Re: [APML]: planetary pics

["Bobby Middleton" <bobbym@unicomp.net>]

The Astro-Photography Mailing List
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> From: Philip Perkins 
> Bobby,
> Your technique is clearly spot on, as 
> are your LX200 optics.  It's interesting how often Meade gets slated for 
> their optical quality, yet your LX200 clearly has very fine optics, and I

> believe that mine is of comparable quality.  

Thanks Philip for the compliments and to all others also.
Yes, I am satisfied with my lx200 optics. 

>Another thing that interested 
> me was your use of PJM-2. This would not have been my natural choice, but

> here it has worked very well.  In fact hypered PJM-2 could work equally 
> well - 

I went along with the traditional view that one needed a slower,
fine-grained film
to capture the best resolution and that is true in some degree, but the
trade-off
to that is that your exposure times are longer. Wallis and Provin and also
Jean
Dragesco all mention that there are 2 trains of thought for high resolution
planetary
work: 1) use a slower, fine grained film with long ex.times at high f
ratios and
2) use fast films with quicker exposure times to minimize atmospheric
disturbance
during the exposure. I learned early that my better pictures were with the
shorter
exposures. But I didn't try PJM until one late night at the end of a deep
sky
photo session when I still had 1/2 a roll left. I took off the GEG and
checked the 
view of Jupiter. Seeing was excellent, so I finished off the roll. 
That also brings up I think the key.....seeing is everything.
I shot 6 or 8 rolls over the span of 2 months to get these pictures; some
nights were 
better than others. My best Saturn picture was taken on the same night as
my best Jupiter picture.   
> 
> I think your images have also settled for me that question mark about
'low 
> contrast' in US PJM-2 (raised by one or two folk).  This is clearly not
true 
> - the contrast is clearly excellent for these images to have worked so
well.

Actually I was surprised when I saw the results on the prints of PJM. I
suppose
I should try to find some more to supplement my stock in the freezer! It
is, or should I
say was a good film.
Bobby Middleton