Astrophotography

Equipment

Meade LX90 8" Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope, and Meade LPI camera.

Jupiter

21 April 2005. Stack of ~170 frames of Quicktime video, 2x Barlow, LPI Camera, using Keith's AstroImager and Keith's Image stacker software. Yes, OK, I've overdone the unsharp mask quite badly. Note the prominent blue festoon at the southern edge of the northern equatorial belt. It was definitely there - I saw it when visually observing also.

7 May 2005. Same method. Overdone the unsharp mask even more, but the seeing was pretty bad, so I had to be aggressive. At least we have the GRS this time.
Jupiter with large blue festoon Jupiter with GRS

Saturn

Composite image of 10 frames, taken 19 February 2005. Not bad for a first attempt, if I say so myself.

Saturn

Mars

3rd November 2005. Stack of 20 images, using Meade's LPI software; no further processing. The seeing was fairly bad, and the collimation of the scope was out. I was also using my 2x Barlow lens, which I suspect may be more of a hindrance than it is a help. Still, I do at least now have a picture of Mars, even if it is a bit fuzzy.

Moon

19 Feburary 2005

Moon

Moon

Moon

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