Planetary Imaging

[steep apex]

I had perfect seeing conditions yesterday with almost no cloud interference

I still gotta reprocess my Saturn data as I processed it kind of wrong

[cursive inlet]

Real

[frozen hound]

damn that's wild

😂😂😂

[vapid depot]

Lmfao

[steep apex]

1 or 2, which one is a better process?

[uncut glade]

1, but lower your exposure

[steep apex]

Look what I got with the 4.5” last night

[uncut glade]

That’s crazy dude

I had the C11 out and in the NIR I got maybe 1/2 the resolution

[vapid depot]

first nir rgb saturn 10-23

[cursive inlet]

@somber stratus bro this is actually crazy

[hasty hull]

it’s from professional probe data

Galileo and Voyager i think

[somber stratus]

I do mention it in the caption. Otherwise I think it’s fairly obvious anyway tbh

[somber stratus]

Thanks man

[near quiver]

bro gets more detail on ganymede than i get on mars

[onyx garnet]

bro talking the facts

[onyx garnet]

insane Ganymede map dude

[somber stratus]

We’re back! After some 45 days of cloud and rain

The scope actually got rained on before sunset but all worth it. Seeing is lovely

[slate juniper]

:O

[somber stratus]

Ganymede & Io

Lmao Discord blocked the raw vid due to explicit content

Understandable, have a nice day

[uncut glade]

Seeing so good discord thought it was porn, tough world

[cursive inlet]

https://tenor.com/view/dj-khaled-suffering-from-success-this-so-cute-what-a-lovely-morning-oh-ma-gad-gif-11233135040670052230

[thick heron]

Absolutely an image of Mercury and definitely not another slightly larger object somewhere else in the Solar System.

[cursive inlet]

Awesome, I’d do some drizzle tho

[somber stratus]

Single 11ms exposure

Europa, Ganymede, Io

[thick heron]

Screenshotted from Affinity Photo so it looks pixelated.

[somber stratus]

best to save it and post the PNG

no?

[thick heron]

I’m lazy.

And hungry

[somber stratus]

Understandable

[thick heron]

Going to start posting all my final images as screenshots from Affinity Photo.

An artistic choice that pushes the boundaries.

[cursive inlet]

I’m gonna comment “Awesome, I’d do some drizzle tho” on all of them

[thick heron]

I will respond “Screenshotted from Affinity Photo so it looks pixelated” and leave it at that.

[cursive inlet]

Damn, checkmate i guess

[thick heron]

And everyone else will be very confused because they didn’t see this.

[somber stratus]

holy jesus

that's a stack & a half

@thick heron check this shit out

[thick heron]

Blue.

Now

@somber stratus

[somber stratus]

Sec

[thick heron]

You know what would make it better?

Non-integer zoom in Affinity Photo.

Photoshop can be a suitable alternative.

[somber stratus]

It's a bit noisy the B channel. 25% efficiency. Play with the raw stack

Definitely has potential but the G channel will suffice tbh

That's B

[thick heron]

I have a big plate of leftover 🍝 in front of me ATM.

[cursive inlet]

Would it ever be beneficial to shoot moons in violet or uv for the resolution when the seeing is good?

[thick heron]

In theory, yes… from my experience with the planets, no.

Atmosphere is pretty brutal to UV.

[somber stratus]

Optically too UV isn't the best

for barlows etc

[thick heron]

I like B for Io. 50/50 for Ganymede @somber stratus

Honestly, find a way to mash the channels together on Ganymede and you might have a winner.

I've got this...

[somber stratus]

Yeah, I'm sure there's a weird combo that looks good and has decent SNR

Probably 0/50/50 R/G/B

remove R completely

for Lum

[thick heron]

50/50 B & G

[somber stratus]

What's that there?

G, G/B, B?

[main flume]

How long should my Jupiter timelapse frame vids be? and how much time between individual vids?

[somber stratus]

Tbh just G looks nice.

[thick heron]

It's just blended together.

PixInsight PixelMath.

[somber stratus]

Would you mind checking Cartes for me regarding minor moons Ethan?

[somber stratus]

Complex math right there

[thick heron]

Time?

[somber stratus]

00:10, 27th UTC.

2 hours ago

[somber stratus]

Cheers

all too close me thinks

[thick heron]

I think Metis might be the same brightness as Thebe when I got it a couple months back.

[somber stratus]

I see one little guy 💪

Amalthea. This is 00:00 midnight

[main flume]

Niceee

[somber stratus]

00:14.4 UT

Maybe Metis at left, just below the diffraction spike

or Thebe

whichever is brighter

[thick heron]

Squish

Need to figure out how to turn of refraction in CdC.

Fixed it.

More likely to be Thebe if one of them.

@somber stratus The one below lines up well with Thebe. Metis MIIIIIIIIIIGHT be just above the spike.

If so it's hardly indistinguishable from other random blobs around the image that look the same.

[somber stratus]

Metis is a no from me

but I'd say Thebe is a hit

[thick heron]

I would keep trying with Metis. If the same thing keeps happening it becomes harder to come to any other conclusion.

[somber stratus]

Makes sense lol

I mean in reality, the slight brightning is likely due to Metis, but we can't say for sure that it's not noise.

[vapid depot]

https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/897175-jupiter-9th-october-trinidad/#entry13027117 dang

surprised my stuff from my latitude looks as good as it does

think im lacking in aperture for those moons ^^?

[near quiver]

to be fair, the average cloudy nights imager is as bad as the average protostar

[coarse aspen]

#older_system_pics message

cant get over this

ganymede detail with 5"

[thick heron]

If you're feeling REALLY charitable you might be able to call the brightening on the right side of Ganymede real detail from my 90mm in 2014.

[vapid depot]

Yeah insane

[near quiver]

hes just goated with the sauce

[thick heron]

Quick and gentle redo (this is why I like to keep raw data).

[white prawn]

Any suggestions for getting rid of fringing around the entire rim of a planet?

[steep apex]

Same, makes me wanna push my 4.5” to the very limits, I’m feeling it’s close

[coarse aspen]

oh wow thats a 4.5"?? really good

i mean it

[white prawn]

How in the world are you getting that out of a 4.5 inch.

I mean, I'm struggling to get that amount of detail out of my 8". What the actual grumble am I doing wrong here.

[vapid depot]

yeah wtf thats what i got w my 6" sct

[somber stratus]

you should mask it with a perfect circle

see if it's brightning from Osiris or the clouds behind

[hasty hull]

Mars nearing solar conjunction next to Mercury today via the LASCO C3

[near quiver]

Anybody have a good example of with/without Adc?

[deep island]

maybe @ruby tartan

[livid sierra]

https://skyinspector.co.uk/atm-dispersion-corrector-adc/

[near quiver]

Honestly seems not that much better

[livid sierra]

...

I disagree

Especially looking at the last example with Saturn

[near quiver]

Oh the Saturn one is big

The Jupiter ones might just be too small to really see

[near quiver]

Interesting

[vapid depot]

https://youtu.be/ZaTWq1EfjGU?t=5 @main flume

[white prawn]

My most recent Saturn image in #older_system_pics message was with ADC, everything else previous was w/o ADC. Seems to have helped.

[summer field]

You can lose quite a bit of details without an adc, especially if the planet is low

[steep apex]

So an 8” dob with 1200mm is better than a 6” SCT with 1500mm?

[near quiver]

Yeah I mean you can just magnify more

[white prawn]

In planetary? Aperture is KING. More aperture = more light = more resolution = more detail.

... Which is why I'm getting royally cheezed off at how the images from my 8" are comparing not just to images from folks 16" but also from folks 4.5"

[thick heron]

ADC is more important with OSC since the color channels are not as pure as mono + filters.

[white prawn]

For planetary w/ mono/filters, wouldn't it be best to have multiple scopes, each w/ the same mono and different filter (or bare) capturing at the same time so as to minimize impact of rotation?

[thick heron]

You could in theory if you have no budget concerns.

I would rather buy one bigger scope over multiple smaller ones for the higher resolving power.

[somber stratus]

Inb4 interferometer

[somber stratus]

8">6", Dob(Newtonian)>SCT. Definitely the Dob

[thin aspen]

Hi Tom how do you setup your goto dob. I recently got 250p goto and can’t seem to get tracking good. Do you use wifi or handset to control your dob and also what star alignment do you do. Thx.

[thick heron]

Aperture is more important than design.

[somber stratus]

The key is to have a level base. I use an app on my phone and lay it on the base. Shows the inclination of the base for me and I try to get it to <0.5 degrees off horizontal by shoving things under the legs to prop them up.

I use the handset, and actually only do 1-star align on the planet I'm observing. "Brightest star" align mode, and select the direction Jupiter is in for instance. Align as you normally would then it'll ask for a second star. At this point I hit escape and exit alignment. It happens that the mount still retains the alignment data from this 1-star (planet) align. If your base is flat, this is all that's needed and it's much faster than 3-star align.

[thin aspen]

Have you tried doing short exposure (10secs) with the dob? Is it possible with optimal alignment?

[thin aspen]

Also what time do you put into the handset. Is it 00:00

[somber stratus]

Works fine at native focal length but there's only so much an alt-az mount can do.

[somber stratus]

Whatever time it is when I'm setting up.

PC is more accurate

[thin aspen]

I mean like time zone srry

[somber stratus]

I think I use UTC (+0)as i'm in the UK. It also asks for daylight saving or not shortly after this step.

Currently I hit "yes", but this weekend it'll change.

Your timezone should be the one without daylight saving

i.e winter

[livid sierra]

Why not use Daytime Align then?

[thin aspen]

I’m also in the uk so mine should be the same

[somber stratus]

Also works, but I've had it bug out at night for some reason

[livid sierra]

I’ve done 15s exposures with my DSLR. Don’t think I’d be able to do that with the IMX585 with the small fov. But yes it’s possible with good alignment

[thin aspen]

Ohhh so it’s currently daylight saving. I’ve been hitting no thinking it will change to yes this weekend

[somber stratus]

As in, it doesn't present the option for daytime align in the first place.

[livid sierra]

That’s odd, mine does

But if brightest star works just as well, it doesn’t really matter

[somber stratus]

Yeah, opposite. Yes for +1, no for +0

[thin aspen]

So it is no?

[somber stratus]

lmao sorry

"Yes" will use UTC+1, "No" will use UTC+0, assuming you input +0 in the step prior.

Currently it's "yes", UTC+1. But clocks go back this weekend, after which it's a "no", UTC+0

[thin aspen]

Ohhh

So the time zone I put is 00.00

[thick heron]

How about we all just stick with one UTC offset all year?

[thin aspen]

I mean +1 XD

[somber stratus]

Correct, this never changes. All that changes is your answer to the daylight saving question thereafter

[somber stratus]

Ikr

imagine

[thin aspen]

So just to confirm xD. tonight I do
time zone : 00:00
daylight saving: yes

[somber stratus]

Correct

[thin aspen]

Ty

[somber stratus]

Next week and all winter you do

time zone : 00:00
daylight saving: no

[thin aspen]

Cool ty

[somber stratus]

Again it'll show the altitude of Jupiter if you have it selected

can always compare to stellarium

and see if it matches

[thin aspen]

Ah ok. Júpiter is so low for me now and I don’t have an adc so I’ll do it later in the year when it’s higher in the uk

[thick heron]

Or connect the scope to your PC or phone and get the date, time, and location through that.

[somber stratus]

Can't stay up late?

reaches 50 degrees at midnight

[thick heron]

Tom, what would you know about seeing Jupiter from the UK?

[livid sierra]

What I do is look at the Clock app on my phone, input the time on the HC like 10 seconds in advance and hit Ok when it’s at that second

[thin aspen]

Could do but the weather is so unpredictable in the uk…

[somber stratus]

No much to be fair. Clouds in all directions normally

[thin aspen]

Also how do you deal with dew?

[somber stratus]

hair dryer

[thin aspen]

At midnight xD

[somber stratus]

I'm far enough from the house to not wake anyone

lol

[thick heron]

There are also secondary heater kits out there.

[somber stratus]

Surely this is just a reason you should stay up no? Gotta make the most of opportunities.

[thick heron]

I want to try PC fans to fight dew. Moving air should prevent dew formation.

[somber stratus]

I'm lazy.

[thin aspen]

Also sixth form…

[livid sierra]

I’m still not clear as to whether secondary heaters are suitable for planetary. Some people use them, others say they significantly worsen the image quality

[somber stratus]

I tried a desk fan placed 30cm away on full blast. Still forms lol

it's brutal here

[livid sierra]

Doesn’t do much in my experience, then again my humidity is often around 80-90%

[thick heron]

It's brutal here too.

[thin aspen]

Uk whether in a nutshell. Out to ruin your day.

[thick heron]

Surprised it didn't work.

[somber stratus]

Yeah I was too

It's certainly reduced, but not completely proofing it.

[livid sierra]

I can’t see how moving air will do much against dew unless your fan is on ultra instinct mode or it’s only like 2cm away from the mirror/corrector plate

[thin aspen]

What about a dew shield/ extension piece to prevent the dew from forming on the secondary?

[livid sierra]

I want to try that out soon, I have the materials to diy a dew shield but tbh my hopes aren’t too high with that

Don’t think it’s gonna help a lot

[somber stratus]

Works if you have a closed tube. My dob is open-truss so i'd need a light shroud too.

But these inhibit cool-down time

[livid sierra]

Just point a fan inwards the tube to cool down faster

Or at the back of the primary

Problem solved

[thick heron]

I'm thinking when I get a 400P a shroud will be a necessity.

[slate juniper]

Have a question, could I use my blue filter to capture details on venus?xd

Or like to make them more visible atleast

And does it make sense to remove the uv/ir cut too?:D

[somber stratus]

#47 filters are actually widely used for Venus UV

You just need to cut out that IR leak

[slate juniper]

Oh shesh

[somber stratus]

Most people stack the filter with a wide UV/IR cut such as the Astronomik L1 or Player-One UV/IR cut.

[slate juniper]

:o

[somber stratus]

Because of course you don't want to block the UV too, so you need a wider pass

[slate juniper]

What if I just image the venus normally with uv/ir cut and then do a seperate capture with the bluefilter only and use the bluechannel wehre the clouds are as a luminance layer or sumthing like that

[livid sierra]

I think the blue channel is sensitive to the IR as well

[vapid depot]

Yeah all rgb color bayer filters become transparent by abt the same amount in NIR past around 800nm

Even the 224/290 non IR enhanced

[near quiver]

lol it looks like it would work better as an ir filter than a blue filter

[slate juniper]

I thought that too xddd

[somber stratus]

B minus R might work though I'm thinking

Both have similar response in IR, but not Blue.

Take the difference

[near quiver]

Planets tonight

interesting, moon and jupiter conjunction coming up, i think i might just barely be able to fit it in the fov of my evoguide with the 533

[near quiver]

does seeing typically change throughout the night, like in a predicatble way? like right after sunset is worse than midnight or something?

[uncut glade]

Generally it improves as night goes on. The less radiation the earth is giving off the calmer the local seeing will be

The best seeing is sunrise, the worst is sunset

[vapid depot]

Ah yep

[vapid depot]

Also look at jet stream maps won’t hurt

But they’re not a be all end all of anything

[near quiver]

this doesnt look too bad imo

getting lik 2/5 right now

[vapid depot]

dang

[near quiver]

thats nothing after registax, ill do final touch ups in gimp later tonight

im kind of getting annoyed by the 224 right now because its so noisy, thats 4 minutes of capture

stacked at 20% lol

[vapid depot]

What’s ur histogram at

[vapid depot]

120mc moment.

The 224 should be about as sensitive as the 290/462 in visible hmm

If it’s diff, definitely not far off like the 120 is

[near quiver]

peak at 2/3rds

[vapid depot]

okay that’s good

[near quiver]

really just waiting for jupiter to rise because thats the actually cool one

[vapid depot]

Saturns bands are also way more subtle

General detail is tbh.. don’t need as much sharpening

Can’t sharpen exactly the same * better words

[near quiver]

makes sense

[near quiver]

seeing improved massively

[white prawn]

Nice. I see the polar area and a distinct upper band, middle area, darker bit before equatorial band... good.

[near quiver]

Thank you

[onyx garnet]

latest attempt, first light on jupiter with the uranus-c

[fluid shore]

Jupiter from an hour or so ago

Europa and io were there too

[near quiver]

hey @white prawn check this out

[white prawn]

Nice!

[near quiver]

turns out the trick i was missing was extending the barlow a lot

trying even more right now

[near quiver]

managed to push a bit more magnification. i think its fair to say that im no longer terrible at this

[coarse aspen]

Has more potential. now get seeing

[near quiver]

thats like 7-9/10

but even if i did i cant magnify more because i literally cant track with any more fl

[coarse aspen]

Not quite

Details are great, not saying its a bad image, but it is quite soft likely due to seeing

With proper seeing, all details that do exist in the data will be sharp

[near quiver]

i guess

but i dont think theres that much left to squeeze out, a bit more is there for sure though

[coarse aspen]

I think thats like 3/5 or 4/5 seeing

3/5 probably

[near quiver]

To be fair I’m used to 1-2 lol

[remote star]

looks promising so far

this is only 10% though

I feel like I can go up to 50% since the seeing was really good last night

[fading plume]

Few days ago

nice moons

[remote star]

40%

[onyx garnet]

🔥🔥 processing from Ken

[somber stratus]

Nice Mimas

[vapid depot]

i think my other edits i put out are a tad soft. more sharpening and resulting B channel after some sat+color denoise.

im almost feeling undersampled when looking at the data (all channels too) close up ... which is crazy.

[green pebble]

is anyone going to photograph the moons partial eclipse

[main flume]

very hot

[main flume]

holy crap

[whole osprey]

my first planetary image and it's of Jupiter taken on a 6" dobsonian

[thick heron]

I have delivered @cursive inlet #older_system_pics message

[cursive inlet]

[thick heron]

[vapid depot]

Reflecting on planet progress I’ve made since I’ve gotten back into it more seriously . September vs October (new scope and cam)

[white prawn]

Going to toss a question at you. I did a de-rotation and posted it in #older_system_pics message . I'm going to process a couple of others from that session a bit further for a comparison. Mind sharing your thoughts on the de-rotated?

[vapid depot]

I think the 180s per vid was a bit too long

[white prawn]

120s? 150?

[vapid depot]

120s

Shorter if good seeing

I just run 60 lol

Ah I see that’s old data as well

[white prawn]

that seems TOO short. Not enough frames

[vapid depot]

What camera?

[white prawn]

With 180s I get close to 20K frames.

585

[vapid depot]

Ah my cams less sensitive sometimes in my frames for deroto , I’ll have like 700 stacked

[white prawn]

If tonight is a good night I'll probably do some imaging. Some w/ the 585 and some w/ the DSLR

[vapid depot]

Why the dslr at all?

[white prawn]

Comparison

🙂

[vapid depot]

Ahh

I’m curious ab ur raw data ngl

[white prawn]

Best shot I got w/ the DSLR the scope wasn't collimated, want to compare now that it's collimated

[vapid depot]

Also focus

Do u use firecap auto align for focusing through the mirror shift and vibrations ?

Although I am starting to feel the 8” aperture a bit in the one u sent

[white prawn]

I'll absolutely share the raw data later if you want. Focus I know is alright.

I tried using firecap, tossed an hour that could have been spent imaging, went back to SharpCap.

[vapid depot]

Ah dang what happened

Ah actually worded wrong , a compressed snippet of a raw

[white prawn]

Nothing worked, couldn't figure out what settings, clicked a wrong setting, couldn't undo it

Fun-fun

[vapid depot]

Oof lol

[white prawn]

but aside from "sampling too long" how is that de-rotation?

[vapid depot]

Hard to tell cuz of that

[gray orchid]

Insane

[livid sierra]

How many do you stack

[vapid depot]

Yee shouldn’t be a ton

A huge point to derotation is being able to work with more high quality frames

[white prawn]

Best 25% usually

[livid sierra]

I'd probably start doing shorter recordings if you're derotating

Like around 100sec recordings, and try to integrate 15-20 mins for Jupiter

I use Noise Robust 8 in AS!3 and I stack a % a little bit before the quality graph hits the 50% mark

[white prawn]

Normally I don't derotate, this was a bit of an experiment for me and I just happened to have a few images from one night. Normally I record for 180s and see what the graph looks like, I actually try to see what I can get for what's above the top 25% mark on the quality graph. The 180s is based on "what is the max I can image without showing rotation" and that was the answer based on a vid by Astrobiscuit. I'm hoping that as I improve I'll get more above the top 25% quality line ... because watching near nothing go above the bottom 25% line one night was really disappointing.

If recording for 120s is an improvement then I might stick with it anyway.

[steep apex]

Maybe go 10k?

[white prawn]

☹️

[steep apex]

Huh

I edited it to maybe go for 10k

And it didn’t go through

[white prawn]

I knew what you meant, I was just thinking "less data."

But 120s vs 180s ... if it brings me better data/better output, then yay

[white prawn]

@steep apex @livid sierra I need to correct myself. I'm not getting 20K frames at 180s, I'm getting 9800. 😦

[coarse aspen]

probably an issue with the laptop? Uranus C can record many many more frames per second

it needs fast storage

[white prawn]

Wait a sec. I chose a bad sample.

Here we go, 16K frames

Would it be worthwhile to cut those recordings in half so I'm working with about 8K frames, see if I can get a better image?

[coarse aspen]

I believe 585 can record up to 187fps, maybe even more

[white prawn]

I'm sure the 585 can ... if I have a small enough FOV. My recording rig is a 🥔 with 8GB RAM and 10th gen Core i5

[steep apex]

@white prawn Your exposure ms settings might be too long, can you send the settings you use?

[white prawn]

See above ... 🙂 I chose a short one by accident.

But I hover around 9ms

[steep apex]

Are you out to test anything right now?

[white prawn]

Nope. Clouds

[steep apex]

Dang

What I did was I was testing different settings and stacking them at the spot

So maybe you can do that when you have time

[white prawn]

I think I have a good setting for capture that'll work. Not inclined to change it; when I did the output was terrible. 😅 Basically I get it down to around 9ms and adjust the gain accordingly. That's how I've been getting the images I'm sharing. What I'm trying to do is pull more details. I want to see the fine lines on Jupiter and Saturn from my work, like @vapid depot and @fading plume get

YesIknowIhaveaneightinchapertureandtheyhavefourteeninchapertureswithlongerfocallengthsandbetterscopesdoggonnitdon'tremindmeblargh

[dark cargo]

not sure what effect on quality for planetary but if you switch to raw8 bit it should double the fps you get, since you are halving the data per pixel.

[white prawn]

Nope

Wait a sec.

[dark cargo]

23.6ms exposure time?

[white prawn]

Yeah, I just caught that. Hang on

[dark cargo]

actually if its packing it would only be a 50% increase since the cam is 12 bit max I think?

[white prawn]

Okay, here's one with my usual exposure time. Relatively same number of frames.

[dark cargo]

ah right if you are shooting at ~10ms exposure time then you'd get around 100 fps either way

[white prawn]

I guess a question is "should I try to go for a shorter exposure?"

[heavy mirage]

The exposure you would use depends on the seeing, I tend to go higher exposure and lower gain during very good seeing, and vice versa for poor seeing. But 10ms is a good starting point

[white prawn]

I tried that one day. My great seeing meant there was fog on the ground, so transparency wasn't that great. One guess as to how the images came out.

[heavy mirage]

It is very heavily dependent on aperture and FL. Settings I use usually for my 10" at 5400mm ranges between 10-15ms for Jupiter and between 200 and 400 gain with the 585. But if shooting a tad lower fl at 4200mm, I can go down to lower exposure since shorter FL gather more light

[white prawn]

I have an 8" w/ native 1000mm, use a 3x Barlow w/ my 585. 5x is too much.

[heavy mirage]

I see, I think that 10ms would be a good place to start for 3000mm, and a lower gain to increase snr. You don't always want to shoot at the max fps and max gain because this can result in very poor snr, maybe around 350 will be good with your setup at 10ms exposure

[white prawn]

That's ... pretty much what I've been finding.

[heavy mirage]

Well, what is the max alt of Jupiter for you

[white prawn]

Now I just have to find the best way to collect the data so my images have more fine detail like what you're getting or what others are getting.

Yes I know you have a bigger scope. Yes I am trying to push my 8" as much as I can because I can't afford a beastie scope

🙂

[heavy mirage]

Yes, I'm sure you can get some better results with your 8 inch. Do you know what the maximum altitude that Jupiter reaches when you image ?

[white prawn]

No. I got so hung up on disappointment about Saturn not crossing 40 degrees that I don't know about Jupiter exactly.

Hovering around 50 degrees probably

[heavy mirage]

I would strongly recommend getting an ADC,it essentially does rgb alignment optically, which can then be fine tuned with rgb alignment during stacking in AS!3 and during processing in Registax/AstroSurface.

[white prawn]

Already done. Saturn came out alright considering it was at 35 degrees. Jupiter would have come out a LOT better if I had adjusted the prisms when moving from Jupiter to Saturn, I imagine.

So ... next clear night I'll have a little fun and really focus on Jupiter.

[heavy mirage]

Just make sure that you are adjusting the ADC correctly, such as having it level with the bubble level and adjusting the levers correctly.

[white prawn]

Yeah, that takes some practice.

[heavy mirage]

I usually have to readjust the adc every 5-10 minutes for Jupiter

Mostly due to field rotation

[white prawn]

The details didn't seem bad on what I did ... just a horrid amount of rind around the edge.

In case you're wondering. #💬-general-chat message

[heavy mirage]

Take into account that an ADC multiplies your FL by about 1.5, at least the zwo one, so if you're shooting at 3000mm with the 3x barlow, adding the adc between the 3x and camera will make your FL about 4500mm

[white prawn]

I noticed. Seemed to work well for Saturn. #older_system_pics message

[heavy mirage]

Huh. That edge rind in the Jupiter image is pretty bad. Do you mind sending the stack?

Saturn is pretty good, but I'm sure that it can be improved

[white prawn]

Enjoy

[heavy mirage]

Nice, I'll be home soon, so I'll give it a quick process then

[white prawn]

The ADC isn't a cure-all for soupy seeing, I've found. I think that's really making my sessions a bit of a challenge.

Alright, I'll be in bed soon, look forward to seeing what you can do.

My solution so far has been "take to gimp and remove manually" and that is time-consuming and not a lot of fun.

[heavy mirage]

Yes, it isn't supposed to cure the seeing it just helps align the r/g/b optically prior to hitting the sensor

[heavy mirage]

Are you turning gamma off during captures?

[white prawn]

Yes. The only thing I touch is exposure and gain.

[heavy mirage]

Gotcha, do you use sharpcap or fc?

[white prawn]

SharpCa

p

[heavy mirage]

I see, is your brightness at 0?

[white prawn]

I think it's at 100 or in that neighborhood. The default for brightness. Or is that lightness.

Yep. Brightness is at 100, +/-2

[heavy mirage]

Yeah, that could be the issue with the bad edge rind. I would always have my brightness at 0 when I use sharpcap (at least for planetary). Also I keep my rgb balance at default and do all the color adjustments manually in GIMP or something

[white prawn]

That hasn't impacted other images though. I'll see what that does then.

[heavy mirage]

Yeah, try it out. Should give a darker background

[white prawn]

I know that I've had to set the black on images in Astrosurface. Maybe that will solve it.

Thanks!

[heavy mirage]

Np, also I would recommend shooting in .ser rather than .avi, helps keep file sizes down. Then just let as!3 do the debayering. If you're using pipp prior to as!3 ensure that deebayering is disabled in pipp and save cropped video from pipp as .ser

[heavy mirage]

Np, hopefully you can pull some more details!

[heavy mirage]

That edge rind isn't that bad imo, barely noticeable in this. But I think that your biggest issue here is the seeing, maybe slight miscollimation. Also I'm not sure how many frames you stacked here, but it may be worth to stack less frames. (only the best) This is kind of why I shoot higher exposures and lower gain, keeps the snr higher and don't need to stack as many frames, along with other things such as keeping file size down and etc.

[onyx garnet]

i had that effect too

is it caused by like bad seeing

[fading plume]

You are recording 256x more data with 16 bit.

8 bit has 256 levels and 16 bit has 65,500

[dark cargo]

Ah right, I more meant "bytes" as data. Does the extra colourdepth actually matter that much since you aren't stretching the image as much for planetary?

[fading plume]

nah not a huge amount

[onyx garnet]

how does rerotation work
cuz like aren't the frames in difference positions as they were before and will result in a smearing and blurring effect

[dark cargo]

afaik, its just making a flat map of the planet from each stacked picture, then stacking those flat maps together.

[white prawn]

That was stacking the best 25% of maybe 10-15k frames? When i stacked the set I stacked 2%, 10%, 15%, 25%. I think I might have been a little heavier on the wavelets, as well. I know the scope is well collimated, I spent an hour w/ someone getting it properly collimated and confirm before each session that the collimation is still holding.

My biggest challenge at this point may very well be seeing. If that's the case I'm going to have to move to the Bahamas or something so that I can get some textbook kick-ass photos.

[onyx garnet]

oh

[white prawn]

The idea is to get even more details out. At some point I'm going to pull one of my 3 minute Jupiter images and compare it to a derotation I just did and ask if there's a comparable/favorable difference.

I'm probably going to set my imaging time to 120s rather than 180s as well.

[vapid depot]

Only useful for Saturn right

Firecap turns it on in saturn profile by default iirc

Anyways planet cams are 12 bit max not 16 , doing a conversion? Cuz yeah my 1600mm is 12 bit but my adu in Nina is readout in 16

[near quiver]

howdy folks

[vapid depot]

Howdy

[near quiver]

i need to find a good game to play while i ignore my biology lectures

[vapid depot]

guess the seeing is a good game

[near quiver]

for jupiter, blue channel is usually the sharpest right

[vapid depot]

Depends on seeing

Theoretically It’ll let the most detail thru since it’s lesser affected by diffraction than the longer wavelengths

But it scatters and is affected by seeing more

Also altitude is a big factor lol , if adc - less

[near quiver]

because zegery said that my really good night was actually like 6-7/10 and nobody disagreed with him, and looking at the blue channel it seems like hes right

[vapid depot]

have a snapshot?

This is like 6-7 according to ken

[near quiver]

from this

[near quiver]

ok yeah thats like exactly what i had, maybe better

i got really hyped up for no reason lol

[vapid depot]

Oh nice if it’s the best you’ve had then it’s the best you’ve had

[near quiver]

i mean the image looks good anyway and i guess that just means i have room to improve

[vapid depot]

only warrants excitement

I feel there’s a lot of color noise

[near quiver]

well i think i have had better than this, but i was too undersampled/too bad barlow to take advantage

[vapid depot]

U use astrosurface color saturation 14-18%, then + 0.7 to maybe 1.1 color noise reduction

[near quiver]

yes and its a bit blurred from rotation because this is just 1x120s

[vapid depot]

I use *

[near quiver]

next time i get a good clear night that i dont feel like imaging heart over and over, ill try derotating

[vapid depot]

Hell yeee

Worth it

Questioning if the measurement is good is the most annoying part tbh

[near quiver]

well actually my strategy has just been to do planetary on partially cloudy nights since thats not much good for dso anyway

plus i think theres some science stuff that the water vapor in the air might calm it down a little idk

ooh maybe i should try to make an animation

it would be challenging but fun

hmm

tried it with the low magnification data because i only have like 1 that i managed at full res

[white prawn]

I can't do planetary on partly cloudy nights. Seeing is always trash and the clouds race to cover what I'm trying to image.

[livid sierra]

There can be really good seeing even when it’s cloudy

I’ve had amazing seeing with high cloud

[steep apex]

Same

[white prawn]

Still doesn't resolve the issue with the clouds rushing to cover what I'm imaging. And ... they don't lose.

[livid sierra]

Gotta be patient

[uncut glade]

High clouds indicate little high level winds

High cloud >75% of time = 3/5 seeing or better

[livid sierra]

Yeah doesn’t always guarantee good seeing ofc

But definitely possible

[steep apex]

I am forecasted for 10/10 perfect seeing tonight hopefully I can go out today

My planetary rig has been collecting dust since I got sick

When I had high clouds I had the best Astro night I ever had

[white prawn]

My forecast tonight is 0 clouds, 4/5 transparency until 9 or 10, and 3/5 seeing throughout.

Kind of sick of this 3/5 seeing hokey smoke.

[vapid depot]

Smoke still?

[white prawn]

No. Using an expression from an old cartoon, Rocky & Bullwinkle Show. Rocky the flying squirrel would say "Hokey Smoke" to express distaste of some sort.

What to do, what to do. Thoughts, anyone?

[clear pier]

hey guys, why do my raw stacks of saturn look so odd, usually in my raw stacks the background is very black but here it's not, did i have too high gain or something?

(screenshot for ease of viewing)

[candid flare]

cricket ball

[white prawn]

@near quiver is just having way too much fun with his new 3x.

[clear pier]

any winjupos experts here? im getting quite a lot of artifacts from winjupos when derotating, does anyone know a fix?

[thick heron]

https://youtu.be/kcM6nVco1tQ?si=Ng4YKAQ2OdqAl3X5

[coarse aspen]

HAHHAHAH

I cant believe thats real

[slate juniper]

U have to turn the LD value up or down

Looks like it needs to set up

[clear pier]

i turned it to .8 on all 10 of my measurements and i got this, what should i do?

oh turn LD value up?

[slate juniper]

Ig so, ye

[clear pier]

that's what i have right now

so like 1.2 maybe?

[slate juniper]

Y e

[clear pier]

and i change it in this menu right?

[slate juniper]

Ye

[clear pier]

ok let me try that, thank you

looks like it made it a lot worse

should i try 1.1?

[thick heron]

Another
https://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/kgtlef/cameraman_showing_jupiter_and_saturn_in_live/

[clear pier]

@slate juniper i'm still getting quite some artifacts after trying a lot of combinations of LD values, do you think these artifacts can be removed or am i stuck with them?

[thick heron]

How long of a derotation is this?

[clear pier]

about 29 minutes

my data says 315.3-344.9 in universal time

and this was 10 ser files worth of data

[thick heron]

I would expect artifacts at that length. Try something like 0.7 or less and see if it gets better, or try derotating less images.

[clear pier]

hmm ok, thank you i'll try that right now

.7 makes it very odd

i'll try less images

@thick heron this is with 8 images at LD of .8, i cut out 4 minutes, should i cut out more?

i'd be satisfied if i could get rid of that one circle around the planet, that's the only thing really throwing me off here

[white prawn]

Take it to Gimp, select around the planet - only the planet - so the area of selection is between the planet and the rings. Invert selection. Bucket fill on the ring. Walla, ring gone.

[clear pier]

hmm, does photoshop work for that as well?

[white prawn]

I don't see why not

[clear pier]

i have both so im just wondering if that would work better

hmm ok

[white prawn]

I use Gimp because it suited my budget better

[clear pier]

ah that makes sense, i have photoshop for free since i have a student account from my school

[thick heron]

I would start with just two images and add more from there until it’s too much.

[clear pier]

wait i think i found the culprit image

now i just have to get rid of the white

[white prawn]

With that white ... maybe you can do the bucket fill tool on the white without even selecting. Just make sure that you can undo

[clear pier]

no matter what i do it won't go away, but i could just roughly paint over it

this is LD .7

well thank you to the 3 who helped, this is easily my best jupiter image and i can't wait to finish processing, thanks!

actually looking back on my previous image (right) why is my new one worse even though it was in supposedly better conditions?

[heavy mirage]

I thinks it due to ringing from oversharpening

[heavy mirage]

What do your sharpened stacks look like

Typically you want to do softer sharpening when doing derotation, then do final sharpening on the derotated

[clear pier]

what do you mean?

[clear pier]

i didn't sharpen my stacks before derotation at all, only rgb balance and align, and then sharpened like the image on the left above after derotation

[slate juniper]

I derotated 1h30min once and didnt have this much artifacts:D

[clear pier]

aH i have no idea what i'm doing wrong then

[heavy mirage]

Ah, well try doing soft sharpening on your stacks first and rgb alignment with no denoise. Then do your derotation, make sure you line up the planet correctly and correct for field rotation if needed. I used ld value between .65 and .8, and ld angle of 65 to 80 I believe. Then do your final sharpening, denoise, color balance on the derotated image

[clear pier]

hmm ok i'll probably restart tomorrow and see what i can do. how do i correct for field rotation?

[heavy mirage]

You don't have to do this if you're using an eq mount

[clear pier]

also another weird thing i noticed is when i pressed f11 in winjupos, it covered an area way bigger than the planet, so i shrunk that boundary down, was that a mistake?

im not, im handtracking with a tabletop dob

[heavy mirage]

I wouldn't use f11, I usually do it manually

You can set your focal length and pixel size and wj will automatically make the correct sized outline

[clear pier]

got it got it

im not sure exactly what my focal length is which is an issue

[heavy mirage]

Well what is your setup

[clear pier]

skywatcher heritage 150p 150/750, gso 2.5x barlow with a 25mm extension, and uranus c
the thing is, i've heard the barlow doesn't fully go up to 2.5x and is more around 2.2 or 2.3x

[heavy mirage]

Ok, well I would play around with different focal lengths until you get something that resembles the size of the planet. I'd try with 2000mm

Not sure how much a 25mm extension affects your fl

[clear pier]

ok got it thank you

i'll mess with it tomorrow, thanks for the tips

[heavy mirage]

Np. Also for field rotation, you can select the outline type to be more detailed and show outline of the bands which you can then line up with the image and rotate as needed. There is also a setting for AZ mounts which automatically corrects field rotation based on the time of the image but I haven't played with it too much and it hasn't been the most accurate for me

[clear pier]

ah ok that makes a lot of sense, thank you

[heavy mirage]

Goodluck!

[near quiver]

Absolutely

Tried derotation on that data (obviously bad idea since it was shot over an hour and a half) but it still turned out alright

[white prawn]

Looks like you're at a spot similar to me - fine-tuning settings and processing skills. Also, did you see the latest Jupiter I shared? #older_system_pics message It's de-rotated.

[near quiver]

Very nice

If I ever get a 585 they’ll start looking really nice

[white prawn]

I'm wondering, if I took the same data and split the videos in half, then processed those images, if it could come out a bit better/sharper.

[near quiver]

There’s an option in winjupos to derotate every frame of a video but I think that’s kind of a niche thing

Also probably very time consuming

[white prawn]

Uh, yeah. That ... 16K frames ... then try to process ...

Hm. My computers have the oomph I think.

So that you know, I've been informed by a couple of people on here that 180s for Jupiter is a bit much so next time I image I'm going to set it at 120s, see how that does.

[near quiver]

I’ve been doing 90s recently

[hasty hull]

Pretty neat 1978 Saturn from alpo I found

[uncut glade]

Looks like a single frame from modern times

Crazy how fast tech has improved

[somber stratus]

It is a single frame

4 second sub

[thick heron]

I remember coming across an early digital image of Mars from the 90s. 9 second exposures for blue.

[sharp ridge]

F90 wtf

the amount of barlows

[near quiver]

that cant be right, 20m focal length

i doubt they could even point it at f90

[thick heron]

F90 is the film, not the focal ratio.

Made by Nikon.

[near quiver]

that makes a lot more sense

[steep apex]

Got high clouds today

[clear pier]

did i overexpose my images here? usually my background is fully black, what happened here?

[white prawn]

SharpCap or Firecapture?

[clear pier]

firecapture

it's never happened before, not sure what happened here

gain 308 and 23.07ms exposures

wait... my gamma was at 73...

is that the issue

[white prawn]

Maybe?

It's fixable.

[clear pier]

usually it's 50...

really?

[white prawn]

Should be.

[clear pier]

both this and my jupiter seemed oddly hazing

[white prawn]

I use AstroSurface for processing and I had some bright photos. I took the photo into there and set the black level, no problems.

Let me see something ...

[clear pier]

i'll try astrosurface right now

[white prawn]

Aha, here we go.

So here's what I started with for one of my recent (and actually decent) shots of Saturn:

[clear pier]

oh wow that is quite hazy

how do i fix it in astrosurface?

[white prawn]

Use the "BW-Point" button

[clear pier]

doesn't look like it's changing anything

[white prawn]

It'll give you a little box. Next you select the entire image

[clear pier]

wait got it i think

better i think?

[white prawn]

Select, click "Set Black" and that should fix it, and that looks like you did it.

[clear pier]

yup thank you so much!

[clear pier]

yup got it thanks a lot, it's weird registax doesn't have this (as far as i know)

[white prawn]

Nope, it doesn't. There are other way to fix it but that button is the easiest.

I was moving over to AstroSurface but I find sometimes I'll kick something to Registax for one of the buttons that it has that's really convenient, before I move to final process.

[clear pier]

eh not bad i'll take it

[clear pier]

ah i see that makes sense

not much color but it's decent for messing up the gamma i think

[white prawn]

Catching color on Saturn might be a challenge for a scope less than 14" aperture. I notice you did get Cassini, and I see some faint banding at the top.

Here's how mine came out in case you're wondering: #older_system_pics message

Also, when you're extracting frames in PIPP do you set an area for the planet? That looks full-screen.

[steep apex]

It’s your gamma, just leave it at 50

I’ve heard about some gamma talk and how it increases contrast but I’m not sure

[clear pier]

ive caught more color in my earlier images so i was hoping for similar but i guess i messed it up, and i actually capture full res but with a cutout to make it smaller files and keep the image size in that cutout box

[white prawn]

Not from what I've seen.

[clear pier]

ah ok i see, should i even have gamma checked? i've heard suggestions to just fully uncheck gamma

[white prawn]

Contast is better in this one; as you said the one that you did with gamma increased isn't bad. Maybe you can adjust contrast, see what that does?

[clear pier]

i probably will mess with it more tomorrow when im more awake

thanks for your help though!

[white prawn]

No problem!

[fading plume]

More touching in phone photo editor

[white prawn]

I see moons.

[fading plume]

Yup there’s 4 there

[white prawn]

Nice.

I might start overprocessing my images to get moons in

[white prawn]

I count 6.

[fading plume]

Yeah, that’s the full image size. In the other image it’s cropped. Haven’t combined them in yet.

I did a quick recording with a larger ROI to catch Titan and the other moon.

[white prawn]

Oh, okay. So in what you shared, there's 2-5. 1 and 6 were cropped

[fading plume]

Correct

[trail scaffold]

This is my best attempt at capturing Jupiter. I want to know how to capture the moons in the same image. Do you do them as separate images them composite them back in? I find that I have to increase exposure times to capture them and that blows out any detail on Jupiter.

[steep apex]

Back in the jetstream for who knows how long

[steep apex]

I don’t know but the seeing is really good there is no wobble and the transparency is perfect

Snekpek

[thin aspen]

looks better than what i get with my 10inch.......

[coarse aspen]

He literally used a black brush/eraser on the image

Look at the North pole

He shaved the planet

That's not a sharpening artifact that's plain fake

[idle dragon]

Hello everybody
Last night we captured this picture of Jupiter.
Our setup is
Celestron edge HD8
ZWO ASI224MC
And using the ASICAP software for stacking
This was our first attempt (complete newbies) and whilst super pleased with this, would anybody have any recommendations on how to "be better" next time?

[vapid depot]

You using any Barlow?

[near quiver]

@somber stratus congrats on getting iotd for the millionth time

[idle dragon]

Erm, I don't think so, no.

[vapid depot]

Ah yeah you’ll want one

With the pixel size of the asi 224, a 2 or 3x Barlow is what I’d use

[vapid depot]

You wanna aim for around 5-7x the pixel size of the camera for the f/ number in planetary work

[idle dragon]

Thank you for that. So if I understand this right, it is the pixel size, so 3.75um not the mega pixels of the sensor, and the F speed is the base F speed of the telescope (F10) x the magnification of the barlow?

[idle dragon]

Thank you @dark cargo

[dark cargo]

just do note that barlows won't always give you the stated 2x/3x multiplication, as that varies with the distance at which you put the camera at(unless its a focal extender). More distance more magnification. You can measure the exact effective focal length you are at with the barlow by seeing how many pixels across a planet is, then using this calculator: https://www.astropix.com/html/astrophotography/astrophotography-calculators.html#effosi

[idle dragon]

Understood - kind of (I understand what you are saying) but still lots to figure out before we go back out 🙂
One final question.. Last night we were using ASICAP for image stacking, are there any other recommendations or is that deemed "good enough"
As I would like to make sure we have everything we need from the get-go next time.

[dark cargo]

Not sure how good the zwo programs are tbh never heard of anyone using them for stacking planets, but I'd just take the video and shove it into either pipp to crop/align->autostakkert to stack->registax/wavesharp to sharpen, or you could use astrosurface instead of the previous three but I personally never used it. All are free, pipp's website is down so you'd need to download it from the archived link: https://web.archive.org/web/20230531163522/https://sites.google.com/site/astropipp/downloads After clicking on download, you have to click on the blue "impatient" link on the bottom right area to get it to download.

[dark cargo]

but you can do stacking later, so just worry about getting focused properly(try to focus on some small detail on the planet), and making sure you are collimated before you shoot the 2ish minutes of video, not sure if asicap has it but try using ROI(region of intrest) to capture video from a small portion of the sensor for higher fps. Also you'd want to let the scope cool for around an 30 minutes to an hour outside, otherwise hotair on the mirror will make the image wobblier.

[dark cargo]

also also(i swear this is the last one) you probably will need to wait for a night of good seeing where the planet appears nearly still for best results. So don't get disappointed when you do everything right and you get something like this, just because your seeing is terrible.

[idle dragon]

Thank you very much for all of this, it has helped a lot! And definitely gives us some good points to take on board for when we try again, and also some great topics to read up on more 🙂

[wet oak]

This is my photo of Jupiter on 30 October taken with a cheap skywatcher evostar90, a cheap dslr and no tracking mount prosessed on PIPP and Registax6. I'm quite new to this. Please feel free to send your reviews. My questions are:

• Is the picture upside down?

• Which one is the Great Red Spot?

• On the left of the photo there are 2 galilean moons. How can I find out which moons we see?

Thanks in advance.

[vapid depot]

hey @wet oak Nice work for being pretty new to this! that circled is the great red spot 😄 . I'm used to having the north pole, up. Your orientation is the south pole up. Ill have a look in stellarium for the galilean moons

this is the stellarium view , looks like it was the moon Io closest to Jupiter, then Europa being the second.

https://stellarium-web.org/

[clear pier]

was gonna do some imaging tonight but

[vapid depot]

Pretty rough

Saw it up to 75m/s+ a few days ago for my area

[clear pier]

oh my

the thing is it never gets under like 35 here which is very annoying

[left spindle]

How's my live view (114/900 scope)

Also did Saturn taken through webcam

[white prawn]

I want to see those frames extracted, stacked, and processed

[barren dune]

Dim one is a single stack
14in dob hand tracking+ eqplate, UranusC, 5xbarlow

[vapid depot]

Geez 🫡

[whole osprey]

That is a fantastic image of jupiter.

[onyx garnet]

tried my best

[left spindle]

Looks really good

[onyx garnet]

cool

[sharp ridge]

Jovian system map

[high hull]

nice composite

[thin aspen]

This is some really good seeing I have right?

Looks better in person ngl

[steep apex]

Yes this is very good

[vapid depot]

Yeah it’s good

[onyx garnet]

similar seeings to what I had

usually seeing here is absolute shit

yeah good seeing

[prisma heron]

Saturn (cropped)

[steep apex]

Yes the jetstream is now actually hitting me

Now it’s just UK weather for maybe a week

[thick heron]

Adapted the BAA labeled maps of Io, Ganymede, and Callisto for the WinJUPOS Ephemerides. Rename the default maps in the _textures folder of the WinJUPOS installation so they do not get overwritten, copy these in, and make sure they have the names io_m.jpg, ganymede_m.jpg, and callisto_m.jpg for the respective moons. I believe this needs to be repeated every time WinJUPOS is updated so keep a copy of each somewhere else on your drive.
https://britastro.org/jupiter/moonmaps.htm

Labeled map in action on Ganymede.

[lunar hamlet]

I got a better map but I haven’t uploaded it to my phone yet so this is what I can post for now

[onyx garnet]

nice

[lunar hamlet]

A Timelapse I bagged whilst I was at it

And Uranus cuz why not

[barren dune]

96 mega pixel mosaic/ hdr blend.
23 panel mosaic at 3300mm fl
14in dob eqplate+handtracking
Uranus-c+2x barlow

Conpressed image ofc 50% scale

[alpine escarp]

WAKE UP

VENUS MOON TRANSIT IN AROUND 3 HOURS

[coarse aspen]

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CzaWLMlhinJ/?igshid=MWV3YmkyazV1cnBxaQ==

dylan_odonnell_

SCT Telescope Collimation PSA

Likes

196

Instagram

[thin aspen]

😦 school

[somber stratus]

Got it :)

[alpine escarp]

i also did, however i am struggling to process properly

not sure what the term is

[somber stratus]

Got lucky

[somber stratus]

Yeah its very hard

I gave up trying to add back the blue sky. Just left it removed

[alpine escarp]

moon very dark, while venus is overexposed

i also had terrible seeing

[somber stratus]

I went somewhere inbetween. It's semi-HDR. Moon's brightness increased a little so it's not invisible.

[alpine escarp]

mine looks like this so far

tho i used a 127 mak so

I feel like your 16 inch dob is a bit op compared to what I have

i tried to use my 10 inch newt but it just wasnt working

[somber stratus]

It definitely shouldn't

if anything it should be darker

[alpine escarp]

the brightness difference is insane

[somber stratus]

Linear

[sharp ridge]

bruh he still got it

[somber stratus]

Gap in the clouds, np

[sharp ridge]

🥺

[onyx garnet]

lucky

[somber stratus]

high cloud rolled in at this point

[sharp ridge]

Every special event I get clouded out

[high hull]

for me it was below the horizon and not an occulation lol

[coarse aspen]

Is venus that much brighter than the moon??? Damnnn

[fading plume]

Wot

[fading plume]

Much closer to the sun and higher albedo or whatever it’s called.

[somber stratus]

Much higher albedo at that too

0.12 vs 0.77

iirc

might be 0.15

[uncut glade]

Yeah Venus is disarmingly bright lol

[topaz elk]

eh

[sharp jacinth]

i thought mine was good tonight until i saw yours @topaz elk

[steep apex]

This month might send me into the doghouse, this jetstream is just sending me endless wind

[slate juniper]

Yep._. I hav clouds tho so idc xd

[steep apex]

Planetary imagers I need a cool planetary project I can do for a science fair

[near quiver]

theres like 3 options right now

[steep apex]

Brainstorm time

[sharp jacinth]

Tonight's work so far

[sharp jacinth]

Thats a keeper lol

My best to date (only been doing it a couple of wks with a astro camera)

[high hull]

crunkchy

[hasty hull]

Colorized IR Uranus from a lil bit ago

Ariel and Titania in the stretched image

[hasty hull]

anyone here use gimp for HDRing saturns moons into their image?

[steep apex]

What filter should I get for Uranus’ poles

[hasty hull]

IR 610nm

You use a 4” scope right

[steep apex]

Yes

Might switch to 8”-10” dob soon tho

[hasty hull]

Ay nice

For a 4” scope your resolution would be pretty rough I feel like if you go anything longer than 610nm

it’s probably doable tho

[white prawn]

Lucky

[steep apex]

Ganymede Europa

[steep apex]

how often do you guys keep your sers?

[near quiver]

never, i dont have the storage

[somber stratus]

Stretch the raw instead, or with larger scale wavelets. Should show them better. I can give it a go if you send the raw.

[hasty hull]

what i ended up using for the final

Ariel and Oberon also visible here

*Umbriel and Oberon

[main flume]

[vapid depot]

beautiful

[thick heron]

Io became Europa. ⚪

[vapid depot]

#💬-general-chat message as! 4 beta

[hasty hull]

Uranus and moons tonight

[green pebble]

I mean there are exoplanets in the orion nebula, i think that i even got the exosystem bubbles

[high hull]

comets closer to deep sky but who cares, c/2023 h2 movement over an hour or so

[kindred imp]

I'm going to be photographing Jupiter and Europa tomorrow evening hopefully, how can I make sure I've got the right focus without a bahtinov mask?

I will be recording with my phone, 3x barlow and 25 mm eyepiece

[tiny topaz]

How do you do the time lapse? Usually my data is so bad that I can’t do that and need all of it to go toward stacking

Also this is my best Jupiter with an untracked 8”dob and an iPhone 11 so hoping to get a ZWO ASI585 this Christmas and with that is there anything that I should know before using it? Like storage or de-rotation, and or keeping the camera running as I’ll likely be shooting when it’s -10 to -20 Celsius

[white prawn]

I store my ASI585 in a case with my eyepieces, and that's indoors.

If you think you know about the process for capturing data for imaging, you don't. (Speaking as someone who moved from DSLR to ASI585).

I use SharpCap for imaging. I set the shutter speed at between 9-10ms and that will get a few thousand frames in a short window. Hover around about 350 for brightness, adjust as needed. Set lightness to 0.

For Jupiter capture no more than 2 minutes (someone here said 100 sec, so a little over a minute and a half) for each image.

De-rotation is done on a sequence of images ... for example one night I pointed at Jupiter and took 7 or 8 videos, obtained an image from each, then de-rotated the batch for a single image. That's a whole process on its own that I'm just beginning to learn.

The cold that you mentioned won't hurt the camera.

[tiny topaz]

So once I get a cam this is what I should do whenever trying to image:

Put the dob outside for 30 ish min to acclimate to the temperature then set-up all of the programming during that time. Then take out the camera and laptop to start recording.

Also do you do the same thing for time lapses? (The part going over taking 90 second videos getting an image out of that then put those images together in sequence) also should I buy a hard drive for my computer so then all of my camera data goes I t that rather than my computer as if I fill up my computer it’ll slow down.

[white prawn]

As far as your setup process, correct.

I've used WinJUPOS/derotated ONCE, I imagine a similar process can be done for making a time-lapse. I've tried doing a time-lapse using PIPP, I can't speak to its quality since it seemed like there was a significant loss of quality. How much was me not knowing what to do vs. how much was the program, I can't say. In any event: a time-lapse is just a series of photos presented in the order that they showed over time, so ... likely similar process.

[tiny topaz]

oh okay because i would say that i could take 90 second videos and time stamp them, then stack the videos sepearely in pipp and registax and then once ive gotten an image for all of it i could throw the processed images together into a time lapse.

hopefully the images wont have too much of a jump between the next image in the time lapse

[fading plume]

Your dob will need a few hours to cool off.
I bring the camera outside at the same time as the dob and leave it to cool off too. Don’t want focus shifting.

I also have the dob at a 45 degree angle to cool. Nothing can fall on the mirror easily, and it still vents upwards

[tiny topaz]

so take the dob and camera out at the same time and let them sit for a few hours? but make sure to have the dob at a 45 degree angle, also do i need to have the caps all off the scope while its cooling? except for the finder-scope caps. Also should I use a fan to try and cool the primary mirror?

[fading plume]

Yes have caps off, that’s why you tilt it.
Fan will help. Maybe an hour to cool off. Depends how cold ambient is.

[tiny topaz]

Is there a rule for that or it’s just kind of a guess? Because I would say whenever I get the camera and all of the other supplies it’ll be mid to late December and temperatures could be from -5,-25 c where the inside temperature where it’s stored is at around +20-22c

[fading plume]

Yeah might need a few hours for that

Really, just until you can’t see thermals in the tube.

Look at an out of focus star, and hold your hand up to the edge of the scope. You’ll see it’s shadow and you’ll see the thermals

[tiny topaz]

What do the thermals look like? Because I think I’ve had that for Jupiter when viewing, while it was out of focus I could see lines twinkling or sliding across it

[white prawn]

Not going to dispute what you're saying; however, I've found that 8" doesn't need so much time to acclimate. The ones that need a lot of time usually have fans.

[topaz elk]

prolly 30 minutes with fans tbh

i put it out for an hr tho just to be safe

[hasty hull]

Neptune and Triton just now. Absolutely horrific seeing at times but it’s kinda nice

[steep apex]

Someone send me some good atmospheric calm I hate being in this dumb jet stream

[fading plume]

He’s cooling to -25 from +20 ambient sounds I gave excessive time.

[tiny topaz]

Is there a general rule of thumb for the time it takes to acclimate? Or just try 30min-1h and then check if it’s good?

[white prawn]

I just told him that I haven't had an issue because normally it takes me about a half hour to set up anyway. 🤷‍♂️ Not aware that an 8" would need a lot of time

[white prawn]

Me too

[topaz elk]

someone send clear skies

[fading plume]

Just depends on the temp difference.

[uncut glade]

And aperture size, and structure. C14 will take 2 hours, dob can take like 20 if you have a fan.

Personally I go based on vibes

[vapid depot]

my 9.25” sct takes over an hour.. estimating 45f adjusting to 30f . Was in a cool shed and not room temp, still took an hour oof

[sharp ridge]

me takes exactly 0 min to cool

leave outside + minimal day night temp swings + hubble optics sandwich mirror + truss tube design

[fluid shore]

https://vxtwitter.com/tony873004/status/1724332555024093273?t=qpImi33FaP6mk9HYIHsr3A&s=19

Cool event coming up

https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/886507-319-leona-occults-betelgeuse-dec-12-ut/

[fading plume]

My dob had to warm up the other night.

[high hull]

microwave

[serene laurel]

Toss it in the oven next time 🫠

[kindred imp]

Does anyone have the link to Winjupos?

[kindred imp]

Thank you

[thick heron]

New impact flash observed on Jupiter at 2023-11-15 12:41 UTC. http://pvol2.ehu.es/pvol2/news/view?id=47

Anyone imaging Jupiter around that time should check your data by eye or run with DeTeCt.

Email the results to Marc Delcroix using the mailto link near the top of this page: http://www.astrosurf.com/planetessaf/doc/project_detect.php

[slate juniper]

O.o

Thic

So it costs about 4-5k to get nerd role for u:D congraz for ur purchase-w-

[fading plume]

I was imaging at 12:04
Seeing was terrible so I was doing long exposures trying to catch the smaller moons.

[ruby tartan]

Not the best, but i'm back

[white prawn]

“Not the best” bah. I still haven’t been able to get such an image from my scope

[tiny topaz]

I’m with Steve this is my best so far,

[slate juniper]

Money is resolution guys, remember that:D

[tiny topaz]

https://tenor.com/view/money-gif-16565229595323670098

NASA be like

[hearty fiber]

Lol, I wish

[sharp jacinth]

The best for me yesterday

[ruby tartan]

Bruh, i'm from Brazil

[high hull]

then violence is resolution I dunno

[steep apex]

Nice stuff, interesting disturbances in Northern Band

[livid sierra]

Single stack from tonight, fair seeing

Poor transparency though

[serene laurel]

Not as great as Duif above me, but hey, I've improved over a year.

[barren dune]

@thick heron lmao real

[white prawn]

Guys ... there's a beta version of Autostakkert 4 out now. As of a couple of days ago

[livid sierra]

Yeah got released on November 12th

[white prawn]

Have you tried it yet?

[thin aspen]

is firecapture better than sharp cap?

[tidal crow]

Kinda.

Firecap has a lot more better features than sharpcap

[steep apex]

You can do a test run between registax and astrosurface, just play with wavelets and other processing stuff in both and see what turns out better

You can also use winjupos derotation and derotate planets for a better pic

Don’t forget to use ROI for FireCapture

[steep apex]

Yeah for more fps

[steep apex]

I don’t know for your camera

[coarse aspen]

Okay guys

I'm gonna pick up a GSO 2.5X Barlow because I want to start doing basic planetary with the 130pds

And more lunar

Already have a 585

[steep apex]

How hard is it to manual track a dob for planetary

[high hull]

depends if it has more than just a handle

if it only has a handle you cant*

*unless you are good with a handle and very percise

[dark cargo]

Depends on how well made the alt and az movement is. Should be ok if you let it drift through the sensor before readjusting, but then you'd loose around half the imaging time even if you use a well aligned finderscope. Most of the issues I've had with my 200p is with the azimuth axis, you could probably solve it by adding a broomhandle to use as a giant lever for smoother motion.

[vapid depot]

Annoying at 2500mm ish but doable

[high hull]

dslr+stacking

[dark cargo]

try upping the brightness with the histogram a bit, colour balance does look good. What scope did you take it with?

[high hull]

orion xt10

[sharp jacinth]

easy - manual tracking is all i do lol i do have a motorised mount but cant star allign it so i have to use the up/down/left/right buttons

[nova delta]

I’d say that’s a lot easier than actually tracking an object manually, lol

[steep apex]

I am back

[lament turtle]

is there any software that shows the present phase of the moon and what craters/mountains are visible?

[steep apex]

Stellarium shows the current moon phase and craters

[lament turtle]

ye but like it has a limit to the zoom

and doesnt show names

[green pebble]

I meannn there are exoplanets in the orion nebula

[steep apex]

https://quickmap.lroc.asu.edu/layers?extent=-90%2C-61.9364711%2C90%2C61.9364711&id=lroc&showTerrain=true&queryOpts=N4XyA&layers=NrBsFYBoAZIRnpEBmZcAsjYIHYFcAbAyAbwF8BdC0yioA&proj=10 Go to the waffle and click overlays and click nomenclature and you’ll get all of the names you wanna know

Also planetary imaging nerds I need to decide to a new telescope, SCT 8” F10 or Dob 8” F6

[lament turtle]

ok thanks!

[white prawn]

If you have enough for an SCT you likely have enough for a dob bigger than 8" and guess what I'm going to suggest. 🙂

[sharp jacinth]

You keep pressing up and right continuously (my slowest speed is just abit quicker than the earth's rotation) for 120s - my fingers hurt 🤣

[nova delta]

I find it harder to manually track. It’s easier to get tired and lose track of the object imo

Really simple with a controller

[steep apex]

What scope do you use?

[sharp jacinth]

127 Maksutov

With a Mars C-ii camera

[near quiver]

Hard but not that hard, I hand track at 4000mm with the 224mc which is a tiny fov, the hardest part is getting it in frame

About 1.2 arcminute fov

[steep apex]

I'm looking for a new scope for planetary, what would I be better off looking for, An SCT or a Dob

[near quiver]

I mean dob is the most aperture for the least money

[hasty hull]

Mars officially past solar conjunction. New apparition is here

[high hull]

ok who can mars first

[hasty hull]

I was planning on doing some daytime shenanigans when it reached 10deg elongation

Which is in like a month

Got this in late September, 15deg elongation if I remember correctly

[remote cipher]

Budget?

[thin aspen]

If you’re in the uk I would use the used market as it has crazy deals

[lament turtle]

anyone else having issues with astrobuysell uk

keep getting this when i click on an advert

and the backup site hasn't been activated

[steep apex]

I've been looking into some telescopes, there are some 8" SCT's with good size looking Alt-Az Mounts, and I'm also looking at the 10" Skywatcher Dobsonian GoTo. Which One should I go for?

[onyx garnet]

what is your budget?

[steep apex]

Both are in my price range, lets say maybe $2000 or less, I need opinions on the mount to counteract the atmosphere and where I should be heading

[onyx garnet]

I like my current sct
for this the 8" sct will have more focal length without reducers or barlow whereas the dob has 1200mm compared to around 2000 with the 8" SCT
but the dob obviously has more aperture which means more light comes through
I'd say the dob as when folded down, it is just a bit bigger compared to the SCT ota

[steep apex]

Yeah light gathering is better than having more FL Power but lets look into the mounts, with the Alt-az mount it gets held on both sides, and of course the dob does to just more low, which is better? And what should I go for overall?

[onyx garnet]

dso, lunar, planetary overall wise?

[onyx garnet]

?? random ping

[steep apex]

Like what should I go for overall for the whole specs of the scope

[onyx garnet]

sct more towards planetary and small deep sky objects
dob is.. everything except really big nebula, unless u want to do mosaics with it (same situation with the SCT for bigger dso)

[livid sierra]

With the dob you’ll only be able to take relatively short exposures for dso

Due to its tracking

Comet lover it’s more important what you want to do with it we can’t tell you what you “should” get if you don’t know what your ultimate goal with it is

[steep apex]

I know what I am doing with it and it’s just planetary, I’m wondering on what scope to get

[livid sierra]

Get the dob then

[white prawn]

With planetary aperture is king, so if you're doing that and have a choice between SCT and larger dob, get the larger dob.

[steep apex]

I could go for the 9.25”

[hasty hull]

just get a 10” dob for cheaper

[cloud copper]

But arent the optinc on a 9.25 SCT better than a dob?

[hasty hull]

I don’t see why they would be

[near quiver]

SCT is optically better because of the corrector plate (I think) not sure how it compares to more aperture

[white prawn]

I'm going to quote myself.

"With planetary, aperture is king, so if you're doing that and have a choice between SCT and larger dob, get the larger dob."

😄

[thick heron]

Go with the larger dob.

[thick heron]

Like I just did.

[high hull]

10 inch dob

10 inch dob my beloved

[steep apex]

Thanks guys, goto 10” is on the way

[vapid depot]

excellent

only reason I have a 9.25 for planets is cuz u cant get a goto dob for <$1000 (already have mount)

10" dob would murder my 9.25 for visual lol

[thin aspen]

Is it the sky watcher one?

[steep apex]

Yeah

[thin aspen]

Nice ye it’s very good.

[slate juniper]

I will steal it-w-

[slate juniper]

Xd

[white prawn]

Don't let "no clouds" fool you. I had 3 no clouds days and every single one was dog turd seeing. I set up my scope to look at Jupiter and there was no detail, a hint of the band, and otherwise looked like I was looking at it through the dewey bottom of a cup with a little bit of water at the very bottom inside. It was wobbling.

[white prawn]

Atmospheric seeing can change, if you saw bands and no wobbles then it was decent. I've never seen it as bad as what I saw that day though. I was all, "uh, wow."

[lament turtle]

haven't really done any lunar surface processing and stacking

i have a couple hundred pics of the copernicus crater

could someone advise me on how to process and stack it to get a really good image??

[vestal hatch]

Install and open PIPP (Planetary Imaging Pre-Processor)
-> Drop the pics/video into the window
-> select 'Join Mode'
-> Select 'Solar/Lunar Close-up'

Then, under the 'Output Options' tab set 'Output Format' to 'SER'

Then, under the 'Do Processing' tab click 'Start Processing'

Download AutoStakkert!3 and drag in the SER video generated by PIPP.

Select 'Surface' at the top left, then ctrl+click on the preview window on a lunar feature to anchor on. This will help stabilise your video, it needs to be something that's in frame the whole time. It helps if it's relatively bright and has some contrast.

Then click 'Analyse' to generate a quality estimation curve of your data. It will order each of the frames by how sharp they are.

Once this is done, select a frame percentage to stack at the top right. You can create up to four different stacks at once, I usually like to do the best 10% as well as the best 20% of frames, then compare and see which looks better.

Then, set your alignment point (AP) size to something around 64, then click 'place AP grid' with 'Multi-Scale' ticked. It will automatically generate a bunch of alignment points on your image.

Then tick 'sharpened' for a preview, and 'RGB align'. Then click 'stack' and it will create a stacked image for you.

This is a super basic guide so it obviously has a lot of improvements you could make, but that'll get you started

afterwards just drop it into either AstroSurface or Registax, and use the wavelet sliders to sharpen the stack created by AutoStakkert!3. The sharpened image will be your final image. If you're using Registax (easier) only use the top 2-3 wavelet sliders, ignore the bottom ones

basically the workflow is always gonna be

PIPP -> AS3 -> AstroSurface/Registax
Align -> Stack -> Sharpen

[lament turtle]

hi i didnt see this lol, and i ended up doing it using a yt tutorial,

on pipp outputted it as an avi file

and not a ser file

@vestal hatch

but in the end i got this

sharpened it on registax as well

[onyx garnet]

you put the wrong debayer pattern in pipp

let me have a try

[dark cargo]

looks like it's debayered wrong? if you see that grid pattern its a tell tale sign of it. Try a different setting under input options bottom right it;s usually the other way around, as pipp treats the bayerpattern a bit weirdly to other programs. Should look gray or greenish without any grids if its the right one

[onyx garnet]

was the standard like RGGB

[lament turtle]

oh thats why, i will try reprocess it later today

thanks for the advice

[onyx garnet]

aye could you upload it to like google drive

[lament turtle]

like all the files?