Starlog April 26th, 2026, 9:31 p.m. local time
I am still getting used to a far more automated imaging setup. And while this latest capture of Jupiter is serviceable, I feel I can do better. Unfortunately time is currently not on my side, as Jupiter is rapidly falling into the West, and I will likely have to resume my experiments with the largest planet later this year.
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Most noteworthy to this session was the inclusion of Celestron’s StarSense Autoguider. An absurdly priced piece of equipment, I almost opted for a less expensive option from ZWO. But I felt keeping within Celestron’s ecosystem via their CPWI software was worth the cost pain (and I am sure Celestron has priced their equipment accordingly; they are now a near-monopoly in the amateur astronomy market, after all).
I was deeply worried about whether the SSAG would gel with my SCT, control mount, and laptop. Fortunately, after the needed firmware update, everything worked perfectly. But good grief, their firmware updater requires you to install JAVA, yes JAVA. Like this is 2003.
But once within CPWI, I was amazing how easily the SSAG worked. It was a little challenge to truly center align the SSAG and telescope i.e. to ensure the selected target is centered in the telescope’s view and not in the finder’s camera. This will require more practice.
Fine-tuning my remote WiFi was another challenge, but one I feel I have satisfactorily resolved. My WiFi 7 network allows for a multi-link setup, which leverages both the 5 GHz and 6 GHz bands with multiple streams. The speed of this, indoors, is incredible, but I discovered it is positively horrid connecting from outside. I use a separate USB adapter with 10 ft USB cable to get the signal as close to the house as possible, and once I switched it back to my normal 5 GHz network, the connection became extremely stable between the outside control laptop and my desktop in my home office.
But the primary aspect I must work on is focusing. The motorized focuser allows greater precision through my focusing attempts than ever, but I still feel the final results are off too much. While my window for Jupiter is almost gone, I hope to resume focusing practice with the Moon and, in a few months, Saturn.
Equipment Used:
- Celestron NexStar Evolution 9.25 Schmidt-Cassegrain
- ZWO ASI676MC planetary camera
- Software for telescope control: CPWI
- Software for capturing: ASICAP
- – Capture Area Size = 1280 * 720
- – Capture Limit = 90 s
- – Colour Format = RAW8
- – Debayer Preview = ON
- – Debayer Type = RGGB
- – Exposure = 7.758ms
- – Frame Count = 111509
- – Gain = 114
- – Temperature = 19.5 C
- – TimeZone = -5
- No Barlow, no filter
- Created from a 90s video, best 50% of frames via Autostakkert
- Focusing via Celestron’s motorized focuser in CPWI
- Software for post-processing:
- – PIPP
- – Autostakkert 4
- – WaveSharp 3
- PaintShop Pro for minor touch-ups
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