I have just spent the evening trying to get a decent picture of Saturn. The picture below is the best yet – but I’m not really satisfied with it. Seeing conditions were not ideal – plenty of haze and turbulance.
It was taken using a modified Philips Toucam webcam attached to our Meade 8″ LX-90 telescope. The hardest part about capturing the picture is getting the telescope pointing in the right direction.
The telescope is initially set by using the sighting telescope followed by fine adjustment using the eyepiece. The eyepiece is then replaced by the camera. The field of view of the camera is somewhat less than the eyepiece so the chances of the image appearing in the right place is a bit hit and miss.
I also tried to get an image of Mars but it is now travelling away from us and has become a bit too small. Maybe if we get better seeing conditions soon I’ll have another go.
