Meade LPI imager

Started by frewi80, 05/11/2004 01:09AM
Posted 05/11/2004 01:09AM Opening Post
Bought a 14" LX200 GPS with UHTC and the LPI imager a few weeks ago, Try to start with some astrophotography before I spent some money on real digital astrophotography.
If somebody can give me some information on the setting for taking pics of the planets or a website I can refer to.
freddy
Posted 05/11/2004 02:18AM #1
Freddy,
I haven't found any good sources yet, so I'm the blind giving out free advice to the willing.

I've had one session with mine. WHat I have learned to date:

Start with the moon, just because it is easier to follow it, and get it on the chip.

Use a barlow to get some image scale--although with a 14 inch SCT you do have lots of focal length. You can use more than that for planets. But you have to make sure you can get the thing on the chip, first.

just use the auto exposure function. (where it tries a variety of exposures to see which is best, and then selects the best contrast.)

If you have a secondary focuser, use it. Focusing is the hardest part of planetary photography.

Don't worry about gain and offset sliders. THey may have a use later, but I do not see much of an effect so far.

Then just click "start." Let it stack maybe 50 images, then click stop.

The defaults in the program are pretty good for first tries. Don't set the "quality" percentage too high. It just slows down the learning for now.

I did not like it's sharpening--way overprocessed.

Please keep me posted on what you have learned. I have lots to learn myself.

Alex