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Quick Start Guide for BYE?


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Thanks again for the replies. I have achieved ballpark focus today on a terrestrial target. All I need now is some decent weather. Ironically Brian Cox us doing an "astronomy live" special on TV tonight. We are all supposed to lookup up at the sky to see whatever he decides to point out. It's not going to work in Sydney tonight. I think the broadcast is fron Siding Springs Observatory, where the skies should be a bit clearer.

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There is no single shutter speed recommendation actually.  It is all dependent on your telescope f/ratio and how bright your planetary target is, not to mention seeing, etc.  This is a trial and error process.

 

Jerry Lodriguss has a book on planetary imaging with DSLR, this may be a good starting point.

 

Regards, 

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Clicking on the question mark icon at the upper right of BYE's window launches a user guide. It has instructions for the "impatient" user.

 

It is difficult to suggest starting points for camera settings because they are dependent on the optical train.

 

However, in general, you want Frame and Focus to be bright so that you can see a focus star in LiveView. This is the purpose of the "Maximum Sensitivity" setting. For shooting Planetary videos with LiveView you want the image much darker. For Jupiter I would try 1/1000 second at ISO 800 as a starting point and adjust the shutter speed from there.

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Thanks for the replies. "Impatient user" probably describes me at the moment. After waiting weeks for clear skies, it finally happened. I needed to get initial focus with a new optical train and the screen was just black. I went through the full focus range at different exposures with no result. When I eventually looked up from the computer, I saw that the clouds had closed in again, after the sky had been quite clear for AutoAlign. Having the exposure on a reasonable setting wouid have removed one of the variables. I am also thinking that I might do better to attain initial focus in daylight, with a terrestrial target, to get focus in the right ballpark.

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Your best bet for Initial or Rough Focus is still your Mark-1 Eyeball applied directly to your DSLR's Viewfinder while aimed at our Nemesis MOON.

 

If you find you cannot gain Rough Focus even with the Focuser extended all the way, use the trick of holding a piece of paper (or anything Flat) beyond the back of the Focuser Drawtube and moving it In/Out until you see an Image of the Moon.  That is the distance which you will need your Camera Focal Plane (the Theta Symbol and Line on your Camera Body) - which you can then calculate what length of Extension Tube will be required (always shoot for enough Extension Tube so that the Focuser Drawtube is back to about Middle of its Travel-Range.)

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Certainly you will have more opportunities to test focusing at a terrestrial target during daytime hours.

 

Especially, you can test to see if you have the correct spacing to even achieve focus without the need for some kind of extension tube to push the camera further from the objective.

 

Looking through the camera's viewfinder is the easiest way to do that, although you may need to be a bit of a contortionist.

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