Astrophotos of Venus, Saturn, and Jupiter on 2/28/2004

VENUS

Taken with 18mm eyepiece using a Nikon Coolpix 995 at about 4x optical zoom (about 440x), 1/2000th of a second. Camera focal length 30mm.

Taken with 18mm eyepiece using a Nikon Coolpix 995 at about 4x optical zoom, and 4x digital zoom, 1/2000th of a second. Camera focal length 124mm.

The above pictures are my first shots of Venus with a digital camera. Venus is so bright in the telescope, that I could set the camera shutter speed to 1/2000th of a second, the fastest speed available on the camera.

None of the images were processed, just cropped and resized to fit. I probably could have done some stacking, however you can see some chromatic abberation even in these shots. I should try to use a filter to cut down on the abberation and also give me some leeway for slightly longer exposures.

SATURN

About 30-40 images stacked. Each image taken with a Nikon CoolPix 995 at 1/30th of a second through an 18mm eyepiece at full optical zoom(4x). Image processed with Photoshop for unsharp mask.

About 30 images stacked. Each image taken with a Nikon CoolPix 995 at 1/15th of a second through an 18mm eyepiece at full optical zoom(4x). Image processed with Photoshop for unsharp mask.

The above pictures shows stacked pictures of Saturn at two different exposures, 1/30th and 1/15th. In both pictures you can see the Cassini division and the shadow of the planet on the rings. I seem to be able to see more detail in the images with 1/30 second exposures, but I may have used to much unsharp mask. There are too many miscolored pixels in the image. I should also start using a dark frame to prevent things like this.

JUPITER

Image taken from a MOV file captured with a Nikon CoolPix 995 through a 18mm eyepiece at full optical zoom at 320x240 resolution. Each frame is about 1/125th of a second a few hundred frames were stacked to make the image. Photoshop was then used for unsharp mask.

Image created from about 200 separate images stacked. Each image taken with a Nikon CoolPix 995 through an 18mm eyepiece at full optical zoom, shutter speed of 1/125 seconds, image resolution of 320x240. Photoshop was then used for unsharp mask.

Image created from about 200 separate images stacked. Each image taken with a Nikon CoolPix 995 through an 18mm eyepiece at full optical zoom, shutter speed of 1/125 seconds. Original images were at 320x240 resolution, however I increased the size of each image to 640x480 before I stacked them. Photoshop was then used for unsharp mask.

I was pretty satisfied with the images I managed to get of Jupiter. They're not great, but I did manage to squeeze some detail out of them that I wasn't able to make out with my eyes. I'm still not sure if the trick I tried by doubling the size of an image to try to get better resolution helped. I do think though that I'm running into a limitation with my setup. In order to take a movie or take a bunch of pictures in rapid succession, the image resultion drops to 320x240. To really get better resolution I need to have the disk of the planet cover a larger area. I may need to get a barlow lens or use a higher magnification eyepiece.

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