Can I add Tracking on my Telescope mount ??

[Zeeman Zeeforce]

hello menno ... thanks for the valuable info. please send me the link to the free software that can do the moon overlapping stitching images !!

so my cheap f9.8 telescope has a poor FOV ... that makes sense ! ... so i need to figure out if buying a nexstar AZ mount controller will solve my tracking problem ... or I will just have to suffer ...

i will process all the info you gave me and try and make sense of it.

Thank you for your help, its greatly appreciated !

[Menno555]

No poor FOV, just the FOV that it has. For the moon in full it's poor, for the planets it's great
Stitching software, I have two to choose from.

AutoStitch64, the mother of the stitch programs. Nice and simple. It can read TIF and JPG images and saves in JPG.
It's says a Demo download but it's fully functional: http://matthewalunbrown.com/autostitch/autostitch.html

Microsoft ICE. More complex because more possibilities. It gives more flexibility with what you want.
Info Here
Download Here

[Zeeman Zeeforce]

Thanks for the links for the programs , I will check them out. i am definitely interested in imaging the planets, but really I wanna expand to galaxies, nebulaes and all the deep space stuff ! ... our earth is a fragile planet and it sucks !!! LOL .... so looking outside this earth gives a Feeling of Exploration and a bonding with the deep Universe that is Beautiful, Exotic, and other worldly .... so its really a stress reliever and pleasure seeking in imaging all these planets and galaxies ... etc.

so I guess there is no really cheap way , i would have to eventually spend some money and get me some better equipment ! ... so tonite I tried again with my cheap telescope , NO TRACKING, and I used sharpcap there is tab called Planet/Disk Stabilization that I could activate as a TRIAL , since I am using the free version ! ... so this is the best I was able to manage to get off Jupiter. I know these pictures are EMBARRASSING ... but this is the best I could come up with. I tried to play with much of the settings ... but i didn't get too far. anyways, here are some of the pics i took from Jupiter. Would you recommend certain settings to make my focus or pics better ??? ( I have played with pipp, autostacker, and Registax ), but for now these are pics I took with sharpcap ... but i need to get better images than these !!! Any advice I appreciate.

Thanks.

[Jean-Francois]

Hello Zeeman-Zeeforce,

(are you looking "The Thundermans" with your children ?)

To come back with the small field of view on your picture.
The needed parameters are only the focal length of the telescope (telescope + additional corrector/reducer resulting focal length) and the dimension of the detector. The FD ratio will give you information only how bright the image will be, not how large.

Then you need to start to calculate. Your telescope has 1000 mm focal length. The moon has an angle of rounded 0.5° = 30 arcminute.
What is the minimum small detector side for imaging the full moon ?
tan(0.5°)*1000 mm = 0.0087 * 1000 mm = 8.7 mm
OK, now compare the 8.7 mm with the small side of you detector.
You need some margin for centering the moon ... so the small detector side shall be larger than 9 mm.


Concerning your images ... I propose that you reset all the settings to the standard and then have a look at the histogram.
With the histogram, you will see if your exposition time is correct. Then modify first exposure time and gain.

Do you take the pictures with the diagonal (Amici prism) ? If yes, then dismount it and mount the camera direct on the axis of the telescope.
Do you know the origin of the line obstruction ?


Regards,
Jean-Francois

[Zeeman Zeeforce]

Hello Jean ... and thanks for the INSPIRATIONAL WORDS .... !

Quick question: So what am I looking at in the HISTOGRAM? is it a certain curve or value? Also, how do I adjust
the histogram? by manipulating the settings ???

Let me know and I will give it a try !!

I tried again tonite, I got a nexstar hand controller but the tracking was really working on it, its kinda defective, but I was able to auto guide it over and over to keep the images centered ! I tried on jupiter, and I played with the histogram and some of the other settings ... but I didn't get too too far. I have enclosed some of my images. Let me know what I am doing wrong, I want to correct some of my mistakes !!!

again, I appreciate your assistance !

Zeeman

[Jean-Francois]

Hello Zeeman,

If you can mount a photo objective on your camera, do it ... it will help to debug your settings.

Concerning the histogram:

Histogramm_Zeeman.jpg (19.9 KiB) Viewed 792 times

The yellow curve shows you the actual monitor "scaling" ... the line is curved on the left ... it shows that the low intensity level are scaled.
It is OK ... you should have a look during the settings.
The red pics ... that is more a problem.
Note ... you do not adjust the histogram. The histogram shows you the statistic of the pixel intensity on the image.
The yellow line shows you how the image is modified on the monitor. If the yellow line is a straight from one corner to the other corner, then you have a linear scaling of the image on the monitor. If the line is curved (it can be curved convex or concave), then the view on the monitor will show the pixel low intensity exaggerated or the high intensity. The settings (exposure time, gain, ...) change the pixel statistic ... and so the histogram.


Concerning your other settings:
Please try first to go back to standard level ... also to set to "0" when it is the basis level or sometimes it is "256" when the scale goes from 0 to 512.
Sometime it is 128 ... between 0 and 256. I can not help more here .. I have not the same camera. The settings (values) depend on the camera.

If you have an image fully colored ... yellow, red, orange or blue ... it shows you that you have a problem somewhere. But ... set all the settings back to starting values.

If you have an objective mounted on the camera ... you can observe the color settings much easier.
If not, you can used your telescope during the day on an distant object (tries or mountains) so that you can recognize the correct colors.

I try with my camera .. Atik Horizon color camera ... but, SharpCap (or the camera) does not shows the RGB settings like with your camera.
So it was not possible to test the different parameters. I have a second color camera ... but it is no more recognized by SharpCap (ASI 120C with USB 2.0 connector).

Regards,
Jean-Francois

[Zeeman Zeeforce]

Hello again .... so how do I add a photo objective on my camera ??? You said if I have an objective mounted on the camera ?? what does that mean and how do I do it ? please let me know.

Thanks.

Zeeman

[Jean-Francois]

Hello,

You have a SV305 camera (what explain the small field of view) ... https://www.svbony.com/sv305-astronomy-camera
The camera seems to have a C-mount thread. You can mount (maybe) directly a C-mount objective.
If you scroll down the svbony page, you will see an example with an objective.

If you have other camera objective (Canon, Nikon, ...) you can find in your preferred astronomical supplier the necessary adapters.
Search to a C-mount adapter.

But, if you have no adapter or C-mount objective, you do not need to buy it for solving your actual problem.

I guess that you need first to find (learn) how to reset back the settings of your camera.
The RGB ... place all the setting back to the middle (I think that is the "256" position).
For the Contrast => 0, Gamma => 1, Saturation => 100 ??, Sharpness => 0 ??
First use only the exposure time and the gain and ... important the focus of your telescope ... until you have an image of your target.
Do not change the contrast or other saturation, change the RGB only "slowly" until you have the color correction you want.

Note that these settings will be saved in the film ... so it is better to have no or very low correction before saving in the film.
It will later simplify the processing.

Jean-Francois

[Zeeman Zeeforce]

Hello Jean ... I don't have other camera objectives, but last nite I tried to reset all the settings back to zero or to 128/256 ... I experimented with different ways ... but still I am having a problem with both the color and the focusing of the image of Jupiter ! I will try again tonite with some of your suggestions ... I have included pics of what I took.

I keep appreciating your wisdom ... keep giving it !

Zeeman