An Evening With Jupiter

As the sky was clear, and the temperature not too bad, and no wind, I wanted to experiment with Jupiter some more.  I do believe I'm at the limit of my telescope with these images.  I dont think I can make out any more detail than what you see here:

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As with all of the images on this blog, if you click the image, you will get a larger image.

I was experimenting with different levels of saturation and contrast on the camera.  I believe I have the brightness figured out, but I was somewhat shocked with image #6, as the frames used to create this image looked absolutely horrible, but it sure produced a nice final image. I spent about an hour and a half outside with the 70mm refractor videoing these images.  The seeing started getting real bad towards the end, because Jupiter is getting pretty low in the sky.  This will be one of my last times shooting Jupiter this year as it is getting too low to get good pictures.

I also captured these final 3 images just before the seeing got really horrible:

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Was still playing with the camera trying to squeeze out every little bit of resolution that I could, but it looks like that is about all I can do.  Still, for a 70mm refractor on an unguided mount, its not THAT bad.  I did some wavelet sharpening but tried to keep it to a minimum.  The only other processing I did was some color balance and saturation adjustment in software.  Some I resized, some not.

Also, I will mention at this time, I also picked up an old Meade 114mm reflector.  I havent tried it yet on Jupiter.  Basically it was a flea market special, I found it for $20 so I brought it home.  The optical tube has some dents, but they shouldnt interfere with the viewing, but the secondary mirror is in bad shape.  The primary mirror I believe is useable.  I'll be ordering a secondary mirror in the next few days to replace the one in this scope, and when I'm satisfied with it, I'll try some photography with it.

Stay tuned, till next time......