My first ever capture of Jupiter!

[Kylee]

Jupiter1a by kylee40, on Flickr

This is my first attempt...considering I had no clue what I was doing I was really chuffed. Would there be any way that on one of the imaging nights someone could go back to basics and maybe cover using a webcam and registax. I know it's probably basic compared to the usual Astrophotography but i could do with some help!!

Thanks

Kylee  

(Edit: tidied link - Rick)

[Carole]

Wow Kylee, you don't hang around, that's really good for a first attempt.

I am covering webcam imaging at the imaging session at my house on 16th March as Saturn, Mars and Jupiter will be up. I hope there will be some more webcam experts on hand though as I find webcamming more difficult than Deep sky stuff.

What's the spec on this Kylee.  
Telescope, webcam used, did you use an IR filter, how many frames stacked, stacking software (I assume this was Registax), and any post processing.  When was it taken?

You've got a couple of Moons there too if you lift the brightness you can see them.

Well done
Carole

[Carole]

Hope you don't mind Kylee, but I had a little play with your image in Photoshop, and I think you've also captured the redspot.  I've also brought out the Moons.

You'd be surprised what you can find buried in an image.
This is better than any image I have managed to acquire of Jupiter.  

[MarkS]

Excellent result Kylee!

You should be really pleased with that.

Mark

[Kylee]

OMG Carole ....I am so shocked at what you've managed to do with my picture. This is why I need help...really don't know what i'm doing but the fact I've managed to capture something that can look like that... i'm absolutely speechless. I've really got to learn how to process these images. That's truly amazing.

I took this image on the 9th of November with my Phillips preflashed SPC880 CCD webcam. I literally just plugged it in and pressed capture! I still can't believe the result you have managed to obtain. Thanks.

Kylee 

[Kylee]

Skywatcher Skymax 127.
Phillips preflashed SPC880 webcam [Philips SPC 900NC PC Camera]
Resolution=640x480
Frame Rate (fps)=5.00
Colour Space / Compression=I420
Exposure=-7
Brightness=64
Contrast=32
Saturation=0
Gamma=21
ColorEnable=255
BacklightCompensation=255
Gain=30

These were the settings on the webcam but I didn't set any of it as I don't really know what i'm doing!!

[The Thing]

Colour Space / Compression=I420

Hi Kylee,
Good Jupiter.

The only thing I would do differently next time would be to set this to YUV2 as I420 degrades the image, I believe I420 was designed for early video conferencing where the amount of data created had to be restricted. You will get more detail and a clearer result with the YUV2 setting.

[Kylee]

I think I will attend the imaging night at Caroles as she said that it will be covering webcams. Hopefully with a few of you there that know what you are doing I can pick up some tips. I will see if I can alter that setting...as i said I didn't control anything except the capture button!!!!!

Kylee

[Kylee]

What Photo editing programmes do people use?

[Carole]

Hi Kylee, most of us use Photoshop for post-processing, but the really technical people use Iris.  Post-processing is something that you need to pick up gradually as you go along, there are so many techniques.  However for what it's worth, I brightened the Moons up on a dupicate layer and then did a composite into the original image.  Then I was trying to bring out the colour in the banding and the only thing that worked was filter/unsharp mask.  I then had to increase the resolution as it looked very pixellated when posted on the web.

It is often a question of trial and error and bits of advice here and there with post-processing, but I can show a bit of that in March if you like.

Duncan is there any chance you could come to the imaging session on 16th March as you seem to have a good grip on webcam imaging, also Mike and any-one else who is available.  I only picked to do this because of the availability of the planets.  We can also run through Registax processing and Avistack as well if you are there.

Carole

[Carole]

BTW, what capture software did you use Kylee?

Carole

[mickw]

Kylee, if you haven't already, get Sky at Night magazine (January edition and the next 3), they are printing a 4 part tutorial on image processing and also suggesting processing software, there's even a program on the CD
Gimp or Iris are both very powerful and free.

The first part features Solar System basics which should give you some tips on your Jupiter - Have fun 

[Fay]

well done Kylee, that is so good, lot better than what i have got!

Fay

[RobertM]

Can't complain about that as a first attempt, it's really good !

[The Thing]

I am mostly using Photo Filtre (the free version) as it handles 16bit images unlike Gimp which only does 8bit images.