March 29, 2016 - 11:25 PM
It was a cold but clear night. I packed up my big telescope (Celestron SCT) and equipment and drove to “The Hill” to try to image Jupiter. I have been waiting for the Planets to become visible at a reasonable hour since i got the telescope last July 2015. The skies have been so cloudy so far this year but I finally got my chance March 29th.
I arrived on site and had a lot of trouble mounting my guidescope and red-dot guider. The bracket that holds the guiders on the telescope does not seem to be lined up and I didn’t have enough adjustment in either of the guide scopes to be able to align them. I finally got the guide scope and telescope eyepiece to center on the cell tower blinking light located on Leon/Cherry Creek hill.
Imaging Planets is different that imaging DSO’s (Deep Sky Objects.) For DSO’s I take several single frame long exposures. To image Jupiter, I needed to take a short video using a program called Backyard EOS. The program works with my Canon Camera to take short avi videos. Then, I used Registax to stack the individual frames in the video. Registax also has tools to sharpen the image.
Here is my first attempt at Planetary Imaging. I should be able to get better results when “seeing” conditions are better. As I began imaging Jupiter, I noticed a layer of frost all over my equipment cases and my car! I think I imaged through a frosty-fog! It was 27 degrees and a very damp cold night. Even with hand warmers, in each mitten, I just about froze my hands when I had to take the mittens off. haha.
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