Jupiter and the Galilean moons with the Kugelblitz handmade telescope and Saturn on a Meade ETX90
The wet season is still bringing lots of rain to my region, but once in a while there’s a good night sky and good opportunity to perform observations and also to take some pictures. As both Jupiter and Saturn are close to the zenith around midnight on a moonless night I thought I’d go for them.
I could say this is my first real planetary image using the ZWO ASI462MC color camera. I’ve performed the following experiments:
- Jupiter, no barlow, ETX90
- Jupiter, no barlow, Kugelblitz
- Jupiter, 2x barlow, ETX90
- Jupiter, 2x barlow, Kugelblitz
- Saturn, no barlow, ETX90
I was focusing my attention over Jupiter, so the Saturn picture is really a bonus. The next time I’ll try Saturn, and I’ll also experiment using the ZWO 850nm IR-pass filter.
Even so the ETX90 was taking advantage of a LX85 equatorial mount against a Dobsonian mount of the Kugelblitz, the Kugelblitz images turned a lot more clear. I think that was mainly due to the f/6.62 of the Kugelblitz against the f/13.88 of the ETX90.
I’m also planning to build a Bahtinov mask to aid in focusing, as I was using manual/visual focusing, which makes it pretty hard to achieve good focus.
Author: Fernando Schuindt
License: CC BY 4.0
Camera: ZWO ASI462MC (Color)
Other Gear: Redlab x86 homemade weather-resistant astronomy computer
Location Name: Aracaju - Sergipe, Brazil
Location Aprox. Coordinates: 10°58’31.0”S 37°04’26.0”W
Full Resolution Images: https://photos.app.goo.gl/ZzZtCWdpbauMmmZz9
Theme: Jupiter and the Galilean moons with notes
Distance: 4.039 AU
Magnitude: -2.85
Lens/Telescope: Kugelblitz handmade telescope (210mm aperture, 1390mm focal length, f/6.62, Newtonian)
Composition: 2698 frames captured (16.7GB .avi file), 700 frames stacked
Processing: AutoStakkert for stacking, RegiStax 6 for stretching and Photoshop for processing
Timestamp (Local Time): 06-08-2021 22:19:21
Timestamp (UTC): 07-08-2021 01:19:21
(Click to open full resolution)
Theme: Jupiter and the Galilean moons without notes
Distance: 4.039 AU
Magnitude: -2.85
Lens/Telescope: Kugelblitz handmade telescope (210mm aperture, 1390mm focal length, f/6.62, Newtonian)
Composition: 2698 frames captured (16.7GB .avi file), 700 frames stacked
Processing: AutoStakkert for stacking, RegiStax 6 for stretching and Photoshop for processing
Timestamp (Local Time): 06-08-2021 22:19:21
Timestamp (UTC): 07-08-2021 01:19:21
(Click to open full resolution)
Theme: Saturn
Distance: 8.938 AU
Magnitude: 0.19
Lens/Telescope: Meade ETX90 (OTA-only) (90mm aperture, 1250mm focal length, f/13.88, Maksutov-Cassegrain)
Other Gear: Meade LX85 GEM (unguided, two-star alignment)
Composition: 1002 frames captured (5.94GB .avi file), 500 frames stacked
Processing: AutoStakkert for stacking, RegiStax 6 for stretching and Photoshop for processing
Timestamp (Local Time): 06-08-2021 23:06:00
Timestamp (UTC): 07-08-2021 02:06:00
(Click to open full resolution)
Gear
ETX90, LX85, 462MC and the redlab. (And Zig on the background)
Kugelblitz, 462MC and the redlab.
Camera Settings
Jupiter:
[ZWO ASI462MC]
Pan=0
Tilt=0
Output Format=AVI files (*.avi)
Binning=1
Capture Area=1936x1096
Colour Space=RGB24
Temperature=36
High Speed Mode=On
Turbo USB=100(Auto)
Flip=None
Frame Rate Limit=Maximum
Gain=114
Exposure=0.003776
Timestamp Frames=Off
White Bal (B)=63(Auto)
White Bal (R)=53
Brightness=102
Auto Exp Max Gain=300
Auto Exp Max Exp M S=30000
Auto Exp Target Brightness=130
Mono Bin=Off
Banding Threshold=35
Banding Suppression=0
Apply Flat=None
Subtract Dark=None
#Black Point
Display Black Point=0
#MidTone Point
Display MidTone Point=0.521367521367521
#White Point
Display White Point=1
Notes=
TimeStamp=2021-08-06T01:19:21.7457571Z
SharpCapVersion=3.2.6482.0
Saturn:
[ZWO ASI462MC]
Pan=0
Tilt=0
Output Format=AVI files (*.avi)
Binning=1
Capture Area=1936x1096
Colour Space=RGB24
Temperature=31.1
High Speed Mode=On
Turbo USB=100(Auto)
Flip=None
Frame Rate Limit=Maximum
Gain=264
Exposure=0.015104
Timestamp Frames=Off
White Bal (B)=57(Auto)
White Bal (R)=58
Brightness=152
Auto Exp Max Gain=300
Auto Exp Max Exp M S=30000
Auto Exp Target Brightness=130
Mono Bin=Off
Banding Threshold=35
Banding Suppression=0
Apply Flat=None
Subtract Dark=None
#Black Point
Display Black Point=0
#MidTone Point
Display MidTone Point=0.521367521367521
#White Point
Display White Point=1
Notes=
TimeStamp=2021-08-06T02:06:00.7942288Z
SharpCapVersion=3.2.6482.0