Photographing the planet Uranus using a 127mm Skywatcher telescope
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- Опубліковано 5 жов 2024
- In this video i use a Skywatcher Skymax 127mm Maksutov Telescope to image the planet Uranus. It proved to be quite a challenge as the brightness of the blue gas giant is much lower than my recent targets of Mars, Jupiter and even Saturn. I use a ZWO ASI-120MC camera, the Firecapture application, and then Autostakkert, Registax and Paintshop Pro. EQMOD was used to control the mount.
That was an excellent capture of Uranus, Graham! Well done! :)
Thanks!
Fantastic Shot!! I do Like Uranus!! with a Long Focal length, You Could Even Split its Moons, Really Nice!!🔭🌌
Хотя я и не владею английским языком но ваши обзоры Максутовых всегда смотрю!🤗
Я вот себе MAK127й купил, и тоже смотрю.этот канал. Ранее был MAK102. Жду не дождусь когда сам отыщу Уран (в 102й не вышло). Визульно его можно найти?
@@petromannnnll
Koo
0:34 Cat's appearance 😸
I always wondered what imaging Uranus would look like, very impressive considering the aperture.
Thanks. I’m sure I could do better with more practice on the “faint” planets. Lots of trial and error with settings!
I remember my first time looking at Uranus. i used a 80mmf5 as a finderscope on top of my 10"sct
ST80s are very versatile! There's something special about the small blue disk of Uranus. Not much to see compared to Jupiter and Saturn but always worth seeking out.
@@JenhamsAstro true i think i took it up to 400 to 500x power on the 10"sct no detail but the disk was decent medium big, but its a trill just to see it
Well done, and thank you. You've given me motivation to try Uranus myself. Also thank you for showing the settings you used.
Showing the settings is a great learning tool, and you explin it in a very simple easy to understand way. Great job!!
Great video! Great that you showed your firecapture settings. Hope that you will give it a shot on Neptune now!
Thanks Jakob, it’s on the list!
Awesome! Congrats.
Thanks Jason.
Well done Jenham!
That was super cool! Congrats! Looking foward on imaging Uranus with my 130slt f5. Will have to increase the focal distance using a barlow, though. The biggest challenge for me is achieving this short exposures recordings, once I tried, the noise was very high. Well done
Even with larger "Amateur" scopes (10 inch, 12 inch) Uranus doesn't show much detail. So, for an itty-bitty 5 inch (or 119mm?) you did pretty well !
Thanks for posting!
It is amazing how you can use this small scope for making such a great views!
Intéressant
I came from your video of the kit 18-55mm lens and man your videos are getting me hyped up to invest more time (and money) in astrophotography, thanks for making these videos!
Thanks, it's a slippery slope!
I have a 180 mak cass and a zwo 120mc ordered. I've learned a lot from watching your videos ! Thank you!!!!
With all the controversy over the pronunciation of Uranus, I'm going to pronounce it
"oo-raa-nee-us"
I like what you are doing, nice videos, maybe get a bigger scope, maybe an APO
Very nice. I have the same scope and captured Uranus last night, but it looks nothing like a planet. Will try your suggestion next time
Always better to have uranus in your telescope then to have a telescope in uranus.
Fantastic. This gives me a great place to start with the Apex. I’ve actually considered settings way different than yours. You saved me a night of frustration.
Thanks Garnett, I found some good advice on the Sky Inspector website, but that was only after a couple of nights of failure. I’m now using Stellarium to drive my mount, which added some more trial and error. So overall I’ve been experimenting. Give it a try.
Nice
Can you do a review comparing the Sarblue Maksutov-Cassegrain Telescope 60?
Congratulations, that one is hard to photograph.
The smallest telescope I've ever seen Uranus through is the 5x10 Zeiss Mini Quick Monocular but obviously no easy way to photograph it via that although it'd just look like a star.I think that I've seen it naked eye too but you need a dark place and identify it with the monocular and nearby stars and then have a go.
Nice video! How did you manage to frame up Uranus? I heard it is quite hard to get that thing into your FOV. Best regards
Nice.
Thanks Randal, I hope all is well down under.
Hi Graham, thanks for another great video! I attempted this with my Skymax 90 and got a similar results, even at 50ms. I was wondering if you had ever tried this on Neptune? I'm thinking it would be very hard to get that into the frame?
Hi Marcel, yes it sounds like locating it will be the issue. Goto would help! I've only ever captured Neptune at lower power in my apo scope. It was clearly non-stellar but only a few pixels across.
Hello Graham. I'm curious what visual back, barlow, and camera size (connector size) you have there? I know your original unboxing of the Skymax 127 was with the T2 / 1.25 back if I recall. Thanks.
Hi that’s still the original T2 visual back, with my trust 2x TV barlow. The 120MC was inserted into the Barlow using the standard one and a quarter inch nose piece that comes with the camera. It is not a perfect setup for sure because the Barlow is not a Shorty model and it won’t fully insert into the visual back so you rely on clamping everything down and that probably does introduce a bit of offset in terms of are all the elements properly aligned. A couple of times I’ve researched adapter options to fit different accessories onto the back of the 127 but I’ve never pursued it because in the end you can easily spend quite a lot of money buying adapters and then an adapter for the adapter et cetera et ceteraz this setup for planetary uses a small sensor and I don’t need to try and gain extra field of view so I think it’s it’s an acceptable way of working although yeah definitely could be improved.
@@JenhamsAstro Completely agree on the setup, looks like it worked great for the need. Things get costly fast. Thanks for the info.
Well done Graham! Can I ask how you defined your alignment points and method in AS? I find it can be tricky when the target is small and/or faint. Thanks!
Thanks Marcel, I followed some advise on the Sky Inspector website and used manual draw and made a single box around the planet, with some spare at the edges. Before this I increased the AS brightness. I scanned through the frames using the slider to make sure any image drift stayed inside the box. Maybe not the best approach but it worked for me. I hope this helps, Graham
@@JenhamsAstro thank you!
Great video as always, Jenham. Do you use the synscan hand controller on HEQ5 Pro when using with the Skymax 127? I have the ASIAir Pro but polar alignment doesn’t work so well with the focal length of this scope and wondering if it is best just to use the hand controller and polar scope when using the HEQ5 Pro with the 127.
Thanks Barney, I do a manual polar align and take a bit of care on it, getting the Polaris angle as close as I can. After several years I have just taken off my handset and connected the mount to Stellarium via EQMOD. This seems to work quite well. After slewing to a bright star you centralise in the EP and then sync the position. So it’s basically a one star align but without the limitations of using the obscure stars suggested by the handset. You should be further down the tech path than me if you’ve got an ASIAir, so I’m surprised it’s causing you trouble. I use a low power EP in the 127 to give a wider field.
@@JenhamsAstro Thanks for the tips. The ASIAir Pro works like a dream for my deep space astrophotography setup, but not for my lunar/planetary setup. It will do the slewing and video capture fine but the polar alignment depends on plate solving and I don’t think the ZWO 120 MC-S provides a good enough image to plate solve on when used with a Sky Max 127. .
Storming Barney OK that’s good to know. Thanks.
Not an easy one. I am surprised it is so faint though. I captured it in September with my Skymax 127 and x2 barlow and it was quite a lot brighter. I used Sharpcap and a QHY5l-IIC
That's interesting. What sort of exposure were you using?
@@JenhamsAstro To be honest I am not sure, just adjusted the exposure and gain until it looked OK
I can see an ALIEN in this photo
With 90mm 1250mm Sky-Watcher is possible to see something? Not to take Pic but just see something?
You can see the planet as a non-stellar blue-ish disc. It's small and there are no features, but you can tell it's not a star.
Can I ask what file type do you use to save the stacked images in AutoStakkert as, so that you can import them into Registax?
I use TIF files
@@JenhamsAstro thanks, as I've just started playing around with AP software. I wasn't sure what the de facto file type was, as it's a rather dark art to me.
if that is the eqm35 mount, could you please tell me how you like the mount?
It’s an HEQ5 pro. It performs well but is heavier than an EQM35.
@@JenhamsAstro gotcha. thanks a bunch.
You are going to need a bigger telescope! ;-)
Hello from Russia! Is it possible to find Uranus visally? What eyepices do you reccomend for MAK127?
I'm in Eastern Australia and got a visual of Uranus using Celestron C90 Mak last month. It was quite close to Mars (about 5 degrees west) which made it easier to locate. The image was faint but the blue colour evident.
Hello, as Randal said it can be found visually as it is around magnitude 5.8. With any Mak the field of view is small. Something like a 25mm Plossl is suitable to initially locate Uranus. If you don’t have a Goto mount you will need to star hop from a nearby object or star. This can be quite difficult if you don’t have the benefit of a good landmark like Mars nearby.
Question for you. Would you say there is much noticeable difference between the Skymax 127 and the Skymax 150 overall? Or do you have to upgrade to the Skymax 180 to see a noticeable improvement from the 127.
Visually the differences are real but quite small as you make each increment in aperture, certainly for 90, 127 & 150. I haven't used the 180 but have seen some excellent results, but my view is that the difference experienced between the scopes is as much a factor of atmospheric stability as it is aperture.
@@JenhamsAstro thanks for your reply, I'm picking my first ever telescope at the moment and am currently torn between the 127 and the 150.
THEGAMERXLIVE One variable to consider is the mount you have or plan to get. Whilst neither 127 or 150 are very heavy, the 150 is more substantial than the 127 and hence needs a more capable mount.
@@JenhamsAstro That's what's pushing me towards the 127 as I really need a GoTo mount. I noticed Orion do have a 150 mak on a fully GoTo mount but I imagine it would be quite wobbly on it. Thanks for the help :)
hello i have a doubt between two telescopes for observing planets and (a little bit of everything) should i buy the skywatcher 130/900 or celestron c90
Hello Miguel, the C90 for planets and the 130 Newt as an all rounder. The 130 is easier for a beginner though - not sure if you are.
@@JenhamsAstro Thank you for the advice I really appreciate your work I'm a beginner and I always watch your videos and I'm taking notes to learn how to improve Sorry for bothering you but I had other small doubts What can I see with the C90? What can I see with the 130? Which telescope do you recommend to see a little bit of everything? Thanks
Miguel Pereira Visually the C90 will give great views of the moon and double stars, and good views of the brighter planets and some deep sky objects like globular clusters. Forget galaxies and nebulae. The 130 will be easier to use as it has a wider field of view, will do less well than the C90 on planets, and slightly better on galaxies and nebulae. They are both small scopes so don’t expect much at all for faint objects like galaxies which will be a smudge only. The 130 would be my choice to begin with.
@@JenhamsAstro Thank you very much for your attention, i will follow your advice
which mount is this?
Skywatcher HEQ5 Pro.
Have you seen what's happened to the prices of Skywatcher telescopes in the UK in the last few weeks? Price increases of 80-100% - Thanks Brexit voters. 🙄