FELLOW PLANETARY ASTROPHOTOGRAPHERS

Hi David,

I was planning to go with larger scope for solar system or planetary as i feel that my 7" Skywatcher 180mm Mak isn't that much powerful for it like C11 or C14 and such, and now i am planning about a larger scope for next year i hope then i can return back to planetary. 

I live in Ajman city in United Arab Emirates.

Stuart Taylor:
I mostly do DSOs with a relatively short FL (1050mm native, 808mm reduced).

But I would like to get some nice Jupiter images while it's in a good position this month using my Edge HD 9.25" and a Barlow with an ASI224MC. But so far my results have been very disappointing. My Edge is 2350mm native (f/10), or 4700mm with a 2x Barlow (f/20). At that sort of FL I am really battling seeing and I am mystified about how other Astrobin users manage to get such nice images of planets. I guess there is a lot of practical expertise needed!

Just to clarify?  Are you using lucky imaging ... i.e. taking video rather than stills?

Hi,
My name is David. I have been taking images of objects in the Solar System since 2014 with varying success, on and off. I live in Brisbane in one of the outer suburbs and seeing is rarely good. The advantage i do have are high degree objects, with objects almost touching the Zenith as they pass over head. I first started out with a cheap 10" Newtonian and have migrated to a C11 XLT since last year, on and off (I'm sure you can agree this hobby can burn you out at times).



Jupiter - Best with my C11 XLT


My dream scope is to someday own the C14 Edge, but they are way, way out of my price range, costing around $18,000 AUD (which is a ludicrous price, considering how much cheaper they are in the U.S.).  Anyway, I digress.

I'm looking for like minded people who are mostly interested in solar system astrophotography to converse with and/or meetup with to learn from and/or part some of my knowledge to. In particular, anyone in Oz, or close to or in Brisbane. Or conversing with anyone in the world on the topic, really.

Hi David,

I am Jerry and I live in San Francisco.   I am very interested in finding people to image with maybe 2-3 times a month.  I want to do planetary imaging, but mainly interested in DSO.   I am assuming you're in Brisbane near South San Francisco!

Best,
Jerry

Tareq Abdulla:
Hi David,

I was planning to go with larger scope for solar system or planetary as i feel that my 7" Skywatcher 180mm Mak isn't that much powerful for it like C11 or C14 and such, and now i am planning about a larger scope for next year i hope then i can return back to planetary. 

I live in Ajman city in United Arab Emirates.

A Larger Scope would definitely help for Planetary.  At minimum i would recommend an 8 inch, but even with 8 inch you would be struggling to achieve high resolution planetary captures. But smaller scopes are less affected by atmosphere turbulence (seeing) than larger scopes

Jerry Gerber:

Hi,
My name is David. I have been taking images of objects in the Solar System since 2014 with varying success, on and off. I live in Brisbane in one of the outer suburbs and seeing is rarely good. The advantage i do have are high degree objects, with objects almost touching the Zenith as they pass over head. I first started out with a cheap 10" Newtonian and have migrated to a C11 XLT since last year, on and off (I'm sure you can agree this hobby can burn you out at times).



Jupiter - Best with my C11 XLT


My dream scope is to someday own the C14 Edge, but they are way, way out of my price range, costing around $18,000 AUD (which is a ludicrous price, considering how much cheaper they are in the U.S.).  Anyway, I digress.

I'm looking for like minded people who are mostly interested in solar system astrophotography to converse with and/or meetup with to learn from and/or part some of my knowledge to. In particular, anyone in Oz, or close to or in Brisbane. Or conversing with anyone in the world on the topic, really.

Hi David,

I am Jerry and I live in San Francisco.   I am very interested in finding people to image with maybe 2-3 times a month.  I want to do planetary imaging, but mainly interested in DSO.   I am assuming you're in Brisbane near South San Francisco!

Best,
Jerry

I actually Live in Brisbane, Australia

Tareq Abdulla:

Tareq Abdulla:
Hi David,

I was planning to go with larger scope for solar system or planetary as i feel that my 7" Skywatcher 180mm Mak isn't that much powerful for it like C11 or C14 and such, and now i am planning about a larger scope for next year i hope then i can return back to planetary. 

I live in Ajman city in United Arab Emirates.

A Larger Scope would definitely help for Planetary.  At minimum i would recommend an 8 inch, but even with 8 inch you would be struggling to achieve high resolution planetary captures. But smaller scopes are less affected by atmosphere turbulence (seeing) than larger scopes

Tell that to Damian Peach who is imaging from UK or even from top of a mountain in France for example or anywhere in the world with his C14 or Observatories 1 meter, so it is like seeing for him is always nice anywhere but for others are bad even if they image from the orbit of earth!!!

What i want to say is that seeing isn't always fixed, from my area we have all type of seeing from perfect excellent to very poor, i think those big names never care how bad or good seeing is and they use big scopes and even under poor images they are doing it, i want to say that if i only consider the poor seeing then big larger scopes should be stopped from all over the world simply.

I never said seeing was fixed. I am aware that seeing is fluid.

Damian Peachs really High Dev images are taken mostly from Barbados. He does occasionally have good seeing in the UK, but even he admits they are rare. Even the remote 1 meter Chilescope he uses is marred by bad seeing occasionally. However,  90 - 95% of good planetary images comes from good seeing and practiced techniques.

Admittedly, there is more to producing a good image of planets than big scopes, good equipment, ambient temperature, image train etc. Post processing presents many challenges because it depends on the capture you acquired first of all which influences the settings and workflow you use for each image.

I also think what happens to a lot of us is that when we capture bad images, we try our best to coax out as much detail out as possible from data that simply isn't there (i have been guilty of this quite a few times ) and instead we should be hitting the delete button. I believe this is where a lot frustration lies. This is hard to do because we spent so much time and effort capturing the data in first place.

Stuart Taylor:

Stuart Taylor:
I mostly do DSOs with a relatively short FL (1050mm native, 808mm reduced).

But I would like to get some nice Jupiter images while it's in a good position this month using my Edge HD 9.25" and a Barlow with an ASI224MC. But so far my results have been very disappointing. My Edge is 2350mm native (f/10), or 4700mm with a 2x Barlow (f/20). At that sort of FL I am really battling seeing and I am mystified about how other Astrobin users manage to get such nice images of planets. I guess there is a lot of practical expertise needed!

Seeing is around 95% for capturing good planetary images. If you live in the UK or anywhere on the planet in the northern or southern hemisphere affected by the Jet Stream, it'll be rare to have good seeing, maybe even 2-4 times a year. There are weather tools out there that can help with determining if seeing is good or bad, but they are not always accurate. The best thing to do is keep imaging and hope you get lucky;' seeing can change from minute to minute and you may get lucky .

The technical aspects to imaging is making sure your scope is collimated, and keep checking this, especially if you cross the meridian. (SCTs are especially prone to mirror flips/shifts when repositioning, particular when repositioning to the opposite side of the sky). The other important thing is scope temperature equilibrium; make sure your scope cools enough to ambient temperature. This will help prevent thermal eddies forming inside your tube which has deleterious affects to your images.

Thanks for this. I don't feel quite so inept now then ;-)
As regards the tech aspects, my scope is well collimated and thermal equilibrium should not be a problem as it is permanently outside.


I'll keep trying.

No problem.

If your scope is outside, keep it out of the sun (if you don't already). If its sitting in the sun, the scope will take ages to cool. Its best to keep your scope undercover, like a shed or a dark corner, somewhere where there is prolonged shade throughout the day. You can even try ice packs to help cool it down. I know some do this with their scopes

If your scope is outside, keep it out of the sun (if you don't already). If its sitting in the sun, the scope will take ages to cool. Its best to keep your scope undercover, like a shed or a dark corner, somewhere where there is prolonged shade throughout the day. You can even try ice packs to help cool it down. I know some do this with their scopes

I should have said, the rig is under a Telegizmos 365 which gives very good thermal protection. I only take the cover off after the sun has set.

andrea tasselli:
If it is Jupiter you're trying to image just forget it. It is too late in the season and it is not that really well placed anyhow for the UK now.

Best to try your luck with Mars instead. It is much higher than Jupiter and will reach 17" near opposition later in the year which isn't too bad for Mars. Plus you can get away with worse seeing if you're using IR imaging for geographical features. Well, unless there is a major dust storm, that is.

Thanks for this. I have never tried imaging Mars but I'll give it a go.

Tareq Abdulla:

Tareq Abdulla:
Hi David,

I was planning to go with larger scope for solar system or planetary as i feel that my 7" Skywatcher 180mm Mak isn't that much powerful for it like C11 or C14 and such, and now i am planning about a larger scope for next year i hope then i can return back to planetary. 

I live in Ajman city in United Arab Emirates.

A Larger Scope would definitely help for Planetary.  At minimum i would recommend an 8 inch, but even with 8 inch you would be struggling to achieve high resolution planetary captures. But smaller scopes are less affected by atmosphere turbulence (seeing) than larger scopes

Tell that to Damian Peach who is imaging from UK or even from top of a mountain in France for example or anywhere in the world with his C14 or Observatories 1 meter, so it is like seeing for him is always nice anywhere but for others are bad even if they image from the orbit of earth!!!

What i want to say is that seeing isn't always fixed, from my area we have all type of seeing from perfect excellent to very poor, i think those big names never care how bad or good seeing is and they use big scopes and even under poor images they are doing it, i want to say that if i only consider the poor seeing then big larger scopes should be stopped from all over the world simply.

I never said seeing was fixed. I am aware that seeing is fluid.

Damian Peachs really High Dev images are taken mostly from Barbados. He does occasionally have good seeing in the UK, but even he admits they are rare. Even the remote 1 meter Chilescope he uses is marred by bad seeing occasionally. However,  90 - 95% of good planetary images comes from good seeing and practiced techniques.

Admittedly, there is more to producing a good image of planets than big scopes, good equipment, ambient temperature, image train etc. Post processing presents many challenges because it depends on the capture you acquired first of all which influences the settings and workflow you use for each image.

I also think what happens to a lot of us is that when we capture bad images, we try our best to coax out as much detail out as possible from data that simply isn't there (i have been guilty of this quite a few times ) and instead we should be hitting the delete button. I believe this is where a lot frustration lies. This is hard to do because we spent so much time and effort capturing the data in first place.

And simply put about myself or my location, we have great seeing more than often, i started planetary in 2018, and oh man, i felt like every week or every month is clear seeing and nice atmosphere, so because of 2018 and 2019 i hated to keep using my 180 Mak, and then i did planetary like very few times after years until this year and i always have better nice seeing one way or another, this is what made me to think about going larger, if i never get nice seeing at all or very very rare i will never bother using even 6" or 4" scopes, i will simply just give up and stop planetary completely.

Again my point is, even if the seeing is rare that doesn't stop anyone from going bigger, i SWEAR that Damian and Christopher "POOR" seeing results are better than our nice seeing results because they used big scope and have long experience in processing, and when i looked at say 1 meter or 20" scopes results they were better than those two names C14 scopes, so aperture matter whenever the seeing helps and processing is there, i will never say that you only use small scope when it is great seeing, also it is very funny that people only using larger scopes under very poor seeing conditions only, i always watch the sky from my area and i see clear nice in many nights, my area is like lucky given for me from G.., so if that is the case why i hold back from going larger, i tried my 180mm and my ST80 and 8" Newt and they all produced amazing results of the moon and planets very simple even out of the camera without processing stacking yet.