Author Topic: Saturn Through My Telescope (Read 22907 times)

atomic7732 · « **on:** May 18, 2010, 07:41:38 PM »

Here we go!

Dan Dixon · « **Reply #1 on:** May 18, 2010, 07:43:04 PM »

Nice job. You can totally make out its rings.

deoxy99 · « **Reply #2 on:** May 18, 2010, 07:44:21 PM »

Boring. Just plain boring. I was expecting an image like this:

atomic7732 · « **Reply #3 on:** May 18, 2010, 07:48:21 PM »

That's from Voyager... I'm not in space.

Sadly, my camera kinda makes the pic iffy, it is better in real life. Plus my camera does WEIRD things. It'll be dark one time, then bright the next, then dark 4 times, and bright again.

Oh, and my grandpa is going to make me an 8 inch scope... The people say you can see the cassini division, and the bands... I don't expect much, probably just a faint gap and some faint distinction of bands.

APODman · « **Reply #4 on:** May 19, 2010, 11:30:02 AM »

Quote from: NeutronStar on May 18, 2010, 07:48:21 PM

That's from Voyager... I'm not in space.

Sadly, my camera kinda makes the pic iffy, it is better in real life. Plus my camera does WEIRD things. It'll be dark one time, then bright the next, then dark 4 times, and bright again.

Only by having achieved a stable image you're to be congratulated!

Quote

Oh, and my grandpa is going to make me an 8 inch scope... The people say you can see the cassini division, and the bands... I don't expect much, probably just a faint gap and some faint distinction of bands.

And also you can see Titan.

An 8-inch telescope with a good camera produces great images.

I'll start my adventure with photos through webcams, more specifically a Philips SPC900NC that is well suited for astrophotography, I think that in U.S. is easier and cheaper to acquire one:

- http://www.p4c.philips.com/cgi-bin/dcbint/cpindex.pl?ctn=SPC900NC/00&scy=gb&slg=en

Below a video of Saturn obtained with a Toucam Pro (old version of SPC900NC):

- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1-AOp8zm94&NR

To result in photos you import the video into the program Registax and stack the images resulting in an excellent picture.

Below a picture of Saturn taken ( by a friend with a 10 inch newtonian telescope ) with a Toucam Pro and after processing through Registax:

Source: http://cyberplocos.multiply.com/photos

More about SPC900NC here:

- http://www.orion-xt10.com/philips-spc900nc-webcam.html
- http://s217877884.websitehome.co.uk/astro_projects/webcam_mods/background/background.html
- http://www.flickr.com/search/?ss=2&w=all&q=SPC900NC&m=text

[ ]Â´s

atomic7732 · « **Reply #5 on:** May 19, 2010, 04:13:59 PM »

A webcam? No way.

APODman · « **Reply #6 on:** May 19, 2010, 04:17:30 PM »

Quote from: NeutronStar on May 19, 2010, 04:13:59 PM

A webcam? No way.

ItÂ´s not a simple webcam, it's a webcam with hight luminance sensibility extensively used in astrophotography.

Look in the links to see more information.

[ ]Â´s

atomic7732 · « **Reply #7 on:** May 19, 2010, 08:03:57 PM »

Oh. Yay!

atomic7732 · « **Reply #8 on:** May 20, 2010, 09:52:51 PM »

I have an image from a few days ago...

CRAP! I deleted it yesterday. Whatever, it wasn't any better than the image at the top.

atomic7732 · « **Reply #9 on:** May 24, 2010, 10:24:17 PM »

Okay, 5 (or 4) of the images I took (10 total) were good! YAY!

Have a look here. All images are in that zip file, even the bad ones.

Below is one of the good images.

deoxy99 · « **Reply #10 on:** May 24, 2010, 10:26:47 PM »

NeutronStar, that's not good. That's terrible.

atomic7732 · « **Reply #11 on:** May 24, 2010, 10:28:10 PM »

Eh? Have a look at other astrophotographer tries. They aren't more than 5 times as good. To achieve that you need Hubble or a 3 meter scope. Or Cassini.

Below it's cropped.

atomic7732 · « **Reply #12 on:** May 25, 2010, 08:50:23 PM »

Registax doesn't work at all.

I have two semi-non fail images... I am not happy about them at all. Yesteday was better, 1/75... 1/2... now 1/10

ALERT: UPLOADER FULL

Dan Dixon · « **Reply #13 on:** May 25, 2010, 09:06:48 PM »

Quote from: deoxy99 on May 24, 2010, 10:26:47 PM

NeutronStar, that's not good. That's terrible.

Compared to professional image of Saturn, yes... it's terrible. For using a small telescope and a camera that's not designed to be used with a telescope... It's pretty awesome.

deoxy99 · « **Reply #14 on:** May 26, 2010, 09:42:23 AM »

Quote from: Dan Dixon on May 25, 2010, 09:06:48 PM

Quote from: deoxy99 on May 24, 2010, 10:26:47 PM
NeutronStar, that's not good. That's terrible.

Compared to professional image of Saturn, yes... it's terrible. For using a small telescope and a camera that's not designed to be used with a telescope... It's pretty awesome.

Well, it's kind of good, but it's a little fuzzy. The fuzziness makes me hate it.

Dan Dixon · « **Reply #15 on:** May 26, 2010, 10:13:25 AM »

Quote from: deoxy99 on May 26, 2010, 09:42:23 AM

The fuzziness makes me hate it.

That's pretty harsh. It's fuzzy because it's really far away and we're looking through the Earth's atmosphere, do you hate that too?

deoxy99 · « **Reply #16 on:** May 26, 2010, 10:14:37 AM »

Quote from: Dan Dixon on May 26, 2010, 10:13:25 AM

Quote from: deoxy99 on May 26, 2010, 09:42:23 AM
The fuzziness makes me hate it.

That's pretty harsh. It's fuzzy because it's really far away and we're looking through the Earth's atmosphere, do you hate that too?

I hate that too, and I wish I had a billion dollars to make a telescope better than any telescope invented.
I think I am too young to make inventions right now.

atomic7732 · « **Reply #17 on:** May 26, 2010, 11:15:55 AM »

There's adaptive optics.

But those are proffesional stuff.

atomic7732 · « **Reply #18 on:** May 29, 2010, 12:02:12 PM »

So, now... I got an oddly nice image of saturn! YAY

Naru523 · « **Reply #19 on:** May 29, 2010, 02:29:56 PM »

whoa. pretty bright.

Dan Dixon · « **Reply #20 on:** June 01, 2010, 07:42:08 PM »

A suggestion for how to present these images:

Show the raw, actual size image of the planet and a highly zoomed version in the same picture.

atomic7732 · « **Reply #21 on:** June 01, 2010, 09:35:01 PM »

Like... and edited version? with a subset of the larger?

Dan Dixon · « **Reply #22 on:** June 01, 2010, 10:19:37 PM »

Quote from: NeutronStar on June 01, 2010, 09:35:01 PM

Like... and edited version? with a subset of the larger?

Yes. An edited version with both what you post now and a zoomed-in version.

Chaotic Cow · « **Reply #23 on:** June 02, 2010, 05:43:36 PM »

This is awesome. I've always been amazed how much a consumer sized telescopes can see from Earth.

Dan Dixon · « **Reply #24 on:** June 03, 2010, 01:56:44 PM »

Like this...

atomic7732 · « **Reply #25 on:** June 03, 2010, 02:07:13 PM »

That's my picture? AWESOME