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[starbux]

Got a new camera bracket from Scopestuff and wanted to try it out. Jupiter had a transit of Io going on. Useful camera settings included "Vivid" effect (heightened contrast) and "Cloudy" white balance setting. 8" dob, 3x barlow, Canon Powershot A510 1/25 sec exposure at iso 200, 4x zoom. Photoshop adjustments unsharp mask, levels in linear dodge and decreased color saturation to reduce noise.

My best Jupiter pic so far.

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

You can just make out Io to the right. I often have the most trouble with focusing on the matt screen , and can't really tell if I have true sharpness until I download.

It wasn't too long ago that shots like these were the venue of the professional astronomer with expensive equipment and huge observatories at their disposal.

I think yours and others here have posted really good images of the heavens with off the shelf goods.

Excellent stuff!...

[katodog]

Nice Picture. Is that a single shot or a stack?

[starbux]

It's a single shot. I use Photoshop. I downloaded Registax but I can't figure it out. Also I hate to break this to Joe, but the dot to the right of the planet isn't Io but is in fact a "hot" pixel artifact in the camera.

[katodog]

Registax is actually not that hard if you've got alot of patience and alot of time. It took quite a while to figure out the details of the interface, but my cousin uses it and seems to have it figured out pretty good. In my case, I have a hell of a time with avi's because for some reason it gives me an error when I try to open an avi. It always says "failed to start avi decompression". I figure it's some kind of codec issue or something like that. But I figured out a way around it. I use virtual dub to open the avi and save it as an avi. Then the avi will work for registax. As for stacking single images, they never come out quite right.

But, if you saw the few Jupiter pics I posted that were taken with his telescope and my camera, those were registaxed and they came out pretty darn good.

If you need help with Registax, I'm sure I or my cousin, or someone on this site, would be more than happy to help

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

But the dot to the right of the planet isn't Io but is in fact a "hot" pixel artifact in the camera

Damn!