Latest Saturn image

Dave G - can you let us in on the secrets of the optical path to the webcam?

This is as good as I have seen from Damian Peach - and that's saying something.

I think all of the imagers on this board will have a tough job beating that for a long time to come.

Cheers and well done

Dave McD

Hi Folks

Thanks for that.
Some answers.
Yeah I can see the Encke minima alright by adjusting curves. Havent a clue about the green region there's no weird processing here just levels and curves in PS.

It's hard to get saturation right, I've just recallibrated my monitor so maybe the equatorial region won't be as saturated.

Optical Path is
C11 - Lumicon Giant Easy Guider (no lens) - Borg 7315 helical focuser - Celestron Ultima barlow - Baader UV/IR filter - TUC Pro in Raw mode. That' my standard set up.

Seeing
Will post a single frame to pove it )))

Resampling
None it's 1:1 but remember my focal length at f/22 is about 5.6M!!!(G11 focal length = 2800mm)

Dave Gradwell

Awesome!

One question - focussing. I'm just starting on this digital imaging lark (using eyepiece projection), and I'm finding focussing to be the hardest part of it to get right.

Do you use a Hartmann Mask or something similar?

Thanks.

Hi COByrne

Welcome to the wonderful world of webcamming! What I do is to just look at the image on screen. For Saturn pick out something like the Cassini Division which will only appear clear when you've got the focus right. For Jupiter look for fleeting detail in any of the belts. It takes time I can spend up to 30mins over focusing but as you can see it's worth it. Also get a decent focuser the Borg focuser I use was only EU115 from SCS astro and makes all the difference.
Hope this is some help, anything else you need to know along th way I'll try and help out.

dave Gradwell

Dave,
I was watching a repeat of the sky at night yesterday and they showed an image of saturn which also had the "green" belt on it!!.
I didnt catch the guys name, so its not your setup that is causing it.

WOW Dave ... Super shot !! Puts my best to shame!!!