10
11
We recommend a telescope mounted
on a motorized altitude-azimuth or
German Equatorial mount. You can
potentially capture the Moon or a
planetary image with a telescope that
does not track, however you may not
get optimum results. The sky moves
15 arcseconds per second! If you are
imaging through a long focal length
telescope, you essentially need to
track the object or unwanted blurring
could occur.
Setup the Camera and
telescope
• Locate and center the object
you wish to image in your
telescope using an eyepiece.
• Plug the
5 MP into your computer’s USB port.
• Remove the eyepiece from your telescope and insert the
5 MP.
• Open
Orion EZPlanCap and select a resolution.
• Connect to the camera.
• Gradually adjust the telescope focus until you get a sharp image on your
computer screen.
• Increase gain and exposure if image too dim.
• Use the zoom feature as a focus aid.
• Select white balance
(Figure 9 & 10).
Your frame rate will depend on such factors as your exposure time, computer pro-
cessor speed and hard drive speed. Fainter objects will require longer exposures
whereas bright objects like Jupiter or the Moon will require very short exposures.
Start with 100ms and 50% gain, and then adjust the exposure as needed for the
object you are imaging.
Imaging Tip: To speed up the frame rate, and to acquire a rough focus a lit-
tle quicker, select resolution 640x480 4x4 binning mode. This will increase
the frame rate and operate at 1/16
th
the resolution of the camera. Binning is
also useful when using very long focal length telescopes.
Setup Capture
Once you have achieved focus and good color, you are ready to capture and save
images to your computer.
View and Stack
After you have captured your images, you can review them in RegiStax, a free-
ware program downloadable from the provided web link in the CD Launcher. Mac
users can use the Lynkeos tool to align and stack their images.
We recommend stacking a minimum of 50 images or more. The individual
images have low bit depth (255 brightness level counts), and background noise.
Additionally, the individual images may be very soft since if you’re imaging at
high power, with or without the use of a Barlow. Stacking will improve the poten-
tial sharpness when processing in RegiStax. Stacking several hundred or more
images is sometimes appropriate to get the most possible detail.
Binning
The 5 MP can bin 4x4 to achieve 640 x 480 resolution in color. Binning in color
is a unique feature can provides great versatility to your planetary imaging. If you
are using a telescope system with very long focal length, or if the local seeing
conditions are poor, you may benefit from binning 4x4 to improve sharpness,
sensitivity, and frame rate.
Select resolution 640x480 4x4 binning mode (
Figure 5 & 6).
Figure 14.
Top: 5x Barlow, Middle: 3X
Barlow, Bottom: No Barlow.
Figure 15.
Lunar imaging.