Jupiter

[Carole]

17th March 2016

I always find planetary imaging very difficult and was going to give it up after this image, however this is the first time I have managed to get any detail, so might give it another "go" if I can get hold of a more suitable scope which I think is partly my problem.  Don't want to buy a bigger one and the only suitable scope OAS have on loan is the LX which I would not want to use on a forked mount.

ED120 + 3 x barlow
509 frames 15 fps sharpcap
DBK21AU04
CROP

[The Thing]

Very nice Carole, loads of detail, a bit salmony though. The seeing was good last night.

[Carole]

I did it two nights ago, it clouded up last night while I was trying again.

Yes you are right about the colour.  Is this better?
Also would you say my lack of much improvement might be due to not having the right scope?
How many FPS do you normally do?

[The Thing]

I did it two nights ago, it clouded up last night while I was trying again.

Yes you are right about the colour.  Is this better?
Also would you say my lack of much improvement might be due to not having the right scope?
How many FPS do you normally do?

The colour is much better, yes. The image scale is fine and I don't think you need to improve, it's good.

I would normally try to get 30fps@640x480 or 35fps@420x420 (which fits Jupiter at my image scale) and capture 1000-200 frames or 120s max per capture.

[Carole]

Thanks Duncan.

Carole

[MarkS]

That second one is great Carole.  Lots of detail and contrast.  Just a bit too green though.

With the DBK camera (mine's the same as your's) I find 15fps works well.  If I push it to 30fps then each individual frame is noisy and I end up with too low signal-to-noise in the final stack.   The higher the SNR the more you can push the sharpening/deconvolution.

I also use IC Capture (it came with the camera) and save in Y800 format, which is completely uncompressed.  Autostakkert loves Y800 and does a proper drizzled stack which gives excellent sharpness.

Mark

[Carole]

Thanks Mark, I have IC Capture which I tried to use but it said there was some problem with a codec (which I don't understand) and so it wouldn't capture.

I have adjusted the colour yet again, I find it quite difficult to change the colour, also when you've been looking at something for ages you can't see the woods for the daisies.

Hope this is better:

[Carole]

I had another "go" at stacking Jupiter in Autostakkert and wavelets in Registax.  I seem to have got the Moons this time.

I haven't sharpened it as much as previously.

I really need a larger scope to get more detail, but reluctant to spend all that money just for planets only to find I am still no good at it.  Would be useful if I could try out a bigger scope at some point.

[MarkS]

Thanks come out really well Carole!   There's plenty of detail in there. 

If you are using the ED120 then a x5 Powermate would take you to around f/30 which is probably about optimum for that DBK camera.

Mark

[Carole]

Thanks Mark.

I had a 5 x powermate once, but I found it difficult to use and sold it.  I'll keep en eye out for an opprtunity to use a bigger scope, or a bargain.

Carole

[Fay]

Do you know where IC Capture saves its files, and if it still saves them if you have not given them a name? I have lost a 1500 jupiter avi, perhaps it never saved.

[MarkS]

I would open the dialog box again and see if it has a folder path already set.  If so, then look in that folder.

Mark

[Fay]

Sorry Carole I have taken over your post.

Mark I found the files, but Auto stakkert will not open them as wrong file name. I took them with IC Capture, AVI files, codec I think Y800. have you any clues why they are not accepted? Thanks 

[MarkS]

Mark I found the files, but Auto stakkert will not open them as wrong file name. I took them with IC Capture, AVI files, codec I think Y800. have you any clues why they are not accepted? Thanks 

AS!2 is designed to read Y800 files directly so there shouldn't be a problem.  How big is the file?  Apparently files bigger than 2GB can cause problems for AS!2.  Otherwise run your file through PIPP (which I know nothing about unfortunately) or VirtaulDub (which I use all the time but is complicated for a first time user).

A couple of threads discussing this very issue that might help:
https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/200726-autostakkert2-failed-opening-file/
http://www.cloudynights.com/topic/529334-neximage-5-y800-pipp-as2/

Personally I've never had a problem except for when the file was never closed properly and so the index had to be rebuilt.  Y800 files from IC Capture generally go straight into AS!2 no problem.

Mark

[Fay]

1500 frames. there is a bit to read there, Mark, will try and sort it out today. my result will not be too good though. I used the SPC colour webcam first, but got a laptop blue screen!!

[Fay]

Ran the file thru Virtualdub and it was then able to open in AS. also ran it thru Castrator.

[Carole]

Well and truly highjacked.   

Carole

[Fay]

sorry Carole it escalated

[Carole]

 

[Carole]

Managed to drag a little more detail out of this image.

[MarkS]

Wow!  You've got some really good detail in that!

Mark

[Carole]

Thanks Mark.

Carole

[RobertM]

Sorry I missed this earlier.

That looks really good Carole, there's even detail appearing in the polar regions.  How did you get such good focus ?

Robert

[Carole]

Thanks Robert.

Well I think focus was just sheer luck Robert, it's something I struggle with and must have got it just right that night.  In contrast I went out again last night with my new C6 and despite managing to split the Moons with a Bahtinov Mask, it's still not as good a focus as this one.  Just about to post a new thread.

Carole

[JohnP]

Nice - but starting to look a little over processed (in my opinion of course) - just a tad too sharp for my liking.. very good though...

[Carole]

Thanks John. 

Carole

[The Thing]

I agree with everyone, lovely detail but a tad overprocessed blowing out the lighter areas. The moons are excellently rendered.

Make sure the histogram doesn't go over 75% when you capture to give 'headroom' for sharpening effects. Many planetary imagers capture really dim video and get good results. What you see at the capture stage should look pretty dim and awful. Also in Autstakkert set Normalisation to 75% to correct any bright frames, I found this can affect the final image a lot.

[Carole]

I've recently learnt a few more techniques, I might go back to this and re-process it.

Carole