My manic solar system 24 hours!!!!

[Carole]

Have done a marathon over the last 24 hours apart from the imaging between the clouds, I had bought one of Robert's Webcams and so had to find a new focal point using 2 different scopes.  Today I was doing the Sun and it kept telling me I was getting short of space and so it didn't record the last batch.  Found out why later this evening as I thought I had better move some of the files off the laptop and found a HUGE AVI of 8.8GB 21130 frames, I must have accidently left it on as it was mostly clouds!!!!  Duh.  

Then Registax kept crashing, but interestingly was happily trying to align the 8.8Gb file.

Anyway, enough of all that:

Uranus (a first for me).
Can't Remember how many frames, but probably not more than about 300 - 400.
Captured in K3CCD tools, ETX125, Webcam SPC900, IR filter

[Carole]

Jupiter and three Moons:
Callisto bottom left, Europa left of Jupiter and Io top right.

ETX125 and webcam SPC900, IR filter, 764 frames in K3CCDTools
Processed in Registax, the Moons had to be processed in K3 as Registax kept freezing every time I tried to put them in, and then a composite was made in Photoshop.

[Carole]

Today's sunspots.  Used the ED80, the SPC900, IR filter and Baader solar filter (do I need the IR filter with a Baader filter?)
Registax only stacked 44 out of 1494 frames as there were lots of clouds, tried to turn off in time but needed Baader specs!!

Processed in Registax and PS CS3



I also took some images of the Moon, but being full Moon they are not very interesting, so won't bother to post them.

[Mac]

I also took some images of the Moon, but being full Moon they are not very interesting, so won't bother to post them.

why not?

the images are very nice, especially Uranus.

[Carole]

Thanks Mac, Oh alright then.

ETX125 and Webcam SPC900, IR filter.
Absolutely no idea where this is on the Moon, possbly Tycho??
Captured in K3CCDtools and processed in Registax and PS CS3

[PhilB]

Wow, nice going, Carole, well done!

[Carole]

Thanks Phil,
I'm Kna.....ered now, still have the remainder of files to shift off the laptop, might as well finish the job now I've started.  I've also got some partions to the HD (which Mac did for me some time ago), so haven't really run out of space, it was just tight on the C drive. 

Carole

[MarkS]

Wow - you have been busy!  A good crop of images there.

Mark

[Carole]

Thanks Mark.
What's the secret of getting more detail on Jupiter?  I didn't try a Barlow this time, but will the next time I image it (provided I can get focus).  Also might use Sharpcap next time.   

Carole

[Mac]

What's the secret of getting more detail on Jupiter?

More images,

if you have your avi set up for 5 frames a second and you video 10 mins,
thats 3000 frames,

now if you were to look at every single frame,
probably 1% would be fantastic, where the air is perfectly still and the whole of the disk is pin sharp,

If you only use those frames you will get a fantastic image,

If you use the top 80%, then the other 79% of the images will not be as sharp as the 1%,
so your image will come out not as good,

its a numbers game,
when you stack the image, select only the top 1% and see what you get,
then up it to 5%,10% ect, untill you get an image that you are not happy with.

then you will know that you are now stacking images that are removing the detail form the images.

Mac.

[Carole]

Thanks Mac.   

Carole

[The Thing]

Hi Carole,

Jupiter webcam settings and stuff I have been using:
1) Check your focus using a Bahtinov mask on a star.
1a) If you are not using a refractor check your collimation.
2) 5 frames/second so the camera doesn't compress the AVI stream.
3) Gain always less than 100% or you will get a lot of extra noise.
An exposure of around 1/50s or 1/100s, the shorter the exposure the more likely you are to 'freeze' the seeing and get some good frames.
4) Make sure your histogram is not saturated i.e. not going fully to the right - SharpCap has a 'transform' to show a histogram. Adjusting the gain to set this seems to work best. There are SharpCap settign on my Jupiter posts, SharpCap doesn't actually use the 0-100% gain or 1/50s type of settings as the Phillips webcams respond to other ranges of numbers and the SharpCap author hasn't bothered to translate them to user friendly figures like 60%.
5) Capture no more than 120s/600 frames at a time as Jupiter rotates fast enough to cause features to have moved. The AVI files should only be 1Mb in size.
6) Use YUV2 as the capture codec.
7) Use AviStack on default settings to process the AVIs - it produces a much better result than Registax.

Hope that helps.

[Carole]

Many thanks Duncan, I now have a webcam that actually sees stars (my previous one didn't) so I did do a Bahtinov focus.  

I'll make a note of the above and the details in your Jupiter post and have them to hand next time I am out.  
I've used sharpcap before, but the 2nd time I tried to use it I could not get something to work (can't remember what it was now), but I intend to give it another try. Just didn't want to waste rare imaging time messing around with unfamiliar software.  

I used 15fps, and always turn the Gain down, and have never been sure about exposure. 
some useful info there, have never used Avistack, is it freeware?

AVI files should only be 1Mb in size.

Had to chuckle at that, see post number 1

found a HUGE AVI of 8.8GB 21130 frames, I must have accidently left it on

What I can't work out, is Mac says

More images

so how do I square this with your comment

Capture no more than 120s/600 frames at a time as Jupiter rotates fast enough to cause features to have moved

Thanks Mac and Duncan for your help.

Carole

[The Thing]

... I used 15fps, and always turn the Gain down, and have never been sure about exposure. 
some useful info there, have never used Avistack, is it freeware?

Yes. And always use 5fps and turn the gain up. It will affect quality.

What I can't work out, is Mac says

More images

so how do I square this with your comment

Capture no more than 120s/600 frames at a time as Jupiter rotates fast enough to cause features to have moved

They are both true. Your have to get a balance. I am able to get 300-400 good enough frames out of a 120s capture - compare that with using 15 subs for a deep sky image! It's quite enough to deal with signal to noise issues I think.

You can also use a dark frame (made from a dark AVI of around 50 frames) and a flat. The flat doesn't help much as the image area is such a small part of the field of view of the scope that there is unlikely to be any coma or vignetting on the tiny CCD. However you might have dust in the optical path.

[MarkS]

What's the secret of getting more detail on Jupiter? 

Use a Celestron C14 with a very sensitive camera and make sure you're in Barbados 

Mark