Saturn Photos
5 March 2007
Here are more photos of Saturn taken with a Sony DSC-P93 Smart Zoom digital camera with a 12.4mm Plossl eyepiece attached, shooting through an XT-12 telescope. Compare these photos to similar photos taken the previous day, 4 March 2007.
The 12.4mm Plossl eyepiece yields 121X when used with the XT-12 scope, focal length 1,500mm. I use the camera's optical zoom to increase the magnification -- the camera has a 3X optical zoom, thus, if the camera is zoomed to max, the magnification would be 121 x 3 = 363X -- which is too much magnification for normal seeing conditions. I took some of these shots with the camera zoomed out approximately half-way, which would yield 1.5 x 121 = 182X -- which is good magnification for planetary viewing.
As you see in these photos, Saturn appears fuzzy at higher powers. I suspect this fuzziness is a result of several factors:
- Focusing is not accurate.
- Scope may "jiggle" when I take the photo.
- Camera shutter is staying open too long and allowing Saturn to move across the field of view, thus causing the image to blur.
I'll keep playing with this simple setup to see if I can get a clear photo of Saturn.
Here are the photos of Saturn I made on 5 March 2007.
SonyDSC-P93 Smart Zoom digital camera; Scopetronix
digital-T adapter
Meade 12.4mm Super Plossl eyepiece; Orion XT-12 Dobsonian reflector
telescope;
1,500 mm focal length with 12.4mm eyepiece yields 121X