My first attempt at capturing Saturn - Astrophotography EP1

[@KJRitch]

I’m just getting into the hobby and I’ve jumped in feet first. Purchased a Celestron C8 with AVX mount when they were on sale last June here in the US. Just used it for visual at first trying to get used to the hand control alignment procedures. Of course there is a learning curve with those procedures. The goal was to be able to find targets and have them centered. The few times I practiced with it over the summer were not encouraging and the lack of good weather at times prevented me from using it. There were the logistical frustrations of having to set it up every time I needed to use it. My wife and I live full time in a motorhome and move around the US. Where did I put my lens caps for my 32 mm eyepiece? I purchased a foam padded case for my eyepieces. I upgraded to a 9x50 scope with right angle eyepiece with illuminated cross hairs. I figured out the Celestron alignment procedures. The question I had would the Nexstar hand set be good enough to find DSO and track them to photograph? I purchased a T ring for my old Nikon D5100 DSLR and my Sony A6000 mirrorless cameras. But then I started watching videos on the ASIAir. This seemed the perfect tool plus it allowed me to work inside after initial set up outside. What looked easy of the ASIAir videos I didn’t experience. So I ordered a ASIAir Plus 256. I decided also to purchase a ZWO585MC the same time. It’s basically the same camera as your Svbony 705C. The first time using the ASIAir was a disaster. I couldn’t get the Go To feature to work. I learned after a few attempts and posting questions on Cloudy Nights my native focal length (F10, 2032mm) and the combination of the small field of view of the camera prevented the ASIAir to plate solve. If it can’t plate solve it can’t find and center DSO or planetary targets. Luckily I had purchased earlier a 6.3 focal reducer for my C8, my focal length is now around 1280mm. Using the focal reducer the ASIAir could plate solve and it was working as advertised, I was able to slew to 5 targets including Jupiter I one night. I was able to use some of the image features to actually take a photo with the ASI585MC of the Dumbbell Nebula, M27. I think the ASIAir is best suited for under F7. Maybe using my DSLR with a larger sensor I can use ASIAir in native F10 or maybe a ASi533MC would work. The newest version of the ASIAir app has some bugs that I found. The most annoying one is the mount slew direction controls don’t work properly, the slew doesn’t stop at time when you lift your finger off the direction icon on my iPad so I have to use the hand controller. So I’m back outside in the cold if I need to make an adjustment. I’ve lately been trying to take video of Jupiter since it’s near opposition. Because I want to use my C8 at native F10 the ASIAir won’t plate solve and it couldn’t find Jupiter. So like you with Saturn it was a manual procedure using my 9x50 finder. However every time I set it up I have to remount the finder so it’s always a little off. Trying to move an equatorial mount to center it on a visible target is still hard. The directions buttons on the hand controller don’t necessarily mean the scope will move in the direction you need to go to center the target. I used a 32mm eyepiece to center Jupiter then put in the camera and plugged it into the ASIAir. The ASIAir Video screen is like a Firecapture. Then again is the focus. The SCT has a wide range of focus. But after slewing around I came across I big bright sphere with a donut hole in the middle. Finally got Jupiter in the field of view. It was hard without a 2x barlow. I noticed that Jupiter wouldn’t stay in the center. The mount wasn’t tracking. Luckily even though the ASIAir couldn’t plate solve I turn on its solar system tracking and Jupiter stayed centered. I took a dozen or so short videos at first trying out different resolutions. I then inserted by 2x Barlow. And had to go go through finding Jupiter and focusing. In the end I got some decent AVI videos. At the same time I’m trying to figure out the telescope and accessories I’m trying to learn Siril. Since I use a Mac Autostakkert and Registax are only Windows. But I’m testing a trial version of Parallels 19 running Windows 11. Trying to process a Jupiter AVI in Siril I discovered another ASIAir software bug. The AVI can only be interpreted as a mono video not color outside the ASIAir and Sirl doesn’t see it as color. On the IPad under the ASIAir software it plays back in color. There is a workaround. ASIAir has a stacking feature and it will create a . FIT file of Jupiter and Siril can open it as a color file. So now I’ve downloaded Firecapture to my Mac to learn. I will have to go back to using the Celestron hand control alignment procedures to find planets. I think your approach is best for learning. The more technology you add at first the more it sometimes complicates the experience. You got some decent images. Good job.

[@lancerthewhippet9669]

I love this video. Because it gives people a realistic expectation of what to expect when they first starting out with astrophotography.. like you said, there are a million things that can be done to improve your images. But this is pretty much what we all start with.

[@stefanfeichtenbock6949]

I faced exactly the same problems when I tried to take my first planetary pictures with my dobsonian. Simply unable to find the planet... And as soon as I got it in the field of if view, it went out within a few seconds, so I did not have enough time for focussing. So I gave up after about one hour. Cheers to you, that you kept on and managed to shoot two really nice pictures 💪 Looking forward to your next steps in that direction

[@rajamanohar8004]

👏👏👏👏

[@vince953]

Every time I see one of these, it motivates me to break out my scope.🔭

[@AmatureAstronomer]

Good job! Thumbs up! Am currently trying out my Bresser 102mm ED f/4.5 refractor and my ZWO ASI183mc camera on my Sky Watcher AZ GTi on my first astrophotograph, Messier 31. I use a 9x50 right angle finder scope, but with a 40mm eyepiece, my f/4.5 optical tube has as large a field of view as the finder scope.

[@SkyWatch07]

Well done Damian. I’m on a similar journey with planetary imaging. Great to see you have dipped your feet into this part of the hobby. Looking forward to learning moe alongside your very informative videos. Clear skies. Dave

[@uhohDavinci]

A couple of tips that may be helpful. First defintely use the Dob, it can produce much better details/resolution, it also solves the problem of getting closer as im guessing it has nearly double the focal length. The 12" dob with that camera should produce amazing results even without tracking. You dont have to limit the drift to just one pass.. You can take multiple passes with the same video and just keep resetting saturn back to the start and let it drift across the frame repeatedly. Pipp will automatically discard the useless frames(when you are resetting) The max you'd want to take for saturn is 3-4 minutes. But you can get 3-4x the frames to stack. More chances of lucky frames. In autostakkert: set your Noise Robust under Laplace to 8. especially with the 4" and a small sensor camera, you aren't producing a good enough signal to noise ratio to run at 4. You should run the "analyse" feature before stacking to get a measure of "how many" frames you can/should stack. You could be stacking either too many, or too few without that information. Don't use multi-scale for your AP points, you lose a bit of detail. What size you should use is dependant on your camera/scope combo. 24-48 is usually optimal. And lower the min brightness, as that will allow the points to be placed closer to the edges. Most importantly.. You should be using registax for the sharpening. All your details are hidden in the wavelets. It's amazing what you can accomplish with even modest equipment with a bit of practice and patience. Good luck!

[@BogdanDamian]

@uhohDavinci Thank you for your input and tips! It's much appreciated. I'll definitely try out planetary imaging with my 12" Dob as soon as the weather improves a bit. I'll also make sure to experiment more with the different settings and processing tools. Clear skies!

[@ziggyfrnds]

Took you long enough 😂 JK well presented mate, and great capture :-)

[@valeriogavioli7581]

Beautiful video!!! I subscribed to your channel 😁👍

[@Sk240DC]

Great video, thanks for sharing your journey in planetary imaging. You might be able use a 90 degrees star diagonal in place of all those spacers, the image would be mirror reversed but you could fix that post processing. It might help with weight balancing issues. Another good thing with the star diagonal is you could use your eyepiece first to center the planet in the scope and then fairly quickly switch the eyepiece for your camera. A larger sensor camera would help too, I went from an asi385 to asi533 and now as long as the planet is in my red dot finder, it will be in the fov of the 533. Also, you might want to consider using a UV/IR filter when imaging with a refractor. Looking forward to you next episodes! 👍

[@BogdanDamian]

@stephenkwong4458 Great tips, thanks for sharing! I'll definitely try using a diagonal instead of the extension segments next time. I'll also look into using an UV/IR filter.

[@raresciortea2231]

Wow . A lot of work . I must consider myself lucky that I was taking decent photos of the moon with my phone and a phone adapter. Definitely looking into astrophotography in the future.

[@Sw87sw87]

I tried this the other night for the first time with a similar setup but used a dslr. Jupiter just looks like a bright white ball in my picture. I’ll try again in a few days.

[@BogdanDamian]

@koalafishmutantbird4682 Try reducing the exposure a bit. It should make details be visible. Keep at it and good luck!

[@alexsoma3720]

🎉 Happy birthday Samuel, you have a cool dad! 😉

[@thomasrider5852]

I would look into an ADC. Excellent first attempts!

[@3dfxvoodoocards6]

Excellent video! Jupiter and Saturn are very bright and look amazing in the night sky now. I read somewhere that Jupiter will again be as bright as these days only in over 100 years from now on.

[@astrobreda]

the difference is undetectable. I'm sure you've read it from a press site. Don't pay attention to these sites, they always exaggerate😆

[@asgard_]

If you look at a table of Jupiter's coming oppositions, you can see that it will already be closer (and therefore also brighter) than it was this year in 2034.

[@astrobreda]

@@asgard_ Yes I know. I am among the best planetary astrophotographers in Spain. It's not a joke, it's ugly for me to say it, but it's true hehe, And I can assure you that the difference is almost undetectable. The difference in apparent size of the planet is also very small.. have a great day and good seeing!!!😉😉

[@asgard_]

@@astrobreda The difference is of course more or less negligible, yes, I just wanted to add that because objectively speaking, it will be closer and brighter before 100 years from now. Cheers👋

[@MountainFisher]

When I got my 102 Explore Scientific carbon fiber triplet I bought an 8x50mm right angle correct image scope or raci because I dislike laser dot finders. Even an inexpensive 6x30mm finder scope is preferable even though it's gives an upside-down view. I see you got the GRS or great red spot on Jupiter. Pretty good shots. Jupiter and Uranus are at Opposition in November Bogdan. Uranus will be a 5.8 magnitude which you should easily see with your 9x50mm raci finder scope. I've found it at 6.4 with my 8x50mm raci. It's easier if it is going to be near to an easy to see star, just check Stellarium.

[@BogdanDamian]

@MountainFisher Thanks for your input! I will definitely try capturing Uranus as soon as the weather improves. I'm very curious what the results will be.

[@namewitheld]

Really cool. I hope you continue making visual astronomy content too.

[@BogdanDamian]

@namewitheld I will definitely continue with visual astronomy as well.

[@curronhill2744]

Nice work , especially with a non tracking mount!

[@davidletz9123]

Hello and thank you for this video. I want to try planetary imaging too, and recently purchased a ZWO camera and a Skywatcher Maksutov 127. It looks like the best approach for the best results is to use FireCapture. However, I decided to, at least for now, stay within the ZWO "eco system" and use ASI Air to capture my video. Do you use your notebook to run PIPP and AutoStakkert in addition to video capture?

[@BogdanDamian]

@davidletz9123 Nice, with that setup you should definitely be able to get some nice images. Yes, I use my laptop for capturing and processing with PIPP and Autostakkert.

[@timm2506]

Very nice video Bodgan! It's always wonderfull capturing the planets. I'm follow your video for a while now, it's always fun the watch your journey! Myself switched over to EAA for a couple of years now, with my 2 Dobson scopes (8 and 6 inch), mainly to capture DSO's. Wondering if your journey is going to move completely to AP or maybe also to EAA? Keep capturing videos during your journey 😀!

[@galaxyguy92]

I really like your channel, Damian!

[@astrobreda]

Good video Bodgan! You should have used your Dobsonian telescope, which is much better than this small refractor for planetary photography.

[@BogdanDamian]

@astrobreda Thank you! I am going to test capturing with my Dob as well. I'm curious to see what difference it will make.

[@sjpp71]

Nice video, very honest showing what it takes to capture planetary images. Is the Svbony refractor that you used an achromatic one? I think I heard "achromatic" in the video (and subtitles), but since it's named 102 ED I suppose it is not. Please keep the videos coming, clear skies!

[@BogdanDamian]

@sjpp71 Glad you enjoyed the video. You heard correctly. While the 102ED does feature a lens element made out of low dispersion glass, its objective is made out of two elements in total. This makes it an achromatic refractor.

[@sjpp71]

@@BogdanDamian Thanks for replying! That's true, I guess the terms sometimes are a bit stretched (commercially) and so we can see doublets advertised as "apochromatic refractors", when they are just better corrected achromats.

[@ronm6585]

Thank you.

[@BurningFlame1999]

Hello Bogdan, doesn't the 102ED also have the problem with the short focuser like the 122 mm did ?

[@BogdanDamian]

@BurningFlame1999 Hi! There are no problems with the focuser on the SV503 102ED at all.

[@glorbez]

Heyy Bogdan I recently bought a Dobsonian 8" using a 9mm GSO plossl eyepiece. The views are amazing. Can see different shades, saturns rings, even 4 bright dots around jupiter (which I assume are its moons). So my question is if I was to upgrade to say a tele vue eyepiece and barlow would I get a significantly large image when looking through eye piece. As w current set up saturn is maybe only 1.5cm. Would be nice to see it at 3 or 5cm etc???

[@BogdanDamian]

@Bobson_Dougnutt Hey! Congrats on your new telescope. With your current 9mm eyepiece you get a magnification of 150x which is decent for planetary observations. If you would buy a 2x Barlow for example the magnification will double to 300x which is great. Even though your telescope can handle 300x or even 350x without a problem, you will most likely be limited by the seeing conditions. This means that the worse the seeing conditions are, the lower the maximum usable magnification will be. On an average night this will be 200x - 250x. Beyond this you will lose image quality fast. Getting a premium eyepiece and Barlow won't help much in this regard. They will be great, however, if the seeing conditions are good. I would get good a 6 - 9mm eyepiece (Baader Morpheus, Tele Vue DeLite or Explore Scientific 82°) and a very good Barlow (Explore scientific or Tele Vue). This way you should have some nice flexibility when it comes to observing planets. Hope this helps.

[@glorbez]

Thanks, Bogdan. That helps a lot. I guess it's time to start saving up for some good eyepieces and barlow 😂 I live in fantastic area (rural/country) w little light pollution (from my backyard). And one hour drive I have the option to go top of mountain to elevation >2,000 meters above sea level.

[@BogdanDamian]

@Bobson_Dougnutt That sounds really good! If you have access to such great skies, then it's definitely worth investing in some decent eyepieces. Clear skies!

[@knightclan4]

I've heard about Rabbit Holes before, but I've never seen somebody fall into one. Well now, let's see how far you actually fall. Let me know if you see a caterpillar smoking a pipe!!

[@anata5127]

You could get much better image with your dob or Skymax. Strange selection of scope for planetary imaging.

[@BogdanDamian]

@anata5127 Thanks for the tip. I'm going to try capturing with my dob next.