đ A Rushed Morning Session
This was another early-morning shoot squeezed in before work â quick setup, fast alignment, and fingers crossed for usable data. It was Wednesday, January 23rd, and I had my eye on two planets: Venus and Jupiter.
Remembering the chaos from last time (Venus flying out of frame every few seconds), I took a little extra care with polar alignment. I gave the polarscope a proper look this time, just to stabilize tracking a bit better.
đŽ Venus â Bright Trouble
Once again, Venus was painfully bright. Focusing and choosing the right exposure settings was nearly impossible with the limited control from the Logitech driver interface. âBrightnessâ still remains a mystery setting â whatever it does, it doesnât help much.
Despite the better alignment, the same issues persisted: Venus constantly threatened to slip out of view, and every minor setting change blew out the image or made it disappear. I managed to grab a few video files, but nothing inspiring.
đ Jupiter â A First Attempt
Jupiter was the more cooperative target. I started with some overexposed videos to capture its moons, then adjusted settings to find a balance that could reveal surface detail without losing the planetâs structure.
I ended up capturing three video files of Jupiter â each with slightly different settings â before I had to pack up. Focusing, as always, was a challenge. Even the tiniest shift made a big difference, and the live view on the laptop wasnât exactly sharp.
đ§Ș Processing
Venus:
AutoStakkert!2 gave me a blobby white image â again. The planetâs phase is visible, but no detail beyond that. This target continues to defy me, mostly due to its brightness and the lack of precise camera control.
Jupiter:
This was my first real attempt at Jupiter with the webcam, and the results were promising. After stacking in AutoStakkert!2 and sharpening in RegiStax6, I pulled out a faint but visible set of atmospheric bands across the surface â my first real surface detail on Jupiter!
Even better: I combined the sharpened planet image with the overexposed moons captured earlier. The final composite puts Jupiter in context, floating with its Galilean moons, and I really liked how that gave the image some scale and storytelling.
Jupiter with 3Ă Barlow and Logitech webcam, Jupiter and moons composite image
đ§ Conclusion
Venus:
Still frustrating. Maybe the key is to start with exposure and brightness set extremely low, then work up slowly. But so far, every attempt ends with a white blob and a guessing game. I’ll need to keep testing⊠or maybe itâs time to upgrade the camera for planetary work.
Jupiter:
A definite step forward! While the image doesnât match what you see through the eyepiece, I did capture cloud bands and moons â and that felt like real progress. The exposure was probably still too low, as the laptop preview barely showed anything. But for a âŹ10 webcam, this wasnât a bad start at all.
Iâm beginning to see where the limits of this camera are â and where Iâll need to push next.
Clear skies,
Chris