I finally had time to get back to my telescope, after a break for a few years working on other projects. I upgraded my camera to a color SBIG ST-i camera to replace the ToUcam. That camera had only 8 bits, while the ST-i has 16bit resolution. It runs at a slightly lower frame rate of 4 frames per second, but I hoped that the increased resolution would more than compensate. In addition, since it outputs FITS files instead of jpgs, each image should have higher spatial resolution. I also started working with the full aperture 16" telescope, not yet fit with adaptive optics.
During this test, and a few more imagein sessions in March, the seeing was medium, but I needed to work around the clouds rolling in. Jupiter was setting over the neighbor's house, so that did not help. The periodic error on the 16" telescope is pretty bad (nominally 2arcsec/sec, if I recall correctly), so I was continually using the joystick to keep the planet centered. I used a Barlow to get Jupiter to fill the frame.
Taken with 16" Newtonian telescope, 100 msec exposures, best 7 frames averaged, clear skies.
This is the best processed series (series B) of the evening, processed first with dark frame, then maximum entropy (2.25pixel width), then wavelets. I took data on a few other nights, and many more on this night, typically 1000 frames per series. I used K3CCD tools to help select the best frames, then manually picked the best ones of the best 100 it selected. I tried to look only at frames no too far apart in time. I did lots of test processing, and using only 3 to 10 frames was adequate for this quality.All text and images are owned by Stellar Products, 1992-2013. Any use by others without permission of Stellar Products is prohibited.
Links to other Stellar Products pages: