Really Bad Conditions

Well, I was able to confirm that much of my problems with Saturn have been really bad conditions.  I bought another webcam today, a low cost unit at walmart.  Because of the fuzzy photos I was getting this past month, I was starting to think I had a problem with the camera.  I dont think that was the cause tonight, as the transparency was somewhat better this evening.  Although tonight's images werent that great, partially because for some reason, when I use the barlow, I seem to lose the image and sometimes I cant find it again, as was the case tonight.  Anyway, tonight's images didnt have that fuzz around the object, like there has been in previous images.  I believe the problem has been haze or thin cloud cover while trying to image.  Here is what I got this evening:

These images are all resized 2X in Registax 6, and you can see theyre quite small with varying degrees of focus.  It is a rather humid evening, with dew forming on the lens after about an hour of viewing.  I believe the images were taken before the dew had formed.  I used both cameras, and in all honesty, I could not tell a whole lot of difference in the images I had got from each camera.  This tells me that the camera I had been using is still functioning normally.  I would have been able to get better detail had I been able to use the barlow.

The gear-reduced clock appears to be working decent, and I still am not seeing as much motion blur as I have.

The new camera I'm going to try out on the moon the next time it is out.  It appears to have less vignetting than the cam I have been using.  The only real test though will be on the moon itself, so we'll see how it does.  The new cam does not have digital zoom, so I'm hoping it has a flatter field, because I will not be able to zoom in on the bright area if it varies much.

For grins, I thought I would put up a monochrome of a red channel image from the new camera.  This is resized 2X, and processed in Registax 5/