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Low and clear beats high and cloudy!

Luke

By Luke
in Imaging - Lunar

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Luke

Luke

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Arghhh, the night of the 7th... Nice and clear when I got home, forecast to be clear all the way into the wee hours. So, shoot the moon early on while it was low in the sky, or wait a bit for it to climb up and hopefully into the land of more stable seeing? I'm a bit wary of imaging too soon after sunset as the air seems to be a bit wobbly for a while around then?

Anyway, I waited for high in the sky. And of course, stealth cloud moved in the moment I stepped out of the door! So I only have a few piccies taken during a few gaps. I feel a bit better after processing them as it beats having nothing at all! Thanks for looking.

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7th December, 2014

Celestron Edge 8", Grasshopper 3 camera (ICX687), red longpass filter

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gnomus

gnomus

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These are stunning Luke. As a beginner, it would be interesting to see the AVI from which this image was obtained, to give some idea of what sort of source material is required to obtain results as good as this. Is there any way of posting up even a short section of the clip, I wonder?

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Luke

Luke

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Thanks, all, most kind!

Craig, yes I used LR decon  :laugh:  I am trying to use it all the time now to get as much practice with it as poss.

I did two passes with these settings in Astra Image 4 (sharpening) in case it helps anyone with a starting point:

1) Lucy Richardson (Lorentzian kernel), Iterations 48, Size 0.98, Strength 1.63

2) Lucy Richardson (Cauchy), Iterations 10, Size 0.61, Strength 0.70

I really like Cauchy as a finishing blast, it seems to add some depth?

Astro Imp, the terminator area was brill! Just shows it's still great fun close to full moon :laugh:

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Twisted Lip

Twisted Lip

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Really like those Luke, absolutely cracking.

That decon really seems to be working too, I must give it a go. By comparison take a look at the quicky I took on exactly the same night (ok, seeing was like a jelly fish and I only ran the image through AS!C and Registax for a quick stack and wavelets, no longpass filter, insert excuses here lol) but my camera is exactly the same and the scope is close (c9.25). The image isn't even in the same league as yours!

Quicky Lunar

I'm very jealous!

Cheers

Will

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Luke

Luke

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Nice shot, Will! Seeing was decent for me, so I was at least lucky with the seeing for the few shots I did get :laugh: Was a bit frustrating knowing it was decent but the clouds coming in to spoil play, bohoo!

I got the Grasshopper mainly for solar but hoping it would be decent for lunar too and I think it ticks that box :smiley:

For the decon I really recommend trying the Lucy Richardson / Cauchy to finish things off and see if that works for you, it really seems to add some sort of ping/depth to the image!

Really like those Luke, absolutely cracking.

That decon really seems to be working too, I must give it a go. By comparison take a look at the quicky I took on exactly the same night (ok, seeing was like a jelly fish and I only ran the image through AS!C and Registax for a quick stack and wavelets, no longpass filter, insert excuses here lol) but my camera is exactly the same and the scope is close (c9.25). The image isn't even in the same league as yours!

I'm very jealous!

Cheers

Will

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Twisted Lip

Twisted Lip

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Thanks Luke, I'll definitely give it a crack, I'm seeing great results (Lunar, Solar and planetary). 

Interestingly thats why I got the grasshopper too, for solar mainly but looking if it would scale to lunar and planetary too. Unfortunately I still struggle with in on some occasions as its the USB3 model and above, say 15-18fps, it just starts dropping out. If the cable I use is longer than a metre, then it gets even worse. USB3 does really seem to be quite temperamental for me sadly so I'm not able to use it to its fullest extent.

Cheers

Will

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Luke

Luke

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Thanks, Ralph, most kind :smiley:

Will, sorry to hear that the Grasshopper is not going full speed :confused:  Mine is good as gold and super dependable since I started using the Point Grey USB Pro driver. Before that I think it was using a Windows driver (though I found the whole install thing pretty confusing...) and with that it would blue screen on me every five captures or so depending on which direction the wind was blowing :shocked: I tried it on a low spec £300 laptop too and it still returned 26FPS full frame in 8 bit mode and about 16FPS in 16 bit mode. Better than I was expecting with all the talk about high spec machines/solid state drives!  :eek:  I would guess my USB3 cable is about 1.8m, it was supplied by ClearView Imaging who we got the camera from.

Snap really with the camera, I dabble a tiny bit with planets too, so that was my third requirement, a kind of handy if it can do it too. The idea is when I have my big dob out for visual (not that often, alas, thanks to the useless weather...) I can grab the camera if seeing looks decent for a quick grab.

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Twisted Lip

Twisted Lip

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Thanks, Ralph, most kind :smiley:

Will, sorry to hear that the Grasshopper is not going full speed :confused:  Mine is good as gold and super dependable since I started using the Point Grey USB Pro driver. Before that I think it was using a Windows driver (though I found the whole install thing pretty confusing...) and with that it would blue screen on me every five captures or so depending on which direction the wind was blowing :shocked: I tried it on a low spec £300 laptop too and it still returned 26FPS full frame in 8 bit mode and about 16FPS in 16 bit mode. Better than I was expecting with all the talk about high spec machines/solid state drives!  :eek:  I would guess my USB3 cable is about 1.8m, it was supplied by ClearView Imaging who we got the camera from.

Snap really with the camera, I dabble a tiny bit with planets too, so that was my third requirement, a kind of handy if it can do it too. The idea is when I have my big dob out for visual (not that often, alas, thanks to the useless weather...) I can grab the camera if seeing looks decent for a quick grab.

Yes I remember it was a pain to set up too. Problem is the PGR drivers took over the USB 3.0 port entirely so I had to contact them and ask if there was a way i could get it to work and still use the USB port for other things (have a look at how it was resolved here: http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/228177-calling-pgr-grasshopper-and-eqdir-users/). I might grab a new cable from ClearView and see if that does the trick. Also - what software do you use for capture?

Cheers

Will

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