First attempt at planetary imaging (Saturn)

[CruisingTheCosmos]

So a user on this forum, jghops, made a very nice image of Saturn the other day. What really amazed me was that they were able to do this with a digital camera in video mode held up to the telescope eyepiece.

Earlier tonight I decided to go outside and give it a try with my Panasonic DMC-TZ4 and Zhumell 12" Dobsonian. Here's my attempt:

saturn 1.png
saturn 2.png
saturn 3.png
saturn 4.png

I would say that the last two are the best. These were done in Registax 6 and Photoshop CS5.

[stepping beyond]

Those pics are actually quite impressive, I wouldn't even try to photo anything with my scope .I say that the views are very good I've had my scope for a little more than 6 mos. and with practice I will get even better views.I'm not saying that I can't,I'm just saying that it would be a real pain.

[Chris220220]

Well done, nice first images.
Not an easy target to capture and track in the dob.

[CruisingTheCosmos]

Thank you both for the kind words.

Indeed, this was difficult to track even with my wide-angle eyepiece. I plan to do this again sometime when the seeing is better.

[CruisingTheCosmos]

I updated the 3rd image to make it a little less uniform. I actually like the way it turned out, despite the annoying blue.

saturn 3 update.png

[vic1]

That looks great! I am new to astronomy and this forum. I, too, have a Z12 that I recently purchased. I am interested in getting images on a computer screen to share the images with my kids since I am trying to get them interested too. I thought about getting a video eyepiece but was talked out of it because the images would not be bright enough to be able to use something like a Celestron NexImage or similar. Would you mind describing how you took those images?

[olddogg60]

Another great first attempt! My adapters will be here the first of next week and smoky skies allowing I will give AP a shot. As was suggested to me, I probably will give piggy backing a try first.

[Wasatch]

Very Nice!

[Cladinator]

Not bad at all. It's amazing how good minimalist astrophotography can turn out.

[Gabriel315]

Hello CruisingTheCosmos!
Your photos look great! They look a lot better than my first photos!

I have an Orion Skyquest Xt6 and I have taken many photos of the Moon, Saturn, Mars and Jupiter. I take a 25 or 30 sec video and then I process it with Registax as you did. Then I use a program called "Gimp" to make some touch ups. After processing, they look very good.

Here are some of my photos.

IMG_0872.JPGMars 2.jpgjupiter 22.JPGMars 2.jpg