The telescope is a 10", f/6.8 Newtonian reflector on a Losmandy G11 mount. Saturn and Jupiter were shot with a Nikon Coolpix 5700, using a Scopetronix Digit-T adaptor attached to a Brandon 24mm orthoscopic eyepiece. Exposure was 1/8 sec for Saturn, 1/15 sec for Jupiter. ISO was set at 100, sharpening was set on high, and contrast was set on "+". The lens was zoomed to 71mm for Saturn, and 56 mm for Jupiter. Note the the two moons to the left of Jupiter.
Mars was shot on August 18, 2003 with a Nikon D1 digital camera using a Brandon 12mm eyepiece for an effective focal length of 8,000 mm. Thirteen images were stacked to reach this resolution.
Most digital cameras will record shooting data with the image, and this can be useful, especially when stacking images of Jupiter.
Because Jupiter rotates in about 10 hours, features will cross its face in five hours. Presuming a diameter of 50 arc-seconds, lets do some quick math.
A feature at the planet's center will cross 10 seconds of arc in one hour, or one second of arc in six minutes. When imaging planets, the goal is diffraction-limited resolution. For a 10-inch objective, this is about one-half arc-second. So I must limit any images I stack to within three minutes.
For the above images, Saturn is a composite of four images, Jupiter is a composite of five. They were stacked using Adobe Photoshop.
