron]

If gamma is cutting down on fuzz it's also clipping faint things like moons.

It can always be adjusted in post-processing.

[low oar]

Ah but if I don’t care about moons or there aren’t any out is it ok to use?

[thick heron]

I suppose, but adjustments are best left to post-processing.

Gamma is kinda like stretching. It doesn't affect every pixel uniformly.

[low oar]

ah

would high gain and low exposure be better than low gain and high exposure

[white prawn]

https://tenor.com/view/just-a-moment-loading-windows-10-hold-on-gif-11521252

Okay, here's what I got from my Nexy (Celestron NexStar 130).

Settings:

[shell epoch]

Gain is like the same as iso pretty much right? And that can increase the noise of an exposure. There should be an optimal gain you can have though. But I think lower gain and higher exposure time is better between the two options

[white prawn]

Settings:

251 Gain
9.72ms exposure
0 brightness

[shell epoch]

Oh wait, we're in planetary forum lol

In that case, I'm not sure

[white prawn]

You're on point for DSO though!

[shell epoch]

Yayyy

[white prawn]

higher gain, faster exposure. Not going to be imaging M48 at 9.72ms exposure. 😆

[shell epoch]

Yea lol

[rain mauve]

yesterday saturn, captured with phone and 4mm eyepiece

[heavy mirage]

This kinda depends on seeing but imo higher exposure and lower gain is better to an extent.

[somber stratus]

SNR is better for longer exposures, but also more affected by seeing. Bit of a trade-off.

I never go above ~12ms unless I'm doing Venus nightside.

[low oar]

Ahhh I see

Is 23 minutes of Saturn to much?

[livid sierra]

Try it and find out.

[white prawn]

Saturn rotates at about the same speed as Jupiter, and Jupiter is imaged for about 90s. So 23m would be about 21.5m longer than ideal.

[rain mauve]

Tried it and it's rotating, cannot stack haha

[livid sierra]

Derotate much?

[low oar]

12 videos at 2 minutes each is to much?

How many should I stack then

This was the result with 12 minutes

[white prawn]

I was thinking 1 video at 23 min, SORRY!

[low oar]

🤯

Alllllright

Well anyway

Is 23 min to much?

Technically 24 I guess

[white prawn]

No, not at all. As @livid sierra said, derotation is a thing. Again, sorry. I've actually imaged Jupiter for 45 minutes.

[white prawn]

I thought he meant 1 video 23 minutes. Because that's the insane sort of thing that I've done. And my best Jupiter so far was a derotated 45 min session. And then I made an animation with it.

[low oar]

Bro what

That’s possible?

I mean I think mine looks good I’ll take it

[white prawn]

Yours does look good, no argument about that. I was just reflecting that I completely misunderstood what you were asking/doing.

[low oar]

Your good man

[rain mauve]

looks very clean

[low oar]

Thanks

[low oar]

The difference 10 months can make

[thin aspen]

Is it worth getting astronomiks 742 ir pass with my Neptune 664 even though the bayer will limit the capability.

[sour cradle]

the bayer doesnt limit IR near as much as youd think

the neptune 664c is even better too, it has a very good ar coating

and the sensor has excellent ir sensitivity

[elder venture]

The 664 is considered a cousin to the 585

[thin aspen]

What about resolution as won’t it be a lot worse.

[sour cradle]

in theory, you would get halved resolving power at 1um(edge of ir for normal cams) than at 500nm (green)
but, thats not really the case most of the time because seeing is significantly better in IR than in visual, so although it depends on atmospheric conditions, and how under or over sampled you are, IR isnt normally much of a handicap

[rain mauve]

my saturn images, phone and dslr

[thin aspen]

I thought resolution would be quartered due to the bayer pattern?

[sour cradle]

why would the bayer pattern do anything

[thin aspen]

Got my sources from chat gpt could be wrong 😂

[sour cradle]

it provides a small decrease to sensitivity, but nothing to do with resolution

[thin aspen]

Cool ye that makes sense. So does bayer do anything only using 25% of the pixel?

[sour cradle]

in the discussion of color images yes but we are talking about IR

[thin aspen]

So how beneficial will mono be at 742nm when the Neptune 664 has a >90% response percentage at that wavelength. Will it only be a few added percent with mono taking that mono is ~100%

[thick heron]

As someone who has done IR with mono and OSC, they are both usable for but it's not an insignificant difference.

Will still need to debayer with a 742nm filter. Channels don't converge in sensitivity until 850nm and above.

[thin aspen]

Might sound like a dumb question but, does debayering convert brightness data in each channel into colour data?

[somber stratus]

this morning

meh conditions for IR

[rain mauve]

do you really need expensive gear for planetary?

[terse night]

Yes because for planetary aperture is king. And aperture = $$$

[thick heron]

But how much do you "need"?

[terse night]

I don't know about that, I do know how much I want, and the answer is 2.5 metres

[low oar]

You can find deals though I mean it depends on how much money you think is a lot

[low oar]

Dang I really need a ir filter

I feel like this is gonna be my best with rgb for a while

[elder venture]

you'd want expensive gear for planetary

but its by no means required.

You often find 12'' dobs for as low as 400 dollars

that with a half-decent cam and youre ballin

[thin aspen]

Is this with the 642nm?

[rain mauve]

why this hobby is so expensive 😢

[rain mauve]

i see now

[rain mauve]

rip me, im still using cheap telescope, phone and dslr

dunno what ir/uv cut filter

man gotta learn more

[untold spear]

drizzle 3x?

[native plume]

what scope do you have rn

[teal sandal]

You can try (IR)RGB later when u get an ir filter

[low oar]

Idk what that is haha

[low oar]

Plan on it

[rain mauve]

celestron 80eq

[low oar]

What’s drizzle?

[terse night]

Method to get more resolution out of under sampled images

It was developed for Hubble lol, you need properly dithered data tho, for planetary that's easy to do

[low oar]

Oh dang do all you guys do it?

[terse night]

I don't, I'm not under sampled, the opposite actually

[low oar]

Is it in auto stakkert

[low oar]

Should I do it anyway what would it hurt?

[terse night]

SNR

[terse night]

Yes

[low oar]

I feel I’m always confused when it comes to this stuff

[thick heron]

Doubt.

Looks like a classic case of upscaling an ice giant by a lot and confusing artifacts for real features.

[elder venture]

a neptune-664C user

[thick heron]

Sidenote, the same person made this obviously AI-upscaled Ganymede image despite not listing in the software.
https://www.reddit.com/r/astrophotography/comments/16dzmna/ganymede_largest_moon_in_the_solar_system_jupiter/

[elder heath]

"largest planet in the solar system" lmfao

[thick heron]

True if you delete 7/8 planets.

Back to Neptune, I would be skeptical about small features on it without a time-lapse.

[elder heath]

Bully him into doing Pluto and force him to post it unedited

[low oar]

Valid

[olive saddle]

that's a... suspicious amount of detail for only a 16" aperture

[shell epoch]

Not really when you see what Tom did with his 16" https://discord.com/channels/794642864218439681/1279728626761334884

[thick heron]

Wrong planet.

[shell epoch]

Ik but they're close in size

[thick heron]

By area Uranus appears 2.4x larger.

[teal sandal]

Bro did not get that detail with a 12”😭

Oh I can see ai involved

https://tenor.com/view/emoji-meme-jar-gif-4658690738464352739

[somber stratus]

I particularly like the highly scientific method of only outlining the areas that match, and completely ignoring those which don’t.

[thick heron]

"Match"

[olive saddle]

Oh make no mistake, Tom's image of Uranus with the 16" is really impressive and awesome. But that's Uranus, Neptune appears a lot smaller because of how much further away it is from the Sun, literally almost twice the distance from the sun as Uranus is.

Doesn't matter that physically they are nearly the same size when there's such a huge difference in distance

[ruby compass]

@somber stratus how close to the Dawes Limit of 0.57 Arc/s could i get with my 8" skywatcher classic 200p dob?

[dark cargo]

Not Tom but, as far as I know you can go 1/4th-1/3rd dawes limit in arcseconds per pixel.
I've used ~0.2"-0.15" with the same scope for planets.
Don't quite remember the physics of why that is true I think it has something to do with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyquist_rate which requires you to at sample twice as often as the smallest signal you want to capture.

Can use the "7 times pixel size in um divided by focal ratio" to figure out what barlow power you need to get to that maximum sampling. Do note that you can vary barlow power with distance and that for optimal results you will need to wait for good seeing.

[ruby compass]

yeah

[low oar]

This is a reprocess

Is it better than this

[rain mauve]

Like this one more, more natural for my eyes

[olive saddle]

This one looks more well defined, the detail is sharper but it's not oversharpened either, it looks great.

Colors wise, the first one looks just a tiny bit too saturated, but the second one seems undersaturated. A nice medium between the two would be great I think, though that's just me

[native plume]

this looks better imo

[brisk yacht]

I disagree with yall, i think this is better

[low oar]

To each its own

[sterile marsh]

Kenny here is my try at saturn this morning

[rain mauve]

today saturn with phone

[white prawn]

When are you guys going to get these images? I think where I am I'd have to be up at an incredibly insane hour for Saturn to Zenith and hope it doesn't coincide with sunrise

[elder heath]

I'm in Maine, Saturn comes up at 10:30. Not too bad.

[somber stratus]

*meridian, and yeah most places it reaches meridian around 3-5am local

[white prawn]

I’ll have to check again. I’m not sure it’ll make much difference because of how the air quality in seeing has been lately.

[white prawn]

I thought highest point was zenith? Ok

[somber stratus]

Zenith is overhead, 90 degrees elevation

Nadir is the opposite - beneath your feet

Meridian is the line that separates E and W, I.e Saturn is highest when it crosses the meridian line

[ruby compass]

not really planetary but i have observed Capella as 2 stars? (Polaris in first image and Capella Aa and Ab in 2nd.

Capella looks illongated. i really hope thats bc its 2 stars.

(sharpest image of capella)

[ruby compass]

(0.21 Arc/s per pixel)

[sour cradle]

tbh, that just looks like dispersion to me

[ruby compass]

i mean why doesnt polaris have it tho?

also capella is 2 stars

[sour cradle]

different elevation

[ruby compass]

like a 20 degree difference

[sour cradle]

might not be enough, but some of that elogation is definitely a form of chromatic aberration, whether dispersion or inside your optics

[ruby compass]

if its inside optics polaris should also have it

[sour cradle]

well
no

[ruby compass]

why not?

[sour cradle]

youd have to have both of them in the exact same part of the fov when they were imaged respectively

[flint siren]

Given your PSF and aberrations, it's not the binary

[sour cradle]

also
its kinda obvious that there isnt a big red blob off to the side of capella irl, so like
its not a real object there

[sterile marsh]

Everything i captured in one night

[flint siren]

Interesting experiment. The same file with different wavelets and processing in a bicolor image.

[flint siren]

AR4167 under meh seeing

[ruby compass]

also as an referance for how zoomed in i was. (same fov)

[flint siren]

AR4167 timelapse in R band

[elder heath]

No way you just pulled this out of nowhere

[flint siren]

?

[elder heath]

What's your specs

[rain mauve]

saturn with phone, seeing was excellent

[olive saddle]

what phone and what telescope?

like aperture, focal length, type, etc

[rain mauve]

Infinix note 50 pro
Celestron 80eq
80/900mm
F11. 25
Using 4mm eyepiece

62 degree fov

Its not really that expensive telescope

Cheap telescope haha

[olive saddle]

Ah ok, not bad for the equipment tbh

[elder heath]

It's the eyepiece that does it

x20 mag

[olive saddle]

I'm actually surprised the optical quality was able to support the 4mm eyepiece, for a cheap 80mm Celestron newt

[rain mauve]

Even with eyepiece, still really hard for align it

[olive saddle]

that's a lot of magnification for very little aperture (as far as newtonians go)

[rain mauve]

Yeahh, it depends on what seeing

Seeing was excellent, so I went for 4mm, and Saturn was 50/60 degree something like that

So it helps

[olive saddle]

Excellent seeing does help significantly I'd imagine

[flint siren]

Jupiter in IR850 just after Sunrise

[elder heath]

No shit, use a smaller eyepiece

[low oar]

anyone get the titan transit this morning

[elder heath]

💔

I was outside with my family last night looking at the moon, I was jumpscared thinking Saturn was up except the star app I was using had me either in the wrong hemisphere or the wrong time

[low oar]

it rises late like midnight

for me

[terse night]

Let me check when it happens in Stellarium rq

[low oar]

its already happeed

[terse night]

Ah, then the answer is no

[low oar]

rip

[rain mauve]

The thing with using smaller eyepiece, yes it definitely sharp and brighter , but my phone cannot do ROI, which... I cannot do true crop unless my phone has optical lens in it, which I don't have

[rugged knoll]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1234984645884641351/1401809827570778203/20250804-0611-23.4808247.mp4?ex=68924963&is=6890f7e3&hm=c14d1f5a919917b9ad46c1da999b3082b941d1a216c7b65a6b80d336a75b749f&

this morning

[rugged knoll]

how do i make winjupos not put this circle around the moon

[heavy mirage]

Try going into derotation settings (to the left of add images button) and disabling or reducing the size of the planetary moons alignment

[rugged knoll]

that was with it off, but i fixed it already

[heavy mirage]

Nice!

[rugged knoll]

it was ld value

changed it from 0.85 to 0.90 and it went away

[heavy mirage]

Ah the good old ld value, I've kept mine at .65 for the longest time hasn't done me wrong yet lol

[untold spear]

@heavy mirage you usually make 3 minutes for a single Neptune vid right?

[low oar]

not bad dude with a pic like that you can afford to zoom in a good amount

[heavy mirage]

I think you can get away with up to 4 mins for Neptune/Uranus, but 3 is probably fine

[untold spear]

My saturn field rotate so fast when I use 3 min. I only did for 120 sec

[sterile marsh]

How i took a 4 min video and it didnt rotate at all

[wind basin]

Dueyixheh

[untold spear]

I lived at 5°N so it close to equator. Everytime they planet passed through almost zenith it'll rotate fast

[terse night]

Where you live on Earth doesn't change how fast the planets rotate lol, the planet's rotation you are imaging is what matters, not Earth's

[livid sierra]

Very smart comment but he's talking about field rotation, not actual planet rotation.

[terse night]

Oh my bad, but field rotation shouldn't be an issue when stacking very short exposures right?

[untold spear]

3 min

[terse night]

Damn

The stacking software doesn't align the frames in rotation too?

[untold spear]

AS!4 doesn't do that unless the rotation is very small

[elder heath]

Moontrail

[heavy mirage]

AS!4 does have experimental field derotation settings, I havent messed around with it much though

[low oar]

Eq mount 😩

[unkempt igloo]

Pretty good in mono but colour derotation is still a bit tricky 🤔

[unkempt igloo]

Use the "Limit" feature located next to the Open tab.
Select 1/4 of the frames in the capture and then Analyse again. Then move on to the next quarter of frames

[limpid prairie]

my first image

[native plume]

congrats
what did you use?

[limpid prairie]

a 114/900 konus telescope
for the camera my phone redmi 12

[limpid prairie]

the seeing condition was so bad it was Wendy but still had a pretty decent image

[ruby compass]

@somber stratus would it be possible to get Uranus rings with an 8"? And would I be better off not using a barlow for it? (Pix scale is 0.64arc/s per pixel without barlow and .22 with)

[somber stratus]

Unlikely. Smallest aperture I’ve seen it done with is 14”, and that was dubious too.

[ruby compass]

Yosh did with an 8" im quite sure

@flint siren

Tom look at Yoships pfp

[low oar]

C11

[elder heath]

You even got the bands

[low oar]

Uhhh maybe haha idk

[livid sierra]

Ask him then lol.

[dapper spade]

Hi guys, I have been trying to do astrophotography for a long time now and about half a year ago got a Meade LX90 8" and a zwo asi462mc. Last night I gave them a go and tried to film Saturn, which was high in the sky, in hopes to process in PIPP, Autostakkert and Wavesharp, which came out blurry and grainy and PIPP refused to properly debayer it. When I tried to get Jupiter, it wouldn't even focus, merely drifting closer to focus then further away again. Any help with why this may be would be greatly appreciated?

[low oar]

Could be collimation?

[thick heron]

Why do you need PIPP?

[low oar]

^

[heavy mirage]

Yeah I would avoid pipp/only use it in extreme cases. Autostakkert provides most of the functionally needed for proper debayering, cropping, alignment, trimming, and stacking.

[ruby compass]

@somber stratus would (YOU) be able to get neptunes ringes?

[teal sandal]

Avoid pipp? Does it do something bad to the data?

[somber stratus]

No.

[ruby compass]

Oh.

Why?

Are the rings like less bright?

Cuz neptune isnt that much smaller in the sky

[flint siren]

Less bright, smaller apparent separation

Even hubble struggles here

[ruby compass]

Oh alr

[dapper spade]

Thanks - sorry just having difficulty with working out those functions on Autostakkert lol

[dapper spade]

Not entirely sure how to collimate my SCT but it seems to be in collimation as the unfocused planets have the secondary mirror's black disk centered. I do have a laser collimator but the SCT disperses the light in weird shapes so I can't use it, not sure if that's normal?

[sour cradle]

im pretty sure laser collimators dont work with cassegrain or off axis designs

[dapper spade]

Ah ok

Any recommendations for alternatives?

[sour cradle]

cheshire

[dapper spade]

Nice, I'll look for a cheap one though seeing as I've already tried fixing my problem with costly gear that was useless 😭

[cunning lily]

100% the best photo of jupiter ever

[rugged knoll]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1234984645884641351/1401809827570778203/20250804-0611-23.4808247.mp4?ex=689cd563&is=689b83e3&hm=55c543a9d6d249b27d1cda715638da7e9e4a1e515ca07d959c7fad1c20a51b39& how good is this seeing

150/750 newt but im not sure what the fl was, i used a 2x barlow but didn't put the camera in all the way to get a bit stronger magnification

[somber stratus]

reasonable

[rugged knoll]

damn

thats the best seeing ive ever had 😭

[somber stratus]

I mean it's hard to say just how good it is as you're quite aperture limited

[rugged knoll]

cant afford a bigger scope 😭

i think this is gonna stay sold out forever

[low oar]

Solid

[low oar]

You can get a used 10 inch dob for cheaper

[rugged knoll]

No

that would be if i had an actual used market

there is almost nothing

it's all just "walmart telescope-$10"

[low oar]

Facebook marketplace 🤯

[elder heath]

eBay

[heavy mirage]

I have heard that pipp debayering is off, but the main reason is that its an extra unnecessary step

[summer pebble]

ignoring the artifacts and anything else strange, created my smoothest rotation of jupiter with the help of winjupos

(with data back from january of this year)

[sour cradle]

damn

[teal sandal]

Oh I see

[dapper spade]

Is debayering automatic on Autostakkert?

[elder heath]

Do I know you

[elder venture]

1100 is CRIMINAL for it

[white prawn]

Nicely done.

[rugged knoll]

i mean the sale

600 is a great price but it's definitely never coming back

[rugged knoll]

yeah

there is nothing

[flint siren]

Some cool clouds on Venus this morning

[native plume]

@somber stratus whats the smallest moon you have ever captured?

[somber stratus]

detected or resolved?

[somber stratus]

Titan/Europa for resolved, and Deimos for detected.

[native plume]

detected

[somber stratus]

Deimos then, 12.4km

[native plume]

crazy

[flint siren]

It's a fairly imaged moon

Ain't really crazy

[thick heron]

What is "smallest"? By angular diameter? Physical diameter? Brightness?

[somber stratus]

Yup. NEOs can be tiny but easily imaged for example.

[native plume]

angular diameter

[rain mauve]

Saturn with phone

[elder venture]

how much magnification

[rain mauve]

900mm with 4mm eyepiece

[elder heath]

225x

[rain mauve]

yeaaa something that range

[elder venture]

what aperture do ya have

[rain mauve]

80mm

[elder venture]

Youre beyond optimal magnification (160x) so its blurred unfortunately

[elder heath]

80/900 sounds stinky

[somber stratus]

4mm eyepieces are generally terrible, unless it's a TeleVue.

[elder heath]

My best guess is that it's some bird Jones sold for an absurdly high price for 80mm aperture, and promising high magnification

[rain mauve]

Its alright tho, i'm having fun with these eyepiece

Had enough with 10 mm, yeah indeed look Sharp but idk, my phone doesnt have really good optical zoom soo idk

[rain mauve]

I see

[elder heath]

mag should never be more than twice your aperture in millimetres

[rain mauve]

In theory yess

But let's push it out

Lmao

[elder heath]

That's how you kill a hobby

[rain mauve]

How so

Im having fun tho

[elder heath]

Alright, then enjoy

If you show it to anybody else tell them that it won't look good though

[rain mauve]

Yes it is

Im not really expecting high quality images

But hey atleast I got the ring

: D

[rain mauve]

With my current telescope

[elder heath]

I mean, 80/900 is probably a bird Jones

[rain mauve]

Celestron 80eq btw

Country like mine, telescope are not that popular and it really hard to find a good one also

[elder heath]

Oh it's a fr*c

[rain mauve]

Yeaaa

[elder heath]

It's also a powerseeker ew

You could probably buy a decent dob from ebay

Or there's a heritage 130p on Amazon for 300USD

[rain mauve]

💀

Nahh I don't have that much money, to be honest

[elder venture]

stop advising people to go on amazon to buy telescopes

[livid sierra]

Way to kill a hobby. Not saying his telescope is good but you’re just shitting on him.

[rain mauve]

Hey its alright

[elder venture]

Given the extent of your telescope this is actually quite decent

[rain mauve]

Nahh don't create a war in here

Because of my Saturn image

Nah nah dont

Chillin mate

[elder heath]

I just figured based on what he said would be the most easily accessible way to buy a decent telescope

[elder venture]

have you looked at some Edisla tabletop dobsonians?

[elder heath]

It's also the one decent telescope on Amazon for beginners

[elder venture]

buying telescopes or astrocameras on amazon is a crime

the amount of people that shit on svbony because they buy their shit thru amazon is insane

[rain mauve]

No I don't

[elder venture]

Look into them, theyre pretty decent and can give you some awesome results

[elder heath]

This insinuates that people who buy telescopes off of Amazon know what svbony is

[rain mauve]

Sadly, Doesnt sell in my country

Need to import from the another country

[elder heath]

What country are you in

[elder venture]

Oh what country are you from? I just based it off of india

[rain mauve]

Equator Indonesia

[elder heath]

Oooh. I see the telescope stock issue now

[rain mauve]

Yessss

In general people in Indonesia doesnt seem to be interested to telescope

Or space thing

Cuz yeah the costs

And inflation in here couldnt be worse also

[elder venture]

Have you considered making your own?

[rain mauve]

Hey I want to

[elder venture]

https://www.printables.com/model/224383-astronomical-telescope-hadley-an-easy-assembly-hig

[rain mauve]

Facebook guy like made 114mm diameter

And it looks great

[elder venture]

Yeah its a hadley

theyre mostly 3d printed

[rain mauve]

Aaaa

[elder heath]

I'm assuming you could probably get 114mm for under 200USD where you are

[elder heath]

But that's only if you could buy the optics from within the country

[rain mauve]

Might be consindering this

[rain mauve]

Yeaa

[elder venture]

oh woops is the german ebay

https://www.ebay.com/itm/144430895070

[rain mauve]

Thank you for showing me this btw

[elder venture]

of course

[rain mauve]

Wait till I got the money, might be build it haha

Maybe Ill get the diameter lens in local store in here

They might be sell it I hope

[untold spear]

AliExpress and East Asian buyers:

[untold spear]

Which part of Indonesia? Also how much is your budget?

[rain mauve]

Borneo

[untold spear]

Yeah that's pretty close to equator

[rain mauve]

But soon i go to java

[untold spear]

You could try AliExpress, there's a lot telescope and equipment there

[rain mauve]

Ali express banned in here

[untold spear]

Shi

[rain mauve]

Cannot order through

[untold spear]

Taobao?

[rain mauve]

That could be an option

[untold spear]

Do you think Shopee Malaysia ship there?

Cuz we have two authorized sellers

[untold spear]

https://www.opticaluniversescientificinstrument.com/

Try here

[rain mauve]

This sell only telescope?

[rain mauve]

Idk, i never tried it

[untold spear]

With equipment of course

[rain mauve]

Budget not might be like expensive one, less than 130 us dollar

But I'm planning do like diy hadley telescope, kinda cheap for me

[untold spear]

This is my first time I met Indonesian telescope owner and fluent in English. I'm not attacking your people. I only know two content creators owning a telescope there but they only speak local. Also, I know one guy, Mutoha Arkanuddin on Facebook. He have his own observatory with telescopes, plus he's very active

[rain mauve]

Hey chillin mate

[rain mauve]

Yeaahh, there are few content creators in Indonesia that make content like astronomical thing

[rain mauve]

Ahh that mister, looking at his setup make me wanna cry lmao

[untold spear]

Actually almost similar case with my people. I feel like I only know 5 people do planetary imaging. It's not famous here, the only thing is very active is islamic astro. Imagine having a large telescopes at different states just to do tourism and moon observation, especially new moon. I never seen they do planetary. Except there's one observatory NEO here

[rain mauve]

Couldnt agree more, i only know few people in here also, like maybe 1 or 2, but yeah they like do moon, idk Planetary feels so underated in here also

Meanwhile me with 80mm refractor lmao

Its alright tho, ill upgrade soon

[untold spear]

Funny enough they use 2000USD DSO camera just to capture moon and solar, on 5" frac

[rain mauve]

Trueeeee

So truee

[untold spear]

Reason? "Improve contrast" .I even had a debate with my lecturer in top university here

[rain mauve]

I mean like nothing wrong with moon, but it has more capabilites rather than caputring moon, with that set up i thing you can capture Uranus? Or even more

[rain mauve]

Anyway do you use tracker for Planetary?

[untold spear]

No

[native plume]

yooo optical universe scientific

[native plume]

i feel like its more of recognise thing idk how to explain like

lets say someone with little astronomy knowledge saw the moon through a telescope, they would be impressed because every month they see the moon in the sky as a bright ball

now lets say we showed them neptune, tiny blue dot, never seen neptune in the sky before, they feel bored, but when you show them the moon with all of the crators theyre amazed at the detail

I usually let other people look through my telescope and when i show them for example jupiter, they always either want more zoom or more detail then get bored after a bit because my telescope cant get "nasa level quality" live views of jupiter

[rain mauve]

Yeet got Saturn again

Seeing was excellent, last night data

[elder venture]

[rain mauve]

: D

[low oar]

Titan transit tm morning

[low oar]

First stack

[rugged knoll]

something nibbling on the edge of saturn

[low oar]

Yea I really like this shot

Little chunk is missing

[sour cradle]

some chunks are also missing from your screen

[low oar]

😬

Is this poor collimation?

[low oar]

I’m shooting rn I ain’t got time lol

[candid flare]

Bad Response.

[woven kite]

trenches.

[native plume]

print screen? done

[low oar]

lol

[sour cradle]

i should do some planetary using a thermal camera (no i shouldnt) now that ive got mine up and running (i still have to program the rp2040 to control the cooling system)

[elder venture]

you have a thermal camera?

[elder venture]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/988639133947818064/1304519874588053565/togif-14.gif

[native plume]

i have no idea how to get rid of it lol

[sour cradle]

two, technically. Both nearly equally shit

[untold spear]

uhh I missed an eclipse

[low oar]

still a good shot

[untold spear]

thanks, also it's impossible to see titan transit from here

[low oar]

oh rip

im processing my timelapse rn

i got 3-4 hours

[heavy mirage]

Uranus and Jupiter (reprocess)

[native plume]

i dont think im derotating correctly
or maybe i am idk

[ruby compass]

what do yall think of the new moon found around uranus?

[native plume]

cool discovery

[ruby compass]

real

[livid sierra]

It’s a moon, what is there to say about it.

[ruby compass]

@somber stratus when are we getting jupiter images?

[thin aspen]

Its low and close sunrise in uk atm. Most of the times not worth it with the seeing being so trash recently aswell.

[ruby compass]

yeah ik. just seen alot of people image it already

like this image from @thick heron

[thin aspen]

ye true, just not worth it though when stacks look like soup. 2 months time it will be way better so worth waiting until then.

[ruby compass]

yh

[somber stratus]

clouds more than anything tbh

I've wanted to image it but haven't had a good opportunity

[thick heron]

No excuses. Get to work Tom.

[ruby compass]

uranus rings (10sec of time) setup for rings/moons: paint 3d (totally real)

[thin aspen]

1 month even and its way better, 20 degrees higher around sunrise.

[elder heath]

2km? Not with my telescope.

[ruby compass]

nah bro its your image trust me

[somber stratus]

[elder venture]

its a piece of rock

[ruby compass]

Woahhh🤯

Didnt know

[shell epoch]

That's sick

[somber stratus]

Just imaged it this morning. Seeing was great.

[elder venture]

This your first Jupiter this season?

[somber stratus]

Technically, no, but first one that isn't pure soup, yeah.

This was my first attempt in early August (yes it's sharpened)

[elder venture]

damn man id be happy if i got a result like that

[elder venture]

Any transits?

[somber stratus]

Not Jup, but Saturn yes

[elder venture]

https://tenor.com/view/me-atrapaste-es-cine-its-cinema-cinema-esto-es-cine-gif-17729711691959966457

crazy work

[somber stratus]

The fact the OSC is the same sharpness as the IR shows the seeing.

I have some really nice UV Venus data also. Lots of work ahead

[elder venture]

looking forward to seeing it

[thick heron]

If it were really good OSC would be sharper than IR.

[somber stratus]

Probably would've been overhead, but alas, what can you do.

[thick heron]

Live in Barbados.

[elder heath]

Saturn is like Jupiter but with better fashion

[ruby compass]

W

[sour cradle]

its just a phase

[elder heath]

The rings will be gone in a million years smh

Or maybe more I can't remember

[native plume]

300 million years i think

[rain mauve]

tom do you ever do pluto?

[somber stratus]

too low for me

gets to 15 degrees

[sour cradle]

come on
just do it

[rain mauve]

i see

[thick heron]

A 14-year old girl and her boyfriend in Alberta can do it for realsies so why can't you?

[elder heath]

It's not that hard to do lol, especially with goto

[ruby compass]

I saww

[elder heath]

30 second exposure will do it if you have 4 inches or more

[ruby compass]

Pleaseee

[olive saddle]

I'm sure the 24" dob is NOT easy to move around and transport

[elder heath]

That is true

Fedex truck

[olive saddle]

Hear me out

One of those huge Pantsir S-1 or FlaRakRad Anti-Air Trucks, except remove the SAM Turret from its platform, and then replace it with a gigantic Newtonian

Mobile telescope platform, trust me it'll totally work

trust

[ruby compass]

@somber stratus if you could point Hubble at anything you want for max 24h what would that be? (Only 1 object)

[livid sierra]

@somber stratus what is your favourite food to have for breakfast? You can only pick 1.

[somber stratus]

@ruby compass live views you asked for y'day

[rain mauve]

I don't really understand with Venus and the other planet processing, Venus need uv cut filter in order to capture the cloud in there? Meanwhile other planet, you point it , press record then stack it?

I'm sorry, I'm just curious

[brisk yacht]

for venus you need a UV filter to capture the clouds

not a UV/IR cut filter

[rain mauve]

I see now...

Is it always mono?

Soo tom captured 3 seperate channel, then stack it later?

[brisk yacht]

no, you can capture it with both a color and monochrome camera but the only reason why most of the time its mono is because those cameras are much more sensitive than color cameras

[brisk yacht]

im not sure how many channels he got but thats how creating color images works

you combine the blue, green and red channel (or other channels) to create color

[rain mauve]

Sooo.... Mono capture more light than color camera?

[rain mauve]

I see now

Thank youu

[brisk yacht]

yes because it doesnt have the bayer pattern so it captures 3x more light basically

[rain mauve]

I see now, thank you very muchh

Last question, planets like Venus , Saturn etc, rotate so fast, soo with mono you need like 3 seperate channel, is it going to blurry when it comes to stacking?

[brisk yacht]

rotation is only a factor when imaging jupiter and saturn which is why you dont wanna record for more than like 3 minutes at a time depending on your focal length and for the channel combination you will need to derotate them using winjupos

[rain mauve]

I get it now, thank you very much

For explaining

[brisk yacht]

np and i kinda forgot about mars since rotation is also a factor when imaging it but not as much as the planets i mentioned before

[rain mauve]

I see i see ok kk

[elder venture]

@somber stratus Have you imaged any of Jupiters moons specifically with your 24''?

Im interested to see how they look with 8'' more aperture

[somber stratus]

Correct. Also, Venus has most of it's detail in the Near UV due to upper atmosphere absorption. That's why it's interesting in UV.

You can get details in visible light but you just have to push the processing much further

[sour cradle]

uv/vis/1um would be a peak palette on venus

[flint siren]

not so much

would rather look weird, G/vis gonna mess things up

[white prawn]

What in the actual flying ... my atmosphere is so fuzzy right now that it's hardly worth imaging. You get such wonderful atmosphere that you could just take a single frame and not even process and it would have more detail than what I can get after imaging for an hour and derotating.

[somber stratus]

1 micron is super featureless unfortunately, excluding the NS of course.

[somber stratus]

Was a particularly good night in fairness. I've had a lot worse lately.

[sour cradle]

yeah
youd have to do an hdr stretch there to make it look good
but you'd be able to get detail across the whole disk at once, itd be cool

[white prawn]

I could cry.

[sour cradle]

thats true
probably better to do a shallower ir filter, like a 642, instead of vis there

[flint siren]

Well i can try some of this out, i have NUV/NIR and RGB from two days straight back in feb

[elder venture]

How would an IR-RGB-UV Venus look like

You got the typical IR/UV data but then also RGB in the mix

Icl some good processing of all of them could give a nice image

[elder venture]

IR is King of inconsistentency

[flint siren]

So R+IR(R)-G-B+UV(B) ?

[elder venture]

https://tenor.com/view/arriba-gif-12324188786972117417

I will need a minute to read that

[sour cradle]

thats too many letters

[elder venture]

Wait till this guy hears of the LRGBSHOCaFeHeArIRUV pallete

[flint siren]

R+IR for red channel, G for green and UV+B for, blue

[elder venture]

Yes basically

The „natural“ detail of RGB blended with UV/IR heavy detail

[sour cradle]

speaking of hows the filter coming along

[elder venture]

I sent them an email of the ideal product and have yet to hear back from them about the quote

[flint siren]

IR(R)-G-UV(B)

[flint siren]

this combo :

and RGB blended with IR/UV just looks bad

[elder venture]

Mmmm

[olive saddle]

unironically kinda pretty

vaporwave planet

[sour cradle]

that purple edge
peak

[ruby compass]

Okay that os crazy seeing.

[low oar]

best i could do, and probably the best i will get for this season of titan transits

rushed collimation ^

[sour cradle]

waow

[shy jolt]

what barlow is better 2x or 3x for a 10"?

[somber stratus]

This morning. A far cry off the seeing on the 22nd, but neat transit.

Same wavelets. 22nd and 24th.

[elder venture]

that IR looks incredible

[teal sandal]

Haven’t seen that storm before

[elder heath]

There's 2 storms in that circle

[teal sandal]

I’m talking about the dark one

In fact there are three storms in that circle

[elder heath]

That's a shadow

[teal sandal]

Oh

Dang

I thought something new was forming

[elder heath]

I believe it's a shadow of one of the Galilean moons, probably Ganymede or Callisto

[somber stratus]

It's Ganymede itself, not the shadow.

some surface features in the IR

[elder venture]

we are not used to 24'' of aperture with somewhat okay seeing

your images have spoiled us

[elder heath]

Jeez

[dark cargo]

In theory you could use upto a 6x barlow but a ~4.5ish is still reasonable assuming you are using the 600D as your imaging cam and your 10" is F5.
Max barlow power formula: 7 times pixel size in um divided by fl.

You can use some spacers to make a 2x or 3x barlow more powerful by increasing the distance between the lens and the camera.

Do try using something like Eos Camera Movie Record or backyard eos to record 5x liveview zoom in order to get 1:1 video for maximum details.
https://web.archive.org/web/https://www.astropix.com/html/equipment/canon_one_to_one_pixel_resolution.html

Maybe can get the celestron 3x xl and extend that? Would still be pretty hard to get to that high of a barlow power.

[low oar]

Not awful

[sour cradle]

its more reflective in ir than jupiter is it looks like?

[teal sandal]

Ohhh alright

[somber stratus]

Ganymede has similar albedo in VIS and NIR, it's just Jupiter is dimmed by CH4 absorption.

so it has that illusion

[shy jolt]

i used the camera movie record like u said some months ago and it worked very well but the problem is there is a lot A LOT of chormatic abberation and i think a celestron omni 2x would be alr people said that its ok

[dark cargo]

Yea it's pretty cheap, probably worth trying. But you'd need a lot of spacers to extend it that far.

CA is probably caused by a cheap barlow unless you are shooting below 30 degrees or so on the horizon.

[sour cradle]

I see
well
some very good images you are making
damn i really need a big scope

[shy jolt]

yeah i ave a cheap barlow

[shy jolt]

what is a spacer

[elder heath]

Daisy chaining if you're imaging small faint SSOs

[dark cargo]

extension tube to add extra distance between barlow and camera

[shy jolt]

but its just a small tube of plastic?

like an empty filter?

[elder heath]

The only use for low resolution imo

[dark cargo]

Yes, barlows spread out light so the more distance you have the more it will spread out the light. Doesn't work for focal extenders through.

[elder heath]

Though a high aperture scope with tracking and a x6 Barlow chain attached to it is kind of cursed

[shy jolt]

but all of them have a little glass inside

[dark cargo]

That is probably easier but I never tried it so not sure how great quality it will be. But DSLR planetary with a stupid amount of extensions is already a bit silly

[elder heath]

I mean, casual astrophotography isn't really a thing for kuiper belt objects and the like

[dark cargo]

Well you use one barlow and then just add empty plastic tubes/spacers between the barlow and the camera. Still need a barlow lens to actually spread out the light initially. More distance just lets it spread out the light more(so you get more magnification).

[elder heath]

I'm talking mainly science photography?

[shy jolt]

yeah but the spacer is empty inside? there is no glass?

[sour cradle]

yeah
it just moves the barlow further away

[shy jolt]

ok

thanks

[shy jolt]

but it doesn t make the planet more blurry?

[sour cradle]

not generally
it doesnt make it sharper either tho

[elder venture]

Technically does

since more pixels can define the edge

which can infact result in apparent sharpness

[shy jolt]

so it just zooms in?

[sour cradle]

just makes it a bigger image yeah

[elder heath]

Focal length extender

[elder venture]

^no

barlows dont add focal length

they stretch the image

[shy jolt]

ok thanks

[white prawn]

Dude, I want your telescope.

[elder heath]

That's a stellarium image

[white prawn]

Okay then I want that telescope

[thick heron]

If a Ganymede transit throws y'all off wait until you see Europa.

[white prawn]

I just want a telescope that can get a substantial amount of detail on Saturn's moons, never mind Jupiter's. I actually imaged Ganymede once and I think it was reasonable for seeing and equipment.

Even though it was ... blurry.

[teal sandal]

whats up with europa?

[thin aspen]

It’s practically camouflaged when transiting.

[elder venture]

its just ⚪

[teal sandal]

Oh dang

[low oar]

thats gonna be tough 😂

[elder venture]

Saturns moons and proper detail??

[low oar]

lol

[ruby compass]

what nm was used for the 3rd clip? the one where ganimade was super obvious

[somber stratus]

Both mono sections of that vid are with the same filter, Astronomik IR742 pass.

[white prawn]

I was trying to be reasonable. At least I didn’t ask for something that could see Neptune’s moons.

[sour cradle]

i wanna see plutos moons

[white prawn]

I wouldn’t mind having equipment that could resolve Charon’s features like the moon’s features

[somber stratus]

Triton is actually one of the easier few.

of the "dim" ones.

I'd argue Phobos, Deimos and Amalthea are harder despite being significantly closer.

[sour cradle]

should just move to pluto at that point tbh

[white prawn]

Would be a bit chilly

[rugged knoll]

Bring a sweater should be fine

[ruby compass]

Oke

[rain mauve]

got jupiter recently

with my phone

[low oar]

Nice

[woven tundra]

Looks nice

[vapid granite]

Jupiter whith 8inch scope camera is asi 585mc pro, but it is not that good i see people whith 8 inch scopes getting better results, if there is any pro planet shooter can you tell me how to improve?

[elder venture]

1. proper Barlow - Don’t go beyond optimal Barlow magnification, don’t get a 10-20 dollar one

2. watch out for seeing. It’s the biggest image killer

Given that Jupiter doesn’t rise very high yet it will always suffer heavily from seeing until it rises higher

[vapid granite]

I got the one that comes whith the scope the barlow

[elder venture]

What mag is it?

[vapid granite]

I dont know i will have to check tom cause im rn in bed goin to sleep in few mins

[low oar]

Stay collimated and get good seeing

[thick heron]

Clean

[elder heath]

Both my barlows are dirty

[thin aspen]

did you keep it in the ota while cleaning or take it out

[thick heron]

Kept it in the tube with towels on the base to catch water falling out the back.

[somber stratus]

That's what I do. Great minds think alike.

[elder venture]

rich people tactics

[thick heron]

Great minds were lazy and came to the one solution that didn't involve removing the mirror cell.

Doing it outside in the summer Sun was somewhat brutal.

Y'all would've been proud of how well it cleaned from what it was at the start, and disappointed in how dirty it was in the first place.

The reflection of me was a fuzzy silhouette at first.

[elder venture]

[ruby compass]

@somber stratus is there anyway i could improve sharpness? (Using an 8" btw)

mine vs yours

mine is only 33mins of data tho

[somber stratus]

Not sure, impossible to say without a full process. Mine is definitely sharper than that also. Idk if that's blurred to compression or otherwise.

mine uses 36 mins luminance, so not too far off.

[ruby compass]

compression

[ruby compass]

yeah

what f ratio did u use?

[somber stratus]

4.5

[ruby compass]

hm. what bortle?

[somber stratus]

6

[ruby compass]

alr that makes sense

[somber stratus]

M57 is bright though, shouldn't make much difference

[ruby compass]

i was thinking more about ic1296 tho..

like there must be more data in yours?

[somber stratus]

That's 36 mins.

[ruby compass]

outershell with 36 mins? wtf

[somber stratus]

barely

[ruby compass]

sure but still

[somber stratus]

Pretty sure smaller scopes get it in single longer exposures.

nothing special

[teal sandal]

mine doesnt, but im in b9 at f12

[ruby compass]

mine 😭

[somber stratus]

I'm talking 600sec Ha subs.

[ruby compass]

real

[teal sandal]

ah thats another story

[ruby compass]

that explains it. (im doing 1sec uv/ir cut)

[somber stratus]

Mine was 0.4s subs.

[teal sandal]

mine was 180s

[ruby compass]

yh

[teal sandal]

will you try m33 region?

i think ngc604 will look bonkers

[somber stratus]

Possibly. I went for M31 core yesterday and got tentative signs of star groups in M31 itself.

[ruby compass]

real

[ruby compass]

sneak peak?!

[teal sandal]

oh interesting

[somber stratus]

fairly certain it's not sensor related

[teal sandal]

[ruby compass]

wow. how much data?

[somber stratus]

10 mins

[ruby compass]

nice

[teal sandal]

how are you going to pick if the stars are in m31 or in our galaxy

[ruby compass]

i actually also went for m31 2 days ago

[ruby compass]

quite sure all of those are in our galaxy

[somber stratus]

I mean the slightly uneven background

none are resolved

they line up fairly well with blurred Hubble data (which resolves them)

[teal sandal]

so this graininess are possibly star groups inside the galaxy?

[somber stratus]

Probably star groups. The scale is much larger than noise.

and much smaller than sensor mottles

but we'll see if it shows up repeatedly in future sessions

only way to make it definitive