Planetary Imaging

[heavy mirage]

Was gonna say, if you do need 16-bit like for Uranus or Neptune just disable debayer and cutout/autoalign will work just fine. In Sabin's case I was gonna make sure he isn't using 16-bit

[rugged knoll]

bro how does everyone here get such good images

how good was your seeing??

[cloud copper]

Tbh it’s not such a good image for the rig that I used

For a 12” dob this is not that good of an image

[cloud copper]

It was ok seeing, I’d say 6-10

[cloud copper]

here's venus from that same night

[livid sierra]

Jupiter map I quickly put together for fun

Not finished obviously but might be able to fill in the missing data on the sides after tonight

[white prawn]

At some point I want to learn how to do that.

Would you be willing to throw a few pointers at me for help with setting ADC? I've had exactly one successful night using mine and I wonder if it really made a difference other than extending focal length and increasing magnification.

I'm also wondering if the levers need to be adjusted each night, or if the area/lat determines what sort of stuff will be adjusted and if the levers can be kept once the good point is found.

Thank you in advance.

[livid sierra]

You use a Newtonian on an EQ mount right?

[white prawn]

Yes. Manually tracked.

[livid sierra]

Okay first off you need to find the horizontal angle through the focuser of your scope while it’s on the mount. If you were using an SCT or a frac, you would be able to use the bubble level, because the horizon would be a straight line parallel to the actual horizon. Because of the right angle secondary mirror inside Newtonian telescopes that is not the case. And as you track the object throughout your session, the angle of the horizon as seen through the focuser will change, which means you have to adjust the orientation of the ADC, as well as the setting, every so often

Now read these screenshots carefully:

That information can be found here: https://skyinspector.co.uk/atm-dispersion-corrector-adc/#ADCPrismOrientation

To answer your last question: the setting needed to correct dispersion is always roughly the same for a given altitude, with a small possible difference depending on temperature, humidity and pressure

To set the ADC I recommend using the edge tinge method, which is a feature in Firecapture, it overexposes and oversaturates the image. It should result in the planet having one of half of its limb being completely red/yellowish, and the other half being completely blue. Then just adjust the ADC levers according to this:

[white prawn]

Thank you very much. Now I need to bookmark this. I might actually print some of it out and keep it in my binder so I can grab it to help set things.

[coral seal]

why does it looks so funny

[wispy pagoda]

Guess who forget to select the file format and ended with 10 000 fits

[rugged knoll]

autostakkert stacks fits tho doesn't it

[wispy pagoda]

Yeah not a huge issue finaly

First IR test!

3 mins, through a cloud, not collimated but it's not too bad:!

[tiny topaz]

Does imaging in IR give you better quality images?

[hasty hull]

Helps sometimes with sharpness when seeing is poor, or at low altitude

But the resolving power is lower than in visible light

[livid sierra]

Also @white prawn it’s worth figuring out if your ADC is a righty or a lefty, though it’s most likely a righty

https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/578410-newbie-question-how-the-heck-do-i-use-the-zwo-adc/

Scroll down to John Boudreau’s post

[thick heron]

Almost certainly a righty unless it was a very early one, in which case it could be a lefty like mine.

Or it could be a downy like my Dad's.

[livid sierra]

@thick heron you can turn it into a righty you know

[thick heron]

Why would I?

Actually, I know why I would, and yes I know how to.

Need to dig it open and clean the prisms.

[livid sierra]

Yeah I might clean mine soon

[thick heron]

It's almost 9 years old and hasn't been cleaned once.

[white prawn]

Thank you. I actually found that when I was fighting with my ADC earlier. I feel like I'm going to need to get it set on the horizon at least during the day.

It's good to know though that once I have the "ears" set I can leave it and that I just have to work with how the horizontal works on a Newtonian to keep it on the horizontal.

[livid sierra]

Finding the horizontal, or rather keeping track of, is something you’ll have to keep doing everytime you adjust the ADC rotation throughout the night

Because you have an EQ mount

[white prawn]

I remember reading that you can get away with adjusting about once an hour. That tracks (ha!) with my experience in following the planet.

[livid sierra]

Depends on where in the sky the planet is at the moment of imaging, close to zenith or to the meridian once per hour is not enough

[heavy mirage]

Praise Lord Duif

[white prawn]

Apparent motion is faster at those times?

[white prawn]

Actually, let me ask this. If I want to have a time that would always be good to remember to do an adjustment, what would that amount of time be? What is the shortest time that is safe at any point between adjustments? 15min, 30?

[livid sierra]

I check if my ADC needs adjusting about every 5-10 minutes. For rotating the ADC with respect to the horizontal angle, you can get away with doing that every 45-60 minutes if it’s far from the meridian, but as it gets closer to the meridian I would recommend checking more often, and try to get a feel for how often it needs adjusting for a given place in the sky

So check if it needs lever adjustment every 5-10 minutes, and check if you need to rotate the ADC every 45-60 minutes if the object is far away from the meridian, and more often if it’s closer

[vestal hatch]

I think it's mostly because the thickness of the atmosphere changes quite quickly, so your ADC settings necessarily need to compensate for that and change quickly too

depending at the angle which you're looking up through the atmosphere

[somber stratus]

It's essentially field rotation, but in reverse.

so yes

EQ mounted ADCs are a pain as you need to adjust lever separation and rotational alignment.

Whereas alt-az has the horizon in the same spot all the time so the rotation doesn't need to be changed - just magnitude of correction with the levers.

[white prawn]

The rotation adjustment time makes sense. I thought you said that once I got the levers in place that they would be set, not need adjustment? (I thought that’s what you meant based on what was said earlier). So am I missing something/ not understanding something? Thank you for taking the time to explain

[white prawn]

So should I pick up a Celestron Nextar 8 for my planetary work? 😁😆

[livid sierra]

If it's alt-az mounted then sure

[livid sierra]

What I meant by that was that for a given altitude on different nights, the levers can use the same adjustment. So at 30°, the levers can theoretically always be set at the exact same adjustment as any other night for good correction.

You still need to do lever adjustments throughout the night though, as the object rises in altitude. Remember that dispersion is worse at lower altitudes, and needs to be corrected less the higher the altitude

[white prawn]

AH! Okay, I see now

[white prawn]

Is that the mount that it usually comes with?

[rugged knoll]

Reprocess

[vapid depot]

only in pretty bad seeing as will mentioned , due to diffraction

tom uses Blue light as his luminance when trying to really push things, due to blue having shorter wavelengths, and higher possible resolution

if you use it in good seeing, you're just wasting away the moments of good seeing. unless u specifically wanted an IR-RGB

[thick heron]

Blue is only used as Lum for Galilean moons. BRGB Jupiter would look odd since the belts are darker in blue.

[wispy pagoda]

Yeah it really depends on seeing

And resolution

For small scopes it's just lost resolution but with my 10" there's a notable increase in sharpness in ir as I only used it under average-bad seeing

[wispy pagoda]

It's also used to see different features, in particular some clouds on venus and details on uranus

[wispy pagoda]

Also I think the loss in resolution power might not be huge for bad quality mirrors as mirrors need to be more accurate at shorter wavelengths

I don't know how much of an impact it has tho

[umbral kestrel]

Now that is some bad seeing

[whole osprey]

What planet is that supposed to be 😭😭😭

[umbral kestrel]

Sirius

See how bad it’s flickering

[livid sierra]

Sirius always flickers a lot in my experience

Even with good seeing

And during my best nights last year the stars were flickering too, it’s not a good indicator for good or bad seeing

[somber stratus]

Sirius is really low altitude for us tho

[livid sierra]

Fair

I have literally never seen it not flicker tho

[wispy pagoda]

FINALLY ITS CLEAR TONIGHT

Saturn and Jupiter for the menu

[wispy pagoda]

Shitty seeing but the storm beneath the top equatorial band looks brighter than usual no?

Actually not really nvm

[umbral kestrel]

It was near zenith when I shot this

[thin aspen]

Was this using the new eq platform?

[wispy pagoda]

Not yet, I will try it later this week

[gaunt kite]

finally collimated lol

[whole osprey]

Yippee.

[shell epoch]

What telescope?

[gaunt kite]

This happened

[wispy pagoda]

I'm hoping tonight's seeing will be better than 2 days ago

Oh and I have a problem with my barlow

It's not a barlow

It's a focal extender so I can't increase the magnification

Is this any good? I could use it on planetary nebulas and extend it for planetary https://www.celestron.com/products/luminos-25x-barlow-lens-2in

The 2x in 1.25 is cheaper and more adapter for nebulas but I dont know if its ok to extend it to x4

[shell epoch]

How did you fix it?

And I meant what size telescope lol

[gaunt kite]

I just wasn't collimated and I didn't notice

[gaunt kite]

4.5"

[shell epoch]

Same

I haven't been able to get it into collimation perfect yet though

[gaunt kite]

do you use a laser or what?

[fading plume]

Do you have money for a xcel? Mine is great for deep space and planetary.

Extends 1.5x without problem.

[wispy pagoda]

Yep I think I'll go with that. The 2x is better for some things but I'd like to go to 4x for some targets, extending 2x won't be a problem?

[fading plume]

I have a 2x and run it at 3.5x. It’s ok. Maybe some slight field curvature?

I’m considering buying a 3x so I can get better sampling.

[shell epoch]

No. collimation cap

The secondary mirror was off. I fixed it this morning. Just waiting for clear skies now to test it

[wispy pagoda]

First ISS in a while

[shell epoch]

Secondary def off. Here is the hull from tonights sessions. Still out of focus and probably still a bit out of collimation. But I tried my best to re-collimate it in the cold again.

Here are the previous ones for comparison:

[white prawn]

Getting there! Saturn is coming edge-on so it's a bit more of a challenge to tell by the rings if things are in good shape.

[compact bough]

1 frame unstacked

[wispy pagoda]

From a while ago under fair seeing

[white prawn]

Imaged Saturn w/ IRPass 685. Images are BLUE. Will I be able to get Saturn's color or will that be an enjoyable image w/ IR Pass filter?

[livid sierra]

I don’t understand

You imaged in IR and the image is blue, and you want to get Saturn’s colour with an IR filter

[white prawn]

Just wanted to know if it was do-able. If not I don't have a problem. It was an education question. 🙂

[livid sierra]

You can combine different wavelengths of IR to make a false colour image or do IR-SynG-UV or whatever (what people do with Venus), you can do any combination with different wavelengths of light but it will not look like a visible light image of the planet

[wispy pagoda]

Well when I processed my ir 685 with uranus c I accidently got something similar to Saturn's natural colors

But the raw color was reddish

[white prawn]

I am NOT familiar with the IR-SynG-UV process. 😬

Okay, I do know what to expect. I did IR hoping to get a little more deets from a bad seeing night. So I should process for wavelets/sharpness/contrast and let it be

[livid sierra]

You can use IR as luminosity, but you still need to do at least one recording with the UVIR cut for colour data

What I would do if I did IR as lum is take one or two recordings in vis for colour data, then just continue with taking IR recordings and process those as normal

Then place the IR above the vis layer in PS or something, and change blend mode to luminosity

If seeing is bad I would do this

If seeing is good don’t do IR if you want a sharper image because resolution is lower in IR

Can still do IR if you want to see certain things that are not visible in vis, or for Uranus polar hood for example

[somber stratus]

You have to be careful with which IR pass you use though. Saturn in particular as the globe can be dimmed too much in longer wavelengths. 610/642/720 are probably fine. 742 is certainly pushing it.

For (IR)RGB I mean. Looks unnatural if you were to use IR850 for instance.

[white prawn]

I have 5 recordings of Saturn in UVIR and 5 in IR Pass 685. The recordings in UVIR didn't even get the Cassini Division, and I believe enough of the rings were there that it should have been seen.

Once I process the IR I'll share both

[white prawn]

Yeah, I read that IR Pass can work better with less than ideal seeing conditions but the sacrifice is resolution.

[livid sierra]

Well in suboptimal seeing it can look sharper than vis because the longer wavelengths are less disturbed by the atmosphere

So you use IR as lum. That way the image will have the sharpness of the IR data but the colour of the vis data

[white prawn]

So typically the IR would not be used just by itself, but combined w/ the color image to potentially enhance.

Wouldn't that be a challenge when the planetary spin is visible enough between images, such as Jupiter?

[wispy pagoda]

Winjupos has a feature to derotate multiple filter images

You can use ir by itself but it gives unusual colors and an unnatural look, so typically you add other channels indeed

[white prawn]

Or I could just leave it blue 😁 😆

[wispy pagoda]

I find it curious that it's blue too! What is your camera?

[white prawn]

ASI 585

Stacked and not processed looks like this.

[wispy pagoda]

IR 685 right?

[white prawn]

Yes

[wispy pagoda]

This is mine processed with raw colors

imx 585 and ir 685

Perhaps autostakkert wrongly assigned the bayer pattern? Happened to me with mars and it was completely blue

Try to force different modes to see if one has a warm color

[white prawn]

My UVIR stack came out alright though. It assigns the right bayer for me - RGGB

[wispy pagoda]

That's bluer than mines too

You use fire capture or sharpcap?

[white prawn]

Sharpcap

[whole osprey]

Hey so this is crazy, shooting Jupiter on an evostar 72. It does not look great, but you can see some detail.

[somber stratus]

Wrong debayer pattern

Sorry meant to reply to the image

Force RGGB in the colour settings drop down in AS!3

[white prawn]

Even though set to RGGB automatically?

[somber stratus]

Hmm should be fine but it looks like it used BGGR

[somber stratus]

Unless you have applied a monumental amount of B gain in the capture software using the colour balance sliders

Ye

[white prawn]

I had it selected force RGGB when I stacked it anyway.

[somber stratus]

Hmm. Have you flipped or mirrored the raw video at any point? Do you run inverted axes in the capture software at all?

This would also result in RGGB not working properly as you flip the positions of the pixels. BGGR might work in this case

[white prawn]

Nope, not at all. I just point the camera at what I want, turn the camera in spot to get the angle if it's off, nothing.

I just open the software, it does it's thing.

Let me guess, the color of the stack looks off?

[somber stratus]

Idk then. Perhaps a software thing. Might be worth trying different software for recording

See if it’s the same.

And yeah it shouldn’t be blue

[white prawn]

Even with IR pass 685?

[somber stratus]

Unless you have monumental blue leak on your filter but this is excessive

[somber stratus]

Yes. Red channel should dominate, followed by green and then blue

[white prawn]

Normally the stacked image is red. If I image w/o filter, it's reddish. If I image w/ UVIR it's reddish. I was using my IR Pass 685 filter for the first time. Stack w/ IR Pass looks like this

Compared to stack with UVIR

[somber stratus]

Gotta be software then if it’s red with an IR cut

[somber stratus]

Oh that’s fine

[white prawn]

So you can get a feel for something being up by the stacks?

[white prawn]

Just sharing here for a moment. I'll probably save it for now and come back to it a little later.

Saturn imaged in IR. Color correction is ... well not nice for us perfectionists on a good day and easy image. This was imaged on what was decidedly not a good day, and Saturn is not an easy planet to colour correct.

[livid sierra]

There is no colour in IR

Just convert the image to monochrome

In Astrosurface or something

[white prawn]

https://tenor.com/view/sad-r2d2-robot-beep-star-wars-gif-5812746

[livid sierra]

But you can still use the data as lum for your colour data

Like I explained earlier

Just convert the IR image to monochrome

[white prawn]

The challenge is - the IR Pass image actually looks sharper than the UVIR processed image. Here's the UVIR processed.

[livid sierra]

That is the idea of shooting IR when seeing is suboptimal

Like I said earlier

When seeing is bad you can opt to shoot IR to use as luminosity on colour data

#1019937457095065731 message

#1019937457095065731 message
Refer back to these messages

[white prawn]

Right, I know what you said. I just haven't done it before, so this would be a first. You're talking about merging files, and in a way that the best properties of both are seen.

I'm just saying that the image I took with UVIR is one ugly Saturn and there's no way around that, bad seeing. And I'm not sure how to use the IR pass to help it. Or another way to say, is that I feel that that night's UVIR images are beyond help.

I can def try to merge, see what happens. I haven't discarded any data or final prep work.

[livid sierra]

Process both data, uvir as well as ir, place the ir image in a layer above the uvir image in your image editing software, in such a way that they're at the same angle and rotation, change blend mode of the ir image to luminosity

Done

[white prawn]

Spoken like someone who's done the blend many times. 😁

THANK YOU by the way. And thank you for the quick "how-to" I did figure it would be "process one of each first, then blend" so I was headed in the right direction.

[cloud copper]

Guys what do you use to prevent dew formation on the secondary and primary mirrors of a big dob, I have a 12” and it gets foggy really quickly especially the secondary

[somber stratus]

hair dryer

[cloud copper]

Isn’t there like a more permanent solution

[somber stratus]

yeah, dew heaters

[cloud copper]

Last night I got foggy in 5 minutes tops

[somber stratus]

but they can cause tube currents

[cloud copper]

Do hairdryers cause tube currents?

[somber stratus]

It's sometimes as frequent as 2 mins for me. Just give it a blast for 10 sec with the hair dryer. Seeing goes terrible for about 30 seconds but then I can do a recording thereafter.

Rather it temporarily be awful, than consistently worsened slightly by a dew heater, imo

[cloud copper]

True

But what do you do about the primary

So you leave the fan on or off?

While imaging

[somber stratus]

same, but it's rarer for the primary to dew up

fan on is probably marginally better but I don't have fans myself.

[cloud copper]

My fan is broken and idk if it’s worth it to fix it

[white prawn]

@somber stratus , @cloud copper I have an 8" Newt and she has gone to the point of frost all the way down to primary and vanes, but no dew/frost on the actual mirrors. So I have a couple of some questions.

1. Is this more of a "bigger dob" problem than what is at my size?
2. Wouldn't the hair dryer cause more of an air current than the dew heater?
3. How does the frequency of having to defrost the primary affect longer shots, for example if one is trying to accomplish a derotation/rotation image? I've imaged Jupiter for 45 min to get a "not too bad" derotation, and made a gif out of the individual shots to show rotation. They individual shots were 5 or 10/15 seconds between them. If I'm using a hair dryer every two minutes, that's between every shot. Did I mention I'm manually tracked? That's inconvenient.
4. Is there a quieter way to defrost? I image in my neighborhood, so I'd want a quieter way than hair dryer.
5. Realistically, how much of a problem can this be with an 8" ... or with a larger OTA?

Thanks!

[somber stratus]

Nothing to do with telescope size really (certainly when the scope is acclimatised to ambient temperature anyway). It's more based on location. It's frequently 100% humidity where I live in the UK. We maybe get a few nights per year where the mirrors don't get dewed up by sunrise.

Like I said before, yes the hair dryer is worse but only temporarily. I'd rather have 30sec of unusable seeing & 4m30s of good after that, than 5 mins of slightly worsened seeing from a dew heater & the subtle tube currents caused by it. All my timelapses have me removing dew every 5 mins or so, and you don't notice...

No it's not quiet, so if you're after that, then get a dew heater.

[somber stratus]

Meh, only useful for accelerating the rate of cooling when taking it out of a warm house for instance. Just leave the scope out longer to acclimatise and you don't need a fan.

[livid sierra]

I use a small portable heater normally used for construction to remove dew from my secondary. It blows very softly compared to a hair dryer, so it probably takes a little longer to fully remove the dew than a hair dryer would take, but it's about 10 times as quiet

What I use

[wispy pagoda]

I don't have a big fan blowing on the mirror for the cooling, only two small boudary layer fans so it takes a while to cool down. In this case having the fans on during capture makes a visible improvement

But it's fine as long as you can properly cool down the mirror

[thick heron]

I got a secondary dew heater for my 400P. I let a Pocket Powerbox Advance decide how much heat it needs and never seen tube currents even when it runs the heater at max strength.

I have a secondary mirror heater from R-Sky.

[white prawn]

@somber stratus , @livid sierra , @thick heron What amount of difference would be made by keeping a dew heater vs occasionally (or frequently) drying? Subtle? Substantial? Any demonstrative images for comparison?

[thick heron]

I highly doubt any of us have comparisons. I know from my experiences with hair dryers is that it takes several minutes to settle down after using it. I prefer not having to think about it at all, therefore secondary heater wins for me.

[somber stratus]

Yeah we don’t have comparisons but there’s no noticeable difference in images from what I’m hearing from Ethan and seeing myself. Mine calms down again after 30 seconds or so. Totally up to you to make that decision.
Both methods work, I’m just paranoid of tube currents, especially since you can defocus a star and see heat coming off your hand when held in front of the scope.

[livid sierra]

I undo the shroud so the scope is open when using the heater

So the heat is free to go anywhere after I turn it off

Then I put the shroud back up

[white prawn]

Thank you all. What you're all saying is understandable and makes sense, and helps me plan a little bit. I'll have to make a notebook to keep track of things to observe in setup - for example the concerns noted by Tom vs. the observations made by Ethan.

My own equip is an 8" OTA that has frosted over on the interior, but not on the secondary mirror. Another little while and maybe it would have hit the mirror, and I would have been in a bit of a spot at that point. For me, it probably would have ended the session. And it did make me think about "is this enough of a concern that I need to think about purchases and preparedness, or were the conditions just right that day and this wouldn't be the norm?"

[livid sierra]

A dew heater is maybe a better option for you, since you have a closed tube Newt. I have an open tube Newt so I can aim directly at the secondary with my heater

Pretty much an impossible task with a closed tube Newt

[shell epoch]

Does a botinov mask work with planetary?

I feel like Saturn's rings might throw it off or something

[rugged knoll]

yes

on saturn it works fine and on jupiter the spikes are big so it's hard to use, I just use a moon instead

[thick heron]

You're better off focusing until you get the image as sharp as possible. The mask needs point sources to properly work, which planets and bright moons are not. Going to and coming back from a star will shift focus enough to not make it worth the time.

[rugged knoll]

what's wrong with using a moon

Ig for a big scope it's not good enough but i have a 150mm f/5 newt

[dark cargo]

How does the focus shift if you change targets? Tilt/sag of the elements? Because the focus difference due to distance difference is going to be negligible(measured in nanometers at most).

[shell epoch]

I think they're right. Cause whenever I move from saturn to jupiter or vice versa, I need to refocus. Idk why though

Maybe difference in the amount of atmosphere you're shooting through??

[dark cargo]

Hm never really experienced that. I don't think the atmosphere will change the focal point.

Could you try to check collimation as you tilt the scope up and down? I used to have an issue with the primary mirror flopping around as I was collimating it with the tube pointing at the horizon.

[shell epoch]

Yea it could be collimation

[gaunt kite]

can't wait to do a full mosaic of the moon. For now I can only do single tiles because of my hand made tracker, but I might get a eq6 in a few months

[summer pebble]

New to this server, thought I'd drop images of Jupiter and ganymede

[rugged knoll]

Wth

That's insane

[summer pebble]

Thanks! My setup involves a Celestron Evolution 6, Zwo ASI585MC, uv/ir cut filter, and a 2x barlow

[summer pebble]

What ir pass filter do you have? I'm looking into one but am a bit short on budget.

Would using the svbony sv183 be fine? It's really budget-friendly, but i'm afraid that price will come at some costs

[white prawn]

Antila IR Pass 685.

https://agenaastro.com/antlia-ir-pass-filter-685nm-1-25.html

I haven't tried Svbony's filters. For the ... inexpensive stuff that I purchased I can't say that I was satisfied. I don't know how well Svbony makes filters. I know that I recently ... very recently used mine and it did its thing.

[summer pebble]

I can already tell this one will be better. Thanks for the information!

[white prawn]

@somber stratus @livid sierra sorry for the ping, guys. I have a bit of an issue. My latest Saturn image sans ADC looked weird.

The blue channel ... well you see what's happening. Green is a little bit off, red is perfectly fine. Checked collimation, fine ... and will understandably have to re-check after this. Does CA typically look like this? These were taken on Sept 16.

For comparison, when I imaged using the UVIR cut on Sept 24, the seeing was bonkers horrid, the blue channel didn't split/duplicate but it still did something wonky. Green was also a little off, and the red channel as before was just chill.

[dark cargo]

Is this with the same UV-IR cut filter as below?
I'd say its some kind of internal reflection, not sure why it would only show up in blue channel. Some filter being used?

[white prawn]

Top is no filter. Bottom is with UV-IR cut filter

[dark cargo]

huh.... UV internal reflection perhaps? Something to do with the AR glass in front of the sensor and the barlow lens?
Can't be IR since green and red would show it as well with the 585

[white prawn]

AR glass? Imaging train was a Celestron X-Cel 3x Barlow into the focuser and then the 585 into Barlow

[dark cargo]

Not entirely sure why it also shows up a bit in the green.

AR glass is the anti reflection glass in front of the camera sensor: mostly protects against dust etc but it also blocks(reflects) some UV.

[white prawn]

So it's not the Barlow. So why was this not a problem in previous images?

Like, on 9/16 was BAD.

And, how to fix? We talking "need a new camera"?

[dark cargo]

just use the uv-ir cut?

[white prawn]

That would explain why the blue channel was working better on the UV-IR cut.

Although it definitely showed bad seeing conditions. Lovely marbling. 🙄

[dark cargo]

Could also try to put the filter in front of the barlow, it has a thread for it.
Basically trying to reflect all the light away before it hits any other elements and potentially causes internal reflections. Probably not as much of an issue as letting in UV and IR light.

I assume it's some tiny mis alignment between the AR glass and the barlow which causes the UV light to be reflected/refracted in a different direction.
I'm probably not entirely right through.

[white prawn]

What's puzzling is that I don't remember it doing it like this before. Makes me wonder about my purchase of the X-Cel.

[livid sierra]

Why do you image without a uv/ir cut

[thick heron]

This reminds me of when I once ran my ASI462MC without an ADC. The blue channel had double images because the blue pixels were sensitive enough to red light for the misaligned red image to appear.

Oh no the quality.

[white prawn]

I …. have no good reason. At least my imaging without ADC is because so far it’s winning the ongoing fight against me getting it adjusted.

[white prawn]

My image with the UVIR didn’t double though. Just showed the bad seeing conditions.

So maybe this is a “Steve use your tools” issue not a “Steve’s equipment is wonky” issue.

…which if that’s the case I’m okay with it. Easier to fix. Live and learn

[livid sierra]

Don’t know why you wouldn’t use important stuff like a uv/ir cut unless it’s for testing purposes

[white prawn]

Setting up really quickly to take advantage of a window that appeared before it moves.

Like I said, no good reason. I'll just have to include "set UVIR on camera" into my setup process.

Can the ADC be set up accurately with the UVIR cut on?

[livid sierra]

Yes...

There's no reason to take the UV/IR Cut off unless you're imaging using an IR filter or whatever other filter. OR when you're doing the W47 method to set the ADC (a filter that transmits only IR and UV, producing two images of a star which you merge using the ADC), but it's less accurate than the edge tinge method I told you about recently

And the edge tinge method works fine

[white prawn]

"When imaging, ALWAYS use filter" is now a commandment. Bare minimum UV/IR cut.

Now I wonder if the fact I was trying to adjust ADC without the UVIR cut in place was actually making it HARDER for me.

Because the ADC image was always blurred no matter what.

[livid sierra]

I'm 99% sure it has been told to you before. The UV/IR Cut is necessary because without it the image gets polluted by IR and UV wavelengths. Blue and green pixels are both sensitive to IR which means your green and blue channel are being polluted, and the wavelengths have slightly different focus points.

[white prawn]

I acknowledge that I've been told that the UV/IR cut was necessary, I know for a fact that someone here, I believe @near quiver told me that he set his on the back of his camera and doesn't remove it at all. So you're 100% right that I've been told that the UV/IR cut is needed, and for me to image without it, is foolish. Thrice true as I image planetary.

And I'm reading a book on planetary astrophotography right now. The struggle I'm having is that it goes over my head at times and it's not giving me the extra info that I expected. Probably because I'm not understanding it.

Now what you just said about the blue/green being sensitive to IR and getting polluted ... well, I also acknowledge that it's probably been said to me before, and now I see the "slightly different focus points." 😐 😬

So I guess all I can say now for those people who've given me valuable information that I did not heed as I should have...

I am so sorry 😐 You guys give info, time, don't get paid. I should have listened.

Now all I can do is next time do what I should have done for starters.

thank you.

[thick heron]

You've got to word it like a commandment.

Thou shalt not image without a filter.

[tiny topaz]

Damn how are you images so clear especially for a 6”

[rugged knoll]

I will image without a filter.

[white prawn]

Before I ditch the data completely, is there any way to fix this or no?

[rugged knoll]

Tbh maybe just only use the red channel

[white prawn]

Could I pull good color out of it though.

[rugged knoll]

I have no idea how to fix the green and blue

I don't own any filters and I've never had that happen

[white prawn]

@dark cargo @thick heron @livid sierra

Again, I apologize for the ping. I extracted specific channels and was looking at them a little bit.

I want to confirm something here.

First 2 images are from 9/16 - good seeing that night. Red channel on left, blue channel on right. No UV/IR or ADC. The blue channel has detail and at the same time is clearly duplicated, in the end destroying the image.

Second 2 images are from 10/24 - bad seeing that night. Again, red on left, blue on right. UVIR in use, no ADC (still fighting with it). Red does its best. Blue is a blurry mess.

What I want to confirm is that overall, the way the blue channel appears there, does NOT indicate an issue with the OTA/optics; rather that it is a natural occurrence based on equipment sensitivity to UV and IR (thus the cut filter being needed) and I should be able to get a much better image on a better night.

I guess I'm a bit worried because I haven't examined the channels as closely as what I am now so I haven't noticed this previously. And even my non-filtered work before with the 585 didn't seem as horrendous as what this image is. Of course I could see if I have the old data and pluck it out to confirm.

But if you guys have any thoughts to share, I'd appreciate it. I just want to confirm that I don't need to shop for another OTA or do some heavy duty fixing if I want to continue.

Thank you again.

[dark cargo]

If it doesn't show up with the uv-ir cut you have no issues. you should probably be using one for planetary anyway. Would be interesting to test if you have a UV pass filter since I assumed it is some UV internal reflection.

Doubt there is anything faulty with your equipment

[dark cargo]

Also no wonder you are having issues with the ADC; you are using an EQ mount where the tube rotates in relation to the horison....

[white prawn]

That's the feeling I got - I was asking for another set of eyes to confirm. Thank you for that.

[white prawn]

I've been told it's more how the Newt moves, but yeah.

[livid sierra]

It is, on the EQ mount the Newt moves around its own axis, so it rotates relative to the horizon

[heavy mirage]

A quick saturn moons timelapse from July 16

[livid sierra]

Which moon is coming out of transit?

Funny seeing you change the ROI throughout the session. Did you use the feature where the ROI follows the planet with the planet being offset from the centre of the ROI?

[heavy mirage]

That is Titan. And yes, I did use that feature. Works pretty well!

[heavy mirage]

Also, I gotta save space somehow! Lol

[livid sierra]

Yes definitely, I think it works better with an EQ mount with better tracking. But I used it for my Ganymede shadow transit timelapse and while I had some fps drops from the ROI changing location a lot, it saved me from having to record 2tb of data, and the timelapse ended up being only 700gb

[livid sierra]

Awesome, looking forward to seeing the final image of that

[cloud copper]

A cool 18hr 3d print

[thick heron]

Be careful. If you shake the sky too much the planets might fall off.

[heavy mirage]

continues shaking

[summer pebble]

Is my image for Saturn out of focus?

I see this sort of transparent ring or disk (not sure on the term) around Saturn

[white prawn]

Bro thinks he has a disk around Saturn.

[white prawn]

Of course I have an IR pass not UV Pass.

[summer pebble]

Righto, i see

[white prawn]

I actually separated the color channels to get to the bottom of my problem. #1019937457095065731 message

And there's evidence of the blue channel in the image that I just put there. If you don't see the blue around it I don't know what to say.

[summer pebble]

Maybe there isn't an issue with blue...? But I'm beginning to see fringing at this point

[white prawn]

There's a lot of blue there. Play with the levels a bit. When I work on Jupiter and Saturn I'm forever decreasing the levels of blue and green

Also if you scroll up a bit you'll see my object lesson. Thou shalt not image without a filter

UVIR makes a difference.

[summer pebble]

Oh I did use the filter

[summer pebble]

Alrighty, i'll check it out next time I image

[white prawn]

No rule against reworking an image. I've done it a few times.

[shell epoch]

It looks a little bit out of collimation

[summer pebble]

Collimation’s good, I can say that

[white prawn]

Anyone can say their collimation is good; I said it was good when it looked like this. The dot was in the middle of the circle on the secondary.

[livid sierra]

That looks like just background noise and a little bit of glow caused by Saturn. If you want you can remove this by decreasing the offset a bit

But I think there’s quite some compression going on in the image so it’s a little hard to tell if collimation or focus is good

[summer pebble]

right, compression

[summer pebble]

might this be a bit better to look at?

[livid sierra]

Yeah

Might be a little bit out of focus, but looks like seeing wasn’t very optimal

So looks like that’s the biggest issue

Collimation looks good

[main flume]

are they stacked coz holy

[polar sequoia]

yep, some 30k frames on mars

[craggy bison]

trying to decide on a planetary cam, asi 678mc or Uranus c (I think these are the best 2) will be using a 200p quattro

also have a 5 inch sct

[white prawn]

Go with the Uranus-C.

[white prawn]

What software? Firecapture?

[white prawn]

Fun, fun. Do you agree w/ the assessment that nothing's wrong with the equip, I just need to use my filters then?

[livid sierra]

Uranus C works well, but Neptune C 664 is good too, same specs but smaller sensor

Bit cheaper

[white prawn]

Smaller sensor = narrower field, yes?

[livid sierra]

Yes

But for planetary not that important

[main flume]

what about others?

[polar sequoia]

couple thousand on each

[heavy mirage]

Yes, don't remember exactly which feature, I think center planet in ROI

[livid sierra]

No it’s Lock CofG in ROI during capture

https://skyinspector.co.uk/firecapture-features-explainer/#ROI_Position5

[white prawn]

So basically FireCapture would allow me to have it run at fullscreen, but with a smaller area focused on the planet (or area of interest) following the area. I would need to adjust when the area of interest moved off of the full screen .... and potentially reduce the amount I have to move my OTA to follow. Correct?

[tiny topaz]

Correct, I just used this feature not that long ago instead of the auto-centering ROI and it is actually a game changer, but one thing you will have to account for is if you have a manual dob make sure not to record when the ROI is about to hit the end of the frame because it can give you some issues when stacking later. (thats what I found anyway)

[white prawn]

More issues than letting the object fly out of FOV when using SharpCap (which doesn't automatically follow)?

[tiny topaz]

I’m not sure I’ve never used SharpCap, and I just found when putting the frames through Pipp which I realized later that I didn’t need to do, some of the frames would be missing so data because the ROI was hitting the edge of the sensor. So as long as you stop the recording or pause it before the ROI reaches the edge of the sensor you won’t bump into that issue

[white prawn]

Or basically just follow it carefully so it doesn't reach the edge.

[livid sierra]

Yes but there are other features in FC that allow the ROI to follow the planet

You can also just set a hotkey to centre the ROI on the planet

[somber stratus]

quick timelapse from this morning

[tiny topaz]

The seeing is so good

[livid sierra]

Above average

[remote cipher]

The seeing at ~5 secs in is🤌

[somber stratus]

Yeah the latest stacks are yummy

[tiny topaz]

Astrospheric reference?

[white prawn]

Lucky you! I did a little bit of imaging last night, but seeing was not great so I'm not expecting anything fantastic from it.

Also, that's a lot of rotation for a "quick" timelapse - how fast do you process your stuff?! 😐

[somber stratus]

I just mean I slapped some rough wavelets on them. No field derotation either

[white prawn]

The heck.

I need to white balance and RGB align and wavelets and sharpen.

What camera are you using that gets the color right?

[livid sierra]

In Astrosurface colour balance and wavelets get saved to the same file if you save the preset to a file

Apply the wavelets to all the stacks in a batch and you're done

[livid sierra]

Was joking, it's way above average obvs

Oh you mean Astrospheric

Lol no wasn't referencing that, I don't use it

[white prawn]

Oh? Would that be why when I'm trying to save a preset it's always the same file type, no matter what I've done?

It doesn't seem so though.

[livid sierra]

A preset is always the same filetype, I don't understand what you're asking

[white prawn]

What I mean is that if I do a wavelet preset, then move to sharpen, the preset only saves the sharpening I did, not the wavelets as well. Or in your case, for me it's never worked to keep everything saved in the preset. If I do a color fix then wavelets, then save a preset, it only saves the wavelets I did, not the color adjustment.

[tiny topaz]

Ah okay, do you use a different app?

[livid sierra]

You wavelet then sharpen?

Wavelet is sharpening

In Astrosurface in the wavelet menu on the top is a tab for RGB settings

You have to check RGB adjustments on in the main tab of wavelets

[white prawn]

I do wavelets, then sharpen/denoise. They seem to act differently. 🤷

I have noticed the RGB settings tab in the wavelet screen, but I haven't seen the auto-adjust for it and that's the tool that I use for RGB align. However, that doesn't work for the white balance, which would still have to be done for the right color.

[livid sierra]

So save both files then

One for sharpen and one for wavelets+colour balance

[livid sierra]

There is no auto white balance in Astrosurface

[white prawn]

There's an auto RGB balance.

[livid sierra]

You said you hadn't found it

[white prawn]

Hang on, I'm confusing myself, let me open the program for a sec.

Aha, what I mean to say is that there's no auto RGB align within the Wavelet adjustment window.

[livid sierra]

Just do it separately

[white prawn]

Which is what I do. The downside is that when I go to save the wavelet settings, it doesn't save the alignment or any of the work I've done before wavelets (white balance, for example) - it just saves the wavelet settings.

[livid sierra]

Yes

That’s intended

So all Tom did was create a wavelets preset that had colour adjustment settings, and he applied that to all the stacks

No sharpening or RGB aligning or whatever

[white prawn]

So the preset had all the color adjustments needed.

I'll need to learn more about setting up presets then.

[livid sierra]

You literally only need a preset for wavelets + colour balance

If you ask me at least

[thick heron]

Moon occulting Electra in the Pleiades.

[white prawn]

Bad seeing.

[gray orchid]

Good to be back with quite good seeing

Orion XT8 (2x Barlow @2400mm) + QHY 715C

18% stack of 3k and 6k frames on Jupiter and Mars respectively.

All hand tracked

[long rune]

Jupiter a few nights ago through my Apertura AD8

Moon shadow eclipsing on Jupiter and the Great Red Spot coming out on the left

I think seeing wasn't all that great, and dodgy eyepiece + barlow quality probably split the colors

Jupiter was almost at zenith when I shot this, did it with my phone, on an adapter, on the eyepiece.

[white prawn]

https://tenor.com/view/thumbs-up-double-thumbs-up-like-agreed-yup-gif-16109683157885754862

[long rune]

also I think I had the exposure too long, it was very bright on accident

[white prawn]

My images of Jupiter with the phone were just a bright white blob. So you got something with yours, I call that a nice win.

For not great seeing, dodgy eyepiece, and Barlow quality, on a phone ... I call that a nice one.

[long rune]

ty

I got this almost a year ago, exactly by using the same phone + adapter with a worse eyepiece and a 4" frac

I think the seeing this night must have been better than its ever been

[white prawn]

Just wait until you can get yourself an astro cam

[long rune]

yeah I want a planetary cam for this for sure

I have a 533MC Pro but I am not going to go out of my way to use that for planetary on my dob when i use it 99% of the time on my dedicated rig

this was the other video i got same night as the image i just made

i had it exposed better but the drizzle algorithm baked it

[white prawn]

Was going to say, that quarter with the box and the edges would just about drive me bonkers.

[long rune]

something passed in front of Jupiter in this one

it's in like 10 frames

[white prawn]

I'd chase it down.

Heck, I chased down something that passed in front of a single frame once.

[long rune]

birb

I caught a plane flying in front of the sun one time, doing solar

that was probably the coolest photo ive ever accidentally taken

[white prawn]

🪲

[long rune]

I restacked and it repeated that, oh well

a revisit to my best Jupiter yet

[umbral kestrel]

Dust ?

[long rune]

No because it moves super fast

Only there for a few frames total

[wispy pagoda]

Kinda looks like a swift

[white prawn]

It was a beetle. I saw it go in front of the aperture while I was imaging and thought, okay, I'm going to get that one. Cloud cover came in and that shot was ruined anyway, so I would have been disappointed if I didn't see the beetle.

[candid flare]

p

processing wise, how can i improve this image

[white prawn]

Depending on how your seeing was, there may not be a lot more that can be done. I recently went out in poor seeing and processed an image that looked a bit similar to that.

[astral zenith]

Guys I tried moon photography with a dslr and tripod and stacked around 400 frames and I used PIPP and autostackertt and GIMP. But I accidentally shot the frames in jpeg and I think I got my focus a little off next time I will fix those things. How did I do for my first time?

[dark cargo]

Pretty good! The image does seem to be fairly sharp.

I'd recommend doing some wavelet sharpening in astrosurface or registax after stacking it, I did a tiny bit of sharpening in registax(just 3.6 in the first layer) to not oversharpen it and make it a bit darker which you can see here:

Some parts are fully white/overexposed, you might have had your exposure be a bit too long or you just stretched it too much. You could try looking at the histogram while shooting to make sure the peak isn't too close to the right.

That many pictures is probably a bit overkill unless you are shooting for a mineral moon, should be able to get away even with 50 or 100 if you shoot in raw.

Could try using a bahtinov mask for focus which should make it pretty easy.
Also you'd need to export it as png to have discord display it.

[astral zenith]

Yea I’m planning to make a bahtinkv mask

*bahtinov

[astral zenith]

Ahhh k thanks

[candid flare]

https://discord.com/channels/794642864218439681/1309340866585956382

[white prawn]

Best quality graph yet while doing Solar.

[summer pebble]

Just got a new ir pass filter and thought i'd try it out on jupiter

How do these two data compare?

[white prawn]

Looks like the IR did its job.

[summer pebble]

Nice 👌

How would I go about combining these data

Would winjupos work?

[coarse aspen]

That RGB looke nice

[summer pebble]

I've never seen this before... is this some kind of red spot jr forming near jupiter's north?
Or is it a common occurrence I'm not aware of yet?

[carmine void]

it seems to be there on other older jupiter pics aswell

[white prawn]

Planets become so much more interesting when you get the equip to get good images of them. You start to get more detail and see stuff like that and it's a new "wow"

[somber stratus]

fairly common

or at least, not unheard of

Same guy that I caught in July/August time. Just would have migrated.

[summer pebble]

Oh that’s awesome in that case

[somber isle]

@somber stratus is it true you got a 24" dob?

[somber stratus]

maybe

[thick heron]

I know nothing.

[cloud copper]

Can you do planetary ap on a MacBook?

[cloud copper]

How much was that beast, I have a friend that has a 20” that was about 7000euros. I’m guessing 13000 euros for a 24”?

[ebon sage]

6 Pack of beer

[somber stratus]

3k

godly second hand deal

[cloud copper]

Only 3k!?!?!?

Daaaaamn

[somber stratus]

with goto, shrouds, motor focus etc too

[cloud copper]

I think I was cheaper that the 16” new

[somber stratus]

Yeah, very close to what my 16" cost me too

though that was new

[cloud copper]

Will you sell the 16”

?

[somber stratus]

Probably not. Sat tracking and poorer seeing nights I'll use it

It's got a nice primary mirror too so would be nice to keep

[cloud copper]

Wouldn’t the 24” be better in poorer seeing nights than the 16?

[somber stratus]

It should yeah, but I guess it's more for travelling & using when I ultimately have to get the 24" primary recoated

and Venus nightside for many reasons it's probably better

[cloud copper]

I wish I had a deal like this in my country but sadly the biggest scope here is a 20”

[somber stratus]

I'd probably be open to renting it out locally if I know someone who wants it

[cloud copper]

That would be awesome

[somber stratus]

but not for a while, need to get used to the 24 first

see if it all works well

[cloud copper]

I have a deal here, a 16” with push to encoders for about 2k

Seems a bit to much to be honest

[somber stratus]

2 seconds of data through the clouds with the 24". Around 400x less data than normal. Just grabbed a vid to check sampling and collimation/astigmatism. Looking promising

Comes out at 10,400mm f/17. 0.0575"/px.

through one of these gaps basically

[candid flare]

ah yes the british winter weather has arrived

[white prawn]

Where can I get a 24" dob at a good price?

Or should I just keep drooling over Hubble Optics? Also, does Hubble Optics produce good equip?

[somber stratus]

second hand

that's how I got mine

and so did Ethan

[white prawn]

Because I don't think that I can get that Jupiter moon detail with Rio.

[hasty hull]

In transit you could

[somber isle]

That's just wild

[white prawn]

Based on my best image of Jupiter, which was from 45 minutes of being derotated, and did not have a lot of surface detail for Io ... I doubt it.

[fading plume]

Will is correct. Transit is OPAF.

[errant rain]

thats an insane deal on a 24 inch scope lucky!

[white prawn]

Something that gets this for Jupiter/Io can get the detail on Ganymede? 8"

[fading plume]

Sure

You could probably get some of the Mares on ganymede.

[white prawn]

Ha! Now I know you're BS'ing me.

[fading plume]

obv not the craters, but some detail sure.

[white prawn]

Pardon me a moment, I'm having a few feelings. My seeing lately has been trash and while Rio has shown me that she can punch a little above her 8" class sometimes I'm just not sure about that. Doesn't mean I won't try. Just means I have to wait for a good night.

[errant rain]

boils down to seeing and focal length for me at least. My problem with planetary is the scope I am using. An f/4 newt... I cant magnify enough to make the planet cover more pixels in the camera sensor. My new scope though, natively has 2500mm of focal length. I just have to wait for Canada post to stop being on strike........

[white prawn]

I have a native focal length of 1000mm and use a 3x Barlow to bring it to 3000. That brings it nearly to the ideal magnification for my sensor, and when I can get the ADC working it makes it near-perfect.

My seeing, on the other hand, has been consistently trash or nonexistent.

[errant rain]

Thats quite nice. I use a 3x barlow for my 8inch newt and that gets me to 2400.

[errant rain]

I know the feeling, I live under the jet stream...

[thin aspen]

Looks very nice, the mirror looks like it was made well.

[livid sierra]

Lol a 24” is not gonna get you much better images if you don’t know how to even properly use your current equipment to be frank

[white prawn]

I would say that I do know how to use my current equip.

.... except for the ADC. That bit and I do not get along.

But the OTA and everything else I get along well. Right now I'm limited primarily by the fact I find and track manually b/c the mount isn't motorized at all.

[thick heron]

Have a feeling that nobody is supposed to own this camera yet.

There is no mention of the QHY5III585M being supported in the driver update logs and programs don't quite work right with it even after I replace DLLs, which is a normal process for early adopters of new cameras.

[candid flare]

[dark cargo]

Pretty sure using the EQ mount is 90% of the issue you are having with the ADC. Mostly the rotation of the ADC changing in respect to the horison. Could try to tilt the mount head to try and have it act like an alt-az mount.

If you could make the mount head point near the horison or zenith it should work. But unclear if your mount will support it or be balanced in that position.

[fading plume]

Atmospheric correction disperser. The atmospheric dispersion correctors evil twin.

[dark cargo]

It really should correct the atmosphere out of existence. Consequences be damned

[flint veldt]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/914559677763842048/1313992337092902952/2_pipp.gif

[summer pebble]

Might take a bit to see, but I believe I managed to resolve Uranus's polar cyclone

[misty glen]

We were out near the same time

[olive saddle]

I think you got it!

[cloud copper]

Guys what should I do? I currently have a 12” dob with a ceres c imx224 and a gso 2.5x barlow, should I upgrade just my camera to a better one, or keep the cam and upgrade the barlow and add an adc

[somber stratus]

ADC all the way

[rain mauve]

Hey guys im wondering the procedur of how to stack planet footage?

What app should you use?

[woven tundra]

pipp and autostackert4

thats what i use

[rain mauve]

How do you make it sharper?

Use registax?

[dark cargo]

you could also try astrosurface, its an an alternative to the other three programs.

[somber stratus]

I'd still use Autostakkert for stacking tbh

Astrosurface for wavelets and post processing.

[rain mauve]

Wavelets?

Im sorry, i dont really know anything about stacking planets

[somber stratus]

Wavelets sharpening. It's what Registax does (and Astrosurface).

It's just a method for sharpening

[rain mauve]

I see...

Is it possible to process from a phone with 900mm telescope?

Or what setup do you guys use to capture planet?

[woven tundra]

i use a phone

and stack on my laptop

[rain mauve]

from phone and a 80/900mm telescope

[rain mauve]

Is it a fine result from a entry level telescope and mid range phone?

Or is it can be more stretched

[woven tundra]

thats not bad

[rain mauve]

Thank you

[umbral kestrel]

I’d say it’s alright

[rain mauve]

thanks

and yea this is mine

mine jupiter from phone and 900 telescope

[umbral kestrel]

for the quipment is pretty good

[rain mauve]

with 10mm eyepiece

[rain mauve]

thanks tho

is it any good considering buy 2x barlow lens?

[umbral kestrel]

yesnt

yes

but your aperture is already very limited

[rain mauve]

yeah like f11.25

if i go like 2x barlow

1800mm

like f 25?

22.5

[terse night]

Do you guys like the improvement😅? The first horrible one was a single exposure made from a cheap 900mm newt and the second one is a proper stack (roughly a minute of video at 60fps) with a C8 and a 2.25x Barlow. Both images were shot with a FF camera

[umbral kestrel]

A lot better

You can see the grs

[terse night]

Yep

I'd like to buy a proper planetary camera. Do you guys think the 715 sensor is good for my rig?

I'd also like to ask if an atmospheric dispersion corrector is useful

[umbral kestrel]

Tbh. I don’t use one. There not a life or death kind of thing

Adc’s are for ppl who want as much detail out of there images as possible. At yours or even my level. You don’t need one

This is without an adc

[terse night]

Alright, I might consider one in the future. What about the camera?

[terse night]

Doesn't look bad at all

[umbral kestrel]

At this stage. If you looking for something cheap. Any old planetary camera will do

[terse night]

That one is cheap. Only 250€ roughly

[umbral kestrel]

I use a ASI120mc-s. And it’s ancient

I got it second hand

[terse night]

I was also considering one

The thing is that the 1.45um pixels of the 715 are very tempting

[umbral kestrel]

Looks good

Very good read noise

[terse night]

I could probably use it for guiding too if I'll ever do that. Seems like a good deal to me

If I can get my hands one one I'll be sure to post the results here

[pale yew]

Wow

U know

Jupiter is a massive planet

[cloud copper]

That’s from 3 years ago

This is how my Jupiter pics look like now

[shell epoch]

93% phase moon a few days ago through a 4.5" Newt slightly out of collimation still

[little quartz]

what # should I multiply my pixel size by to find the desired f ratio for picking out a barlow?

I have a 12.5" f4.8 dob with a 585mc

[rugged knoll]

i think using https://byronbayobservatory.com.au/astronomy-calculator/ and going for 2-4x oversampling is good

[rugged knoll]

so for you that would be 2.25x-4.2x barlow

depending on how good seeing you get

[little quartz]

Thanks

I’m also going to be using an adc and I’ve read that some configurations will further extend the focal length? How do I calculate for that or am I misunderstanding something

[rugged knoll]

im not the right person to ask about adcs, never used one

sry

[white prawn]

The presence of an ADC physically pushes the camera back some, and this adds a slight amount to the focal length. This results in a slight increase in magnification. For example my ideal Barlow would be 4x, and I have a 3x. My 3x plus ADC gets it just about right.

[little quartz]

ah okay tysm

[somber stratus]

Depends on barlow though. Some are telecentric and remain the same magnification with spacers (e.g ADC) between the barlow and camera.

[little quartz]

I’m planning on getting the xcel 3x

Also is there much of a difference in performance on a 685 vs 850nm ir pass filter?

[white prawn]

I have an X-Cel 3x and can vouch for the quality and that the ADC gave it a little "boost"

[livid sierra]

850nm is deeper into ir so yes. It does mean less resolution and also less sensitivity because the deeper into ir the less sensitive the sensor of a camera often. If you’re meaning to get an ir filter for imaging in bad seeing conditions then the 685nm is sufficient for that

[terse night]

Any suggestions on how to improve this image? It's a single exposure shot from a C8 with a FF camera

[white prawn]

I have a 685nm IR Pass filter and I keep seeing "for use in bad seeing" but ... not sure how that helps. 😕 I've been told to use IR for luminence but all I had was a Saturn image taken w/o filter and it picked up a double in blue so I couldn't use it at the time. Also not sure how rotation comes into play. Image w/ UV/IR then image w/ IR but between the 2 images planetary rotation happened and on Jupiter that would be heckin' obvious.

[livid sierra]

You can avoid that by thinking beforehand about in which order and/or at what times you want to record a certain filter so they end up showing the same face in the final derotated images

[livid sierra]

Do you have an idea why it helps? Do you think you could think of a reason?

[white prawn]

Why: Doesn't it have to do with what wavelengths pass through poor seeing more easily?

[livid sierra]

Hint: scroll back to the previous time I gave you a pretty extensive explanation on why and how you use it

[livid sierra]

Correct

Longer wavelengths (ir) generally get affected less by turbulent atmosphere

[white prawn]

Okay, I'm on base on that. I don't have a full understanding, but I have something that I can say, "I know this works because I know this much."

[livid sierra]

Congratulations

Don’t forget now

[white prawn]

I don't think I forgot. I think I just needed to "pull the file"

So that means maybe if I wanted to image Jupiter in less than ideal conditions and get a derotated image, one idea is to swap filters between each image. That way there's minimal amount of movement between filters.

[livid sierra]

You don’t need that much colour data if you know you’re going to do an (IR)RGB image. For the times I’ve done I only got one or two colour recordings and did the rest in IR. All the detail used in the image will be from the IR image, the colour image is only necessary for colour of the IR image when used as luminance.

[livid sierra]

That’s understandable, but I often have the feeling I’m looking for your lost files before you try finding them yourself

[white prawn]

Ehh ... guilty.

Combined with "is there something else I'm missing"

[somber stratus]

The take home message is:
Seeing is better in longer (IR) wavelengths, but the intrinsic resolution limit (i.e in space/perfect seeing) is worse in IR too. That means there's a constant trade-off between bettering the seeing and achieving the maximum resolution.

You don't want to use an IR filter in perfect seeing as you'll lose resolution (analogous to using a smaller sized scope), but it is useful in bad seeing as the shorter wavelength colour data will be turned to mush.

[white prawn]

@livid sierra , I'm sorry - @somber stratus , I'm sorry. I had this info. I don't know why I was struggling with it and for you guys to provide it again and spell it out again ... thank you.

Maybe I was thinking too much/overthinking and in that I thought there was something else. That's on me. But the basics here is what I had ... and what I needed.

[somber stratus]

I mean it is highly dependent on aperture too.

as in, the optimal filter choice on a given night

[white prawn]

My main OTA is an 8" F5.

[somber stratus]

Yeah in which case 685 is a good choice. 850 is too deep, you'll lose too much resolution.

850 is only really needed for like 14"+ tbh

[white prawn]

Wouldn't mind having that. 😁

In good seeing, I wouldn't use it, as you said. However, if I'm imaging in poor seeing (2/5) or average seeing, would you say that if I want a derotated image over an extended period of time, that best results would be to alternate using UV/IR and IR?

[somber stratus]

Sure, but note you don't need much colour data from the UV/IR. It'll be majority IR luminance. I'd probably get something like 5:1 ratio in favour of IR.

for IR(RGB) saturn for instance

[white prawn]

So 6 images, 5 of them IR Pass and 1 RGB

[somber stratus]

Correct, and repeat this sequence if you want more total integration time.

Obviously 5:1 is a rough estimate, it's not law.

[terse night]

I also took a video, is drizzling gonna be helpful? I moved the mount around when imaging because from what I understand there needs to be dithering in order to drizzle (I'm a total beginner on drizzle and how it works so any help will be appreciated)

[white prawn]

Same principle for Jupiter, then, yeah?

[white prawn]

For planetary? I haven't been able to pull more detail with drizzling ... it makes the planet bigger though

[terse night]

Lunar

[white prawn]

Answer's the same.

Of course, feel free to try it, I've figured out a couple of things by doing it. Sometimes it worked, and sometimes it was a good exercise in showing why it doesn't work.

[livid sierra]

Dithering is not relevant for planetary

Drizzle is used to upsample undersampled images

[livid sierra]

Neither is it for lunar

[terse night]

I see, thanks

Then I guess the only way to get more resolution is simply zoom more and do a mosaic

[white prawn]

I never saw it work for me. 🤷 Maybe that was a user issue.

[livid sierra]

If by zoom you mean increasing focal length then yes, if you mean digital zoom with a DSLR then no

[terse night]

I'd use a Barlow or smaller pixels with a different camera

[livid sierra]

All right

[terse night]

Is the Uranus C (585 sensor) good with a C8? I also have a 2.25x barlow if that's necessary

I was initially considering a 715 but someone told me I'm not gonna gain a lot with the smaller pixels unless seeing is perfect

[somber stratus]

If you can achieve f/15-f/20 then the Uranus-C works.

715 also is fine at native iirc

I think that's the one with 1.45 micron pixels

[terse night]

So a 715 is good if I don't use a barlow?

[terse night]

I can reach f/13 or f/22.5

[somber stratus]

lol that's annoying

a 3.75 micron sensor works with f/22.5

[somber stratus]

And yeah, should be

[terse night]

And then can I use it for guiding as well? I'd like to get a camera that can do planetary but also guide while my dslr images bigger DSOs

[honest cape]

hi, is this a place to upload planetry images?

planetary*

[white prawn]

You can esp if you're asking for some help or feedback here on something that you're working on. If you want to share generally you can upload to #1230540085418524773

[honest cape]

ok thank you!

[terse night]

How much time can I record Jupiter before rotation becomes an issue? I've got a very cool Io transit coming in a few days and I'd like to do a 4h timelapse. Is 2 minutes too much?

Also how many 2 minutes (or whatever the best time is) videos should I take and how much time apart from each other should they be?

[terse night]

I'm hoping I can get my camera in time, otherwise I'm not gonna image anything lol

[white prawn]

I used to record for 2 minutes, I didn't see that rotation was an issue at that point; however, a couple of folks here said that they record for 90s, so I record for that time now. I don't know, I feel like sometimes it does show a better individual image.

I did a 45min timelapse with a few seconds in between each. However, I think @somber stratus can vouch for allowing a minute or so in between images, especially if it's cold and you need to defrost the secondary for a minute or so.

[terse night]

So 90 seconds videos every 90 seconds would be good? I'd get 80 frames for a final timelapse

[white prawn]

Yep!

[terse night]

I can then replay it at 24fps to get a 3ish seconds timelapse. Sounds good to me

[white prawn]

For what it's worth, if the mirror isn't frosted over you can do shorter between the videos and not hurt anything.

[terse night]

It's a sct so frost shouldn't be a problem right?

[white prawn]

It might be. I'd recommend a dew shield to help with that. I use a Newt and the night that I did the rotation there was frost starting down the inside and on the vanes holding the secondary. I can imagine that would have been a situation if I had an SCT.

If you can't get a dew shield, use a hair dryer to defrost.

[terse night]

I have a dew heater tho

[white prawn]

If the dew heater does its job then you should not have an issue.

[terse night]

I need to buy a cable for it so I never got to try it out but it should work

You can see Ganimede setting on Jupiter and after a while it comes back out to then be immediately occluded by Jupiter's shadow. All while Io is transiting (if that's even a word). I think it's a pretty cool sequence of events

[somber stratus]

Yeah I usually run ~5 x 60sec then remove dew on the secondary if needed. Only takes 30s

[terse night]

Since I'm considering a mono 533 sensor how do I get the colors? I know I need to use filters but how much time do I need to spend per filter?

Also is the time needed to swap filters gonna be an issue in terms of rotation?

[somber stratus]

I wouldn’t use a mono sensor if you don’t also have a filter wheel

[terse night]

I'd buy a filter wheel too

[thick heron]

It becomes trivial to switch filters with a wheel and filter offsets configured.

[terse night]

Isn't refocusing gonna be an issue?

[white prawn]

Switching a filter should not affect the focus too much; any affect should be trivial to adjust.

[terse night]

I'm probably buying an eaf too so it shouldn't be an issue

[white prawn]

I've had my equip for 3 yrs and still manually tracking and focusing.

[terse night]

Yeah but I'm gonna be doing dso mainly so I'd like to automate as much as possible

[white prawn]

Definitely. I'm just rambling about my own stuff. 🙂 Also observing that you're getting a few neat tools.

EAF wasn't even on my list of "this is what I want to have on my setup" until relatively recently.

An EQ6R-Pro, on the other hand.

[terse night]

I don't think I'll be upgrading my mount any time soon

And mine should be good enough, i had no issue doing 20 seconds subs unguided so I think I could do up to 1 minute with guiding

It's an OAG too so even better

[white prawn]

I have an EQ5 and my primary OTA is 8" F5 so the mount is .... not ideal for it, in addition to being manual. That's why I want to update my mount.

[terse night]

Is it a SCT?

I have an AZEQ5, it seems to be behaving... for now at least...

[white prawn]

Newtonian. 1000mm focal length means that I'm carrying around a meter of OTA when I move it. 🙂

[terse night]

Yeah I have 2000mm of fl lol. That's even worse for tracking correctly.

1200mm with the reducer tho

[white prawn]

SCT right? Great for planetary though at native focal length. Even better with a good Barlow lens.

I know that AB mentioned someone getting some really nice DSO photos with an SCT so it's do-able. Maybe a bit challenging for reasons that you're already familiar with.

[terse night]

Yep it's a C8. Honestly I've seen great results with the Edge-HD variant but considering the sensor of the Ares-M is so incredibly small I'm not worried about optical issues

The reducer should correct some stuff as well

[green pebble]

Yeah but what about switching from red filter to blue, totally different wavelenghts will result in being unfocused

[white prawn]

I would expect my answer to still be good. I acknowledge the change in focus and don’t expect that it will be so much that requires major adjustment. I think it may move by millimeters, not a few centimeters.

[terse night]

Good to know

[white prawn]

Actually next time I’m out I’ll have to try going between red filter and blue filter, just to see its effect on focus. I know that going from no filter to IR pass was noticeable but relatively easy to recover. Not a few centimeters I don’t think

[somber stratus]

Fraction of a mm in most cases

for newts anyway

fracs, idk

[white prawn]

Hello! 👋 Can I bother you for an opinion ... or two/three. 🙂

[terse night]

So a sct is similar?

[white prawn]

Should be. Newts and SCTs both use mirrors; the SCT has a corrector plate at the front so the setup is more like that of a frac.

[terse night]

It's kinda of a mix of frac and reflector

I actually don't know what the plate does tho

[white prawn]

Corrects aberration

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schmidt_camera#Schmidt_corrector_plate

[terse night]

Cool

[green pebble]

I mean yeah, it will still need refocusing but its not going to be a major change in focus

[somber stratus]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/570687129118703637/1319450522792759376/2024-12-19-2241_2-TW-IR742-Mars_48_lapl8_ap117_WD2_pipp.gif

Gif from this evening. Garbage seeing, but can see Olympus Mons setting at upper-right

[rugged knoll]

"garbage seeing"

is a big dob really that sharp that you can get stuff like THAT with bad seeing??

[somber stratus]

Suppose so

[olive saddle]

Oh dear

[white prawn]

Yeah, it's why I want a bigger dob. Rio does a really fantastic job; but she can't do that from bad seeing. 😦

[rugged knoll]

i only have a 150mm😭

and i have no plans of buying smth bigger because while i do want better images, its SO expensive

[white prawn]

Oh, it doesn't have to be like this:

https://hubble-optics.com/UL24g.html

[rugged knoll]

nah i meant even just buying like a 250mm

[white prawn]

250mm dob shouldn't be too much, no?

Basic Skywatcher 10" is 530 US money units.

Then again, who am I to say ... I don't have that many US money units available either.

[rugged knoll]

yeah way more than id be willing to put in just to see some planets better

maybe in the future

for now tho im sticking with my 150mm

next thing i buy will be much smaller not bigger

[white prawn]

Fair enough. I like my 8" OTA well enough. 🙂

[white prawn]

I did the same. First OTA was an 8" newt; second was 72mm frac. Recently purchased a Celestron Nexstar 130

[rugged knoll]

i would get maybe even a 300mm if i had more interests in planets but i prefer dso

[white prawn]

Even a planet is a DSO if you're looking far away enough. See, now you have a reason to get a 300mm OTA. 😁

[rugged knoll]

Now I have to buy a 300mm right after i bought the new mount 😔

astro consumes all of my money

and it shall do so until there is none left to consume

[white prawn]

Heh, it'll be fine. Yes, it's an expensive hobby. However, what can keep me on track is deciding that I have a particular goal with it (what I want to do and have) and basically learn what I want/need to get to where I want to be, and not get side-quested off of it.

[green pebble]

Its for everybody, imma spend 200 dollars for a coma corrector

[terse night]

@somber stratus Do you think I can get good ISS shots with my rig? (C8, Ares-M and, if needed, a 2.25x Barlow). I searched the internet to get the angular size of the iss but I don't find anything useful except for around 1.2'. Is that correct? Also, how do I track it? Do I have to go manual or maybe write a software to do it?

[somber stratus]

It's very similar to that of Jupiter, 50" ish. And most people hand-track it. I use sky-watcher's sat tracker that works with SW mounts.

I mean technically I have direct proof

[terse night]

Oh yeah know that I think about it you made an image with them close

[terse night]

Yep that's it

[terse night]

Is this sat tracker a software? I have a sw mount so I could use it

[somber stratus]

But this was 45° altitude, so ISS will be a touch larger at zenith

1' at most

[somber stratus]

https://skywatcher.com/download/software/

[terse night]

Also I'm worried about hitting the max speed

[somber stratus]

top of this page

[terse night]

Thanks

[somber stratus]

It just caps out your mount, doesn't force it over the power limits.

you'll just lose the ISS, rather than your mount going crazy

[terse night]

Yeah but is it enough to track it?

[somber stratus]

if they don't have the pdf anymore in the download

some versions didn't have it in the past for some reason

[somber stratus]

How do you mean

sure, but depends on the path

I assume you're on an EQ mount

so if it goes past the NCP or SCP then you'll lose it

because the RA axis can't keep up

Similar situation with Alt/Az and ISS at zenith - Az motor can't keep up as it quickly flips from W to E

[terse night]

I could try aligning the mount to the ISS if that's even a thing

[somber stratus]

No, you do all the alignment before

[terse night]

Yeah I know that

What I mean is

I could align it to the rotation of the iss beforehand so I only need to move the ra axis

It's doable I think

[somber stratus]

I don't think it follows a constant line like this.

[terse night]

It should follow an arch

[somber stratus]

Sure, but not a perfectly smooth one that only requires one axis, as far as I'm aware anyway.

[terse night]

It would be perfect if earth wasn't rotating

[somber stratus]

In fact I know it doesn't due to zenith passes for me. They always start a little south of W and end south of E.

It's more with the ISS changing lat/long.

[terse night]

Yeah but it does because of earth's rotation

[somber stratus]

ISS is much faster than the rotation of Earth. Both have an influence, but the orbital motion dominates

Eitherway, you can do the math, but I'm pretty sure it's not possible to track in one axis only

[terse night]

Yeah because earth rotates. Very unfortunate

Another two questions:

How much time of video do you stack? It's so close and fast that parallax is definitely an issue right?

Also did you manage to capture the Tiangong station too?

[somber stratus]

1 second, in a moving average. And no, due to my latitude of 51°N. I'm too far north, CSS only reaches 10° for me.

It's orbital inclination is 40 or so

HST is also too low.

[terse night]

That's unfortunate you are the one man that could able to get details out of hubble😢

[terse night]

So I'm forced to shoot mono, I guess the ISS is not very colourful so not really an issue

[somber stratus]

It can be interesting in colour, but yeah mono is fine as you can use IR filters to improve seeing

[terse night]

Maybe you could get a blue-ish reflection of earth in the solar arrays but everything else should be pretty black and white

[terse night]

I should get an uv/ir filter with my camera so yep

[somber stratus]

There's quite a bit of colour other than that, but yeah

[terse night]

Looks very brown to me, almost rusty

Amazing shot btw

Btw this is a shot I saw on ZWO's website. I'm willing to bet this is your work.

@somber stratus Another question (I know I'm bothering you but you are hands down the best guy to ask these questions to). What can I expect with the rig I have? Do you have some images of your early work so I can get some realistic expectations? Thanks a lot.

[somber stratus]

This is by Michael Tzukran or something like this (probably butchered his name). Guy in Israel who uses a 24" Planewave at the University he works at.

[somber stratus]

I've never used a 8", but my profile pic is with a 12" hand-tracked

[terse night]

So I could get decently close with a 8" automatically tracked

Well, if I can get something decent I'll make sure to post it here

thx for all the help

[white prawn]

Going to chime in and say there's no reason that you wouldn't be able to get good ISS shots as long as you can get it within your FOV. 🙂

[terse night]

Should I consider the barlow with my 533?

[white prawn]

My automatic answer is "yes" ... and there's a formula to see what the best focal length is for your camera to determine what Barlow to use. I think its 7x (pixel size in microns). My ideal focal length is ~F14 which means my best Barlow is 4x (or my 3x plus ADC). I think the 533 has same pixel size as 585 so your ideal would be similar, but you wouldn't need the same Barlow as I would since the C8 starts at what, 2000mm focal length and my newt starts at 1000mm focal length.

[livid sierra]

533 does not have the same pixel size as the 533 and if it’s your first time imaging the iss you might want to do it at native. Using a Barlow gets you better sampling but it’s harder to keep it in frame which might be frustrating for your first time

[terse night]

If I plug everything in I get 6 with my barlow

[white prawn]

The internet is such a great place, here's someone now to correct me. 😆 Hi @livid sierra ! 🙂

[terse night]

I think I'm gonna be using the SW software so maybe it's fine? I could try the 1.3x barlow only

[livid sierra]

Worth trying ig

[terse night]

Btw the 533 has bigger pixels than the 585

I think 3.76 against 2.9

Quite a difference

[livid sierra]

Yeah

[white prawn]

Well I was correct in principle, but incorrect on a detail.

[livid sierra]

So it’s worth trying. But again it might be hard the first time, using the sw tracking software on its own already needs quite some prep

And even then sometimes it’s a gamble if it’ll actually work in my experience

[terse night]

I'll try to just track with no barlow then. The ISS frequently passes so it should be easy to do a lot of practice before actually trying shooting

[livid sierra]

It’s correct that f ratio being 7x pixel size gets you good sampling but that’s almost impossible to use for tracking the iss without guiding

Tom does it because he has guiding, without it it’s almost impossible to accurately track the iss at such a high fl

I image the iss at 4700mm f/16 and that’s hard enough without guiding

[terse night]

This is my fov with jupiter, tom says the iss is basically as big as jupiter so...

[terse night]

With the barlow

[livid sierra]

Seems right but the iss moves a bit faster than Jupiter

[terse night]

Yeah lol, a lot faster

[livid sierra]

If you’re gonna guide through a finderscope or like a red dot make sure it’s perfectly aligned

[terse night]

Manually guide you mean?

[livid sierra]

Because in case you’re not aware you’re more than likely gonna need to do manual adjustments using the handcontroller while tracking

The iss tracking is not perfect

If you don’t correct you will lose it quite easily

[livid sierra]

Yes

[terse night]

I could also just watch what the camera is seeing, maybe that is simpler

[livid sierra]

You could, but if you make a mistake and lose it you’re gonna have to switch to the finderscope anyway

[terse night]

Yeah you are right, I'll make sure that it's properly aligned. a question: how far does a terrestrial object needs to be to properly align it?

Is something like 500m enough

[somber stratus]

I'm still not at optimal sampling even with tracking

[livid sierra]

Yeah Ik, but close to it

[somber stratus]

Sure

[livid sierra]

Not sure about that. I always use a planet, or for preparing for an iss pass I align on Polaris

[terse night]

I get 0.17"/pixel so by doing 1' over 0.17" i get 352 pixels of size on the ISS. Is that the correct way of calculating it?

[terse night]

yeah maybe it's better that way

[somber stratus]

Sure, but note most of the time the ISS won't be at zenith with panels fully displayed. It's probably closer to 45" / 264px

I run my 16" at 0.1"/px, so not far off.

[terse night]

Makes sense, still fine to me

[livid sierra]

Yeah, since you need to align the mount to North before starting tracking anyway. At least with an alt-az mount

[terse night]

My mount is both an az and an eq one, i can swap between the two

[livid sierra]

Hmm

Not sure which would be better for tracking the iss

I think it’s the meridian flip with eq mounts that make them suboptimal

In that case I would say alt az is better

[terse night]

Yeah by the time the flip is done I lose so much imaging time

I need to see if the SW software can track in az

[livid sierra]

Yeah it can

It works with SW Dobs

[somber stratus]

It does, I use my SW Dob for it.

As Duif has said already

[terse night]

Nice

[summer pebble]

Venus

[sleek shore]

Average seeing
Both 90 sec videos
250p quattro with 3x barlow
Uranus-c

[fading plume]

Get this man a bigger scope

[ebon sage]

May I permanently borrow Ur average seeing ? 🥺

[white prawn]

Me too.

[sleek shore]

Yes please I need it😭😭

[sleek shore]

Sure!!

[long rune]

Jupiter from a few day ago, the Great Red Spot, and Europa

I could have done even better if I used my barlow but I was imaging other things this night and did not have flats yet

Saturn from the same night

I did Venus just before Saturn

kind of boring by comparison

better version

I need a higher quality barlow if anyone has some recommendations

[gaunt kite]

My Artesky 3x APO Barlow works very well

It's not even that expensive (80$) considering the quality

[long rune]

is it a 2" or 1.25"?

[gaunt kite]

1.25

[tiny topaz]

Why is it that when I finally get average seeing, I am cursed with terrible transparency so everything looks like a white smudge

[white prawn]

Trade you perfect transparency for my soup seeing

[cloud copper]

Mars last night with the 12”

Which one is better

?

[terse night]

The second one looks sharper but there's a bit more green

[cloud copper]

How’s this?

[terse night]

Way better

[rain mauve]

jupiter from phone and 900mm telescope

finally double band and great giant red spit

spot

[rain mauve]

this is my mars

sucked still haha

[slate juniper]

holi shid look wat i hav achived with my 8" dob:D

my sharpest pic

that was my previous sharpest one

jupi got sum thicker bands over the past year:D

[somber stratus]

From Germany?

Seeing looks good all over Europe at the moment, but most places are cloudy/foggy :(

[slate juniper]

Ye :c

[white prawn]

Not sure how I feel about this. Maybe seeing was worse than what I thought. 😦

[hasty hull]

To be fair you aren’t looking at the sharpest frame

[white prawn]

Not sure this is much better.

I feel like I'm doing something wrong, I see folks post individual frames that are perfect focus, no blur, nothing ... what the heck am I doing wrong

Or are they just editing

[somber stratus]

Such as? I haven't seen any that match this description tbh

[white prawn]

All I can find immediately are a few videos that you've shared from your imaging and there seems to be better focus/more detail on individual frames than what I'm getting here.

But I could have sworn I've seen (months and months ago) screenshots from time to time from the capture program that were pretty much picture perfect.

So I don't know if that frame represents:

• User error, bad focus;
• Atmospheric Issue, bad seeing;
• There's only so much that an 8" F5 can get on a single frame at 9.8ms and that's why we stack.

[somber stratus]

What you're talking about is probably the clips of my best seeing with the 16". That's all due to a larger aperture and excellent seeing. Nothing more to it really. Also your brain tends to see more detail in a video rather than individual raw frames as it mentally "stacks" it as it's playing - a strange psychological effect.

[white prawn]

So ... could be seeing, definitely only so much that 8" F5 can do, and the brain is a wonderful thing.

Key points: not a focus issue; stop pixel-peeping.

That about right?

[white prawn]

Thank you @somber stratus. I actually was thinking about how it seemed like I would see more detail in live video than individual frame. Kind of neat.

[slate juniper]

oOoOoOooO

[somber stratus]

I spot 4 volcanoes

[slate juniper]

yaaay

astrosurface rlly is a ton better than registax:D

best mars i had previously

[white prawn]

That's not bad, actually.

Processed with Registax or AstroSurface?

[slate juniper]

it isnt butt its not s h a r p

regi

[white prawn]

Reprocess with AstroSurface if you still have the data

[slate juniper]

sadly i dont, rarely save planetary stacks

[white prawn]

Aw

[slate juniper]

y e

[long rune]

100%

[terse night]

Guys is there a way to measure seeing that doesn't rely on guessing with my eyeballs?

[candid flare]

no

well, there are but its not reliable unless you get a sky meter thingy

[terse night]

What about getting a video of Jupiter or some planet with distinct features and seeing how much the bands of it move? Knowing the angular resolution of the entire planet it should be easy to measure seeing in arcseconds?

[dark cargo]

Damien Peach does have a guideline for that: https://www.damianpeach.com/seeingscale.htm but not very objective.

There is also the pickering scale which is probably better: https://www.damianpeach.com/pickering.htm

[terse night]

Thanks I'll give it a look

[rain mauve]

Jupiter and its pawns

[rain mauve]

i got saturn and venus recently

[white prawn]

[rain mauve]

i got jupiter also

and mars

kinda suck for mars, since i use phone

so yeah no details lmao

[gray orchid]

neato capture tn - Io's transit + shadow

8" Dob + QHY 715C
30% stacked of 3k frames

[olive saddle]

Woah

[terse night]

Neat

[terse night]

Could you tell me what was your pixel scale? i'm curious to see what I can expect to get with my rig

[main flume]

One of my better photos of Jupiter captured with my phone

[left spindle]

old saturn image taken thru a 114/900 scope and webcam untracked.

[long rune]

my first ever Mars

this was a stack from a much shorter more zoomed in video i got

[rain mauve]

South and north are visible

Wow

Nice

[rain mauve]

this is my mars with my phone

[summer pebble]

As conditions and clouds haven't been great as of late in my area, I thought I'd ask for tips and feedback for my planetary images.
For 6 inches, apart from seeing conditions (each being either average or above average), how well done are these? Am I at the limit of my telescope's abilities?

[white prawn]

I wonder what the Jupiter data looks like. Saturn looks great, and I have no idea how you pulled an image of one of the ice giants from a 6" OTA. Mars looks great, the polar caps are evident, though it does suffer from the dreaded and hard to avoid edge rind. Venus is also looking good.

Re: ice giant ... really shouldn't be entirely possible with a 6" and my image of Uranus is smaller and done with an 8" OTA. So yeah, I'm really flummoxed.

[somber isle]

Man this nerd

[summer pebble]

Uranus is well within the resolving capability of my ota as well while also imaging at 3000m fl, so it should be with yours. what makes yours appear smaller compared to mine?

[summer pebble]

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ydySH3DiSWiwWoSZqitWNchOSC48-ZQn
here is my data for jupiter if you're curious

[olive saddle]

These are ridiculously good for only a 6" telescope, I'm assuming it's a dob or some other kind of reflector? Your Jupiter details are amazing, really nice shot of Uranus with its moons. I can't confidently say that you're at the limit of your scope, but if you aren't, then you're getting pretty damn close.

[charred pasture]

Guys what do you think about this image of the Saturn occultation of 4 jan 25?

I captured saturn 5 minutes after the end of the occultation and aligned the stacked image with the moon surface and saturn exiting the moon

30 minutes derotated Mars, all the two images were captured using the skymax 127, asi 385mc, zwo adc, l-pro filter cause the uv/ir cut didn’t arrive in time and the celestron 3x x cel lx Barlow

With the star adventurer gti mount

[summer pebble]

Thanks! I use an sct to do my imaging

[livid sierra]

Nice work

[olive saddle]

Oh it's an SCT, that makes more sense actually

cassegrains are notoriously good planet-busters

[white prawn]

I won't lay claim to perfection so this may be a case of me misinterpreting what I saw. I took that image with my 8" but I recently acquired a Celestron Nexstar 130. Maybe that'll help me find the ice giant and image with that.

[hasty hull]

I was able to image the polar hood of Uranus with my 6” dob, well resolvable with half decent seeing

With an rg610 filter granted