Jupiter - first pictures

Hi all

I'd be grateful for any advice to get me a little further along the road to getting good pictures through my Orion 100ED refractor. The attached picture was taken through a 2x Televue Barlow with a Toucam Pro on a pretty humid night last night in my back garden. The moon had halos around it and looking at this picture, it too seems to have halos and is very unclear around the edges. I had the gain set at zero on the camera settings panel in K3CCD tools and took about 300 frames at 5FPS and stacked about 200 of them. I didn't seem to be able to make much difference when trying some post processing in Photoshop CS.

My own thoughts are that:

1. I need a higher magnification Barlow to get more real info from the picture.
2. I may need some sort of filter to reduce the halos.
3. I could really use some advice on setting up the camera to best advantage and on using the tools I have to process the frames.

All comments most welcome.

Thanks

Tim

Attached Image:

Tim,

I've had the most success using 30 fps, gain around the middle, and exposure as fast as can be used while getting a live video image that is considerably brighter than the one you posted. The live image should be about the same brightness as you would want in a finished image. I think you want it as bright as possible without getting saturated pixels in the stacked image.

Image scale seemed alright for a start. I wouldn't worry about trying for a longer focal length until you are getting nice images at the existing focal length. Everything gets tougher with a longer focal length.

Over time, I've concluded that I need to strive for a very good looking live video image before bothering to record. Spent a lot of time, if necessary, getting the brightness and focus right.

Michael