July 25, 2011

Jupiter Refractor Less-of-a-FAIL

On the same night that I took the previous pictures of Jupiter through the Dobsonian Reflector 10in, I also took pictures through the EON Refractor.  Judge for yourself, but the cool part is I got some of the moons on this one.




July 24, 2011

Jupiter Dobsonian FAIL

Alrighty, so back in October of last year, I tried getting some pics of Jupiter through the 10-inch Newtonian Reflector on Dobsonian mount, just to see what would happen. Basically a fail because I couldn't magnify it (putting in an eyepiece would have changed the focal length to a spot I can't get to) and because my refractor is better for planetary observing anyway. Alas, if I don't blow up the pictures at all, you can see some detail, like Jupiter's band (Usually there are two band, but this was taken when the one band suddenly "disappeared").

The original after cropping - Shot with DSLR on 10in reflector, 1/500s, ISO 200

The "processed" picture
Overall, I'm not impressed.  I figure if I want to get good pictures of Jupiter I should:
  1. Use the Refractor
  2. Use a CCD camera and learn how to stack images
  3. Or if I want to use the 10in reflector, I think I need a focal reducer or something...