Weasner's Meade ETX Guest Gallery

GUEST PLANETARY ASTROPHOTOGRAPHY

Last updated: 17 June 2007

Some ETX users have sent me examples of their astrophotography. If you have some examples you would like included here please send me a description of how you made the astrophotos and a copy of the images as GIF or JPEG files (due to internet email gateway issues, please send only one image file per message). Send to etx@me.com. Alternatively, if you have created your own web page with your examples please let me know and I'll include a link to your site. You will also find astrophotography examples on the Helpful Information - Astrophotography page.

Submitted by: Dieter.Wolf@DNSint.com [17 Jun 07]
Just before your next OO trip the best out of three tries to catch way way down Jupiter 'scratching' along my neighbours rooftop - not satisfying, but what to expect with below -20 degrees elevation - a chance for our 'southern colleagues' - like the absolute excellent(!) picture of Jia from Singapore... Remarkable the faded SEB which in this picture can't be seen at all! [MEADE ETX-125EC with 2x barlow lense and ToUCam pro at prime focus; processed 1000 frames with RegiStax, IrfanVIew and PaintShop Pro; 2007-06-08, 00:30 CEST]

Submitted by: Paul Campbell (iamzoup@yahoo.com) [23 May 07]
Here is a final photo from a 3 min avi. Taken with my etx 125, a sac 7 ccd, with a scopetronix maxpower tele and a IR filter mounted on the ccd. This photo was taken from my home in Washington Pa. I processed the avi in registax 4 and saved it as a tiff file, then cleaned it up in photoshop cs2 and then through photofilter were I changed it into a jpeg file.

Submitted by: Jia Hao (jiahao1986@gmail.com) [30 Apr 07]
On April 28th, I got a chance to give my first attempt on Jupiter with my ETX125 and the Philips ToUcam 840K with my friend. Seeing condition and transparency were good so the obtained image is very satisfactory to me. Specific information is given on the image.

Submitted by: Dieter.Wolf@DNSint.com [11 Apr 07]
I would not call MEADE's little Ritch-Field ETX-70AT a telescope for planetary viewing, but yesterday I gave it a try - have a look... 2007-04-10; ETX-70AT with 2x barlow and ToUCam pro; 150 of 1000 frames for Venus and 300 of 1500 frames for Saturn (plus 50 longer exposed to show Titan). On Saturn you see the disc, the ring with it's shadow on the planet, the shadow of the planet on the ring and a 'touch' of Cassini division.

Submitted by: Ken Cheung (ken_k_cheung@hotmail.com) [31 Mar 07]
Here's possibly one of the best Saturn image I've taken so far on my Meade ETX-125 /w UHTC. Seeing was average, but managed to capture some good frames to compose the image here.

Submitted by: Dieter.Wolf@DNSint.com [27 Mar 07]
please find attached an animated gif of how the view of planet Saturn has changed within the last four years (will be interesting to add the view of 2008 & 2009 later) Done with MEADE ETX-125EC, 2x barlow and Philips ToUCam pro at prime focus.

Submitted by: Mark Emery (mark.emery@lineone.net) [27 Mar 07]
Thought I would forward the attached picture of Venus that I took this evening, first attempt at imaging the planet through my ETX with the Webcam (SPC900), quite pleased with it for a first attempt.

Submitted by: Ken Cheung (ken_k_cheung@hotmail.com) [27 Mar 07]
Here's one of the best images I have been able to capture with my ETX since I"ve owned it. Seeing was quite good, but not perfect. The image was taken via Philips SPC900NC webcam - their new model works great! Thanks for your website too by the way - Owning an ETX would not be the same without

Submitted by: Dieter.Wolf@DNSint.com [14 Mar 07]
With beautiful spring weather here in Southern Germany I took the opportunity to catch Saturn at highest position and got a very nice shot (2007-03-11, 23:00 CET) with MEADE ETX-125AT and 2x barlow (3800mm); ToUCam pro at prime focus; selected about 500 frames out of 9000 (3 avi's) to a final picture.

Submitted by: Mark Emery (mark.emery@lineone.net) [28 Feb 07]
Another photograph attached for you, I took it last night in the very brief lull in the British weather, it's raining cats & dogs again now. I have also started an ETX site, where I am uploading photo's that I have taken with my 125PE, as well as recording my thoughts, comments and observations in a blog, it's addy is www.freewebs.com/maverfish, I have included a link to your site already, naturally it's the first one on the page ;0). All the best & clear skies to one and all Mike here: I adjusted the "levels" slightly to brighten the image.

Submitted by: Chris Warburton (C.A.Warburton@lboro.ac.uk) [12 Feb 07]
Here's a shot of Saturn I captured on Fri 2/2/07 from my back yard in Derbyshire U.K. when it was less then 1/2 a degree from the Moon. I used my ETX-90 ec with autostar, my home made EQ wedge, a Philips webcam, IR filter and is a stack of 1850 frames from a video of 2250 frames at 640 x 480 resolution. Stacked and processed in Registax.

Submitted by: Dieter.Wolf@DNSint.com [12 Feb 07]
yesterday I started this year's Saturn season - nearly at opposition. Cassini is only visible at the 'edges' but you clearly can see the disk on both sides of the ring system. Seeing conditions were not so good for planetary imaging, but in February you don't get a chance for clear skies so often and I took three avi's (10 frames per second) with 1500, 1500 & 2000 frames. Only the best 20...40 frames of each avi were combined into a final 80 frames image. It is always exciting for me to compare a single frame against the final picture. Capturing was done with Philips software. I prefer dark images to avoid overexposing something. The aligning, selecting, stacking as well as sharpening and noise filtering was done with Giotto. For brightness/contrast/color adjustment I used IrfanView together with some PhotoShop plugins. The three images then were opened in PaintShop pro and combined to a final picture using layers which then was resized a bit. About two hours of work. 2007-02-09 22:00 CET; ETX-125AT with 2x barlow and ToUCam pro at prime focus