CraigT82

Really nice image Geof by the way!

I did a video derotation on a 6 minute capture on that night too and the moon itself was streaked just as it would be using the image derotation tool, but the shadow wasn’t yet on the disk so can’t speak for that but I’d imagine it would be streaked too. I thought the same as Geof in that the moons are moving at a different rate to the jupiters rotation. The data I got was total rubbish and have junked it . Plus side was it was my first use of the new AZ-EQ6 which I bought months ago but not had time to use yet. Had it in AZ mode and it worked like a charm.

It’s a sharpening process, I’ve found it works quite well

That’s looks nice and natural to me tbh. It’s just one of those things where to get good fine detail with a smooth natural look you really need good seeing. Just gotta keep getting out there and you’ll catch one of those greats nights sooner or later. I always avoid any kind of AI denoising or sharpening , images tend to get a certain look to them when they’ve been used and can usually spot it, saying that though you’re looks nice and you must have been really gentle with it I guess. AI sharpening can also introduce false detail as into an image too which can make it look good on first inspection but when you look closely you can tell (there was a big hoohaa on Astrobin about it a couple of years ago). I just don’t think the AI stuff copes that well with tiny scale planetary images as opposed to big megapixel dslr shots. I really like the Wiener deconvolution in Astrosurface so maybe have a go with that and see if it helps.

I’m assuming it might have been sorted in the seven years since.

I use this one, has a cigar socket and use it to power my AZ-EQ6. RoyPow Portable Charger 30W PD USB-C Power Bank with 12V Cigarette Lighter Outlet, External Battery Pack for Laptop MacBook Air iPad iPhone Dash Cam Camping Travelling 【2022 New Upgraded】 https://amzn.eu/d/etWUYWh Have also used a couple of Talentcell packs in the past and they are also decent. What is your total current draw? Would need to do some maths to see what you need for 10 hours. Never tried to get any of these power cells onto a plane though.

For an unguided DSLR image that’s really decent, especially as it’s not an easy target. Really nice stars all the way to the corners and that’s half the battle.

If you use an Allen key and tighten up this screw just a little it will stop the focuser drawtube from sliding down under weight. It is a balancing act to get the tightness of that screw just right so that it holds the weight but doesn’t make the focus knobs too stiff. Tiny adjustments are what you want.

I don’t fully understand it myself but more info here https://skyinspector.co.uk/adcs-part2/

Don’t forget that when using an ADC, the ADC introduces an aberration that gets worse with faster F ratios (hence why you should always use the barlow in front of the ADC) I wonder at what point the ADC aberration will outweigh the benefit of critical sampling. Might be worth some investigation.

How are you viewing your SER files? I use SER player (downloaded from PIPP website). That will read the bayer pattern in the SER header and temporarily debayer the video file before playing which will give you a clue if the wrong bayer pattern is written into the SER header (That Bayer pattern will be written into the SER header by FC whether or not it is debayering the video). You can actually read the SER file header in SER player too. I think the best thing to try now is to take your undebayered Jupiter video capture and run it though PIPP or AS3 to debayer it with the debayer pattern GBRG, and if that doesn’t work try the other patterns to see which is the correct one, then compare that with what is written into the file header (using SER player).

Ok that’s good, so FC does know what the debayer pattern is then, is the FC preview the correct colour and not odd looking? Yes I always focus using the debayered colour preview but then switch it off for capture. If I remember correctly I got significantly slower frame rates when FC was debayering each frame and so I always have it switched off (I think that was with a 224mc) but never tried it with my 462 or 485, just always switch it off now out of habit. No actually you still get the grid pattern if the wrong debayer is used, it’s to do with the demosaicing (interpolation between the pixels) being incorrect too. I think Firecapture might be writing the wrong bayer pattern into the SER header and that is being picked up by AS3 making it debayer the video frames incorrectly, but you can force it to use the correct pattern so if you run it through AS3 and force the correct bayer pattern you should be good I think. My advice is to always do your debayering in AS3 as it uses a much more sophisticated algorithm for interpolation called bayer drizzle, this can overcome the resolutions disadvantage of OSC cameras compared to mono.

Just found this on the IMX385 data sheet... GBRG

When you tick the debayer option in FC does it debayer correctly on the preview or does it still have the weird pattern? The Jupiter image looks like it’s been debayered with the wrong pattern in AS3, not sure what the actual patttern is but you can force AS3 to use a user specified pattern rather than autodetecting, you can just try each one until it looks right. I wonder if FC is reporting the wrong bayer pattern in the SER header which is causing AS3 to trip up?

Well, both. Seeing varies throughout a session and even within a single capture. As you say we’re veering off topic.

I think the standard skywatcher motor focuser unit will probably go on there, might require a bit of bodging to get it to fit but will be worth it, motor focusing is great.

Very interesting, thanks for that. So no it’s not Mr Go’s oversampling then as they’re all at it!

Well for that particular image he rates his seeing as 7-9/10, so no, not the weather.

Might explain why his images aren't as good as they perhaps should be. Here is a comparison of recent images from Chris Go and a few northern Europe planetary imagers. Chris should be doing better than the rest due to the planet elevation advantage he enjoys in the Philipines (Jupiter at 80 degrees alt), but he isn't, in fact I'd say he's doing worse which is an arguable opinion I know, could just be his processing technique.

Nice shots! Jupiter looks good with some nice sharp detail but the Saturn might be a touch out of focus? It’s tough to get focus when they’re low down in the murk. Might just be fuzziness due to the relatively long exposures. Don’t worry too much about the histogram it can be really quite low and dim raw frame and still result in a nice bright final image after processing. Faster exposures are more important and that will also lead to faster frame rates.

Very nice image. You might get more interaction if you attach the image directly to the post instead of requiring readers to click away from the site.

It’s actually quite easy, but only if you swap your donut centre spot for a triangle one, and apply the triangle so that each point is pointing at a collimation bolt. That way just by looking through the Cheshire you can see which bolt to turn and which way to turn it. Granted there is still a little bit of back and forth between eyepiece and mirror end to get perfectly collimated so not quite what you asked, but much easier than turning the bolts randomly and seeing what happens.

Well there is two possibilities the way I see it: A) ZWO released the camera with the old specs however those charts were wrong (maybe this “incorrect testing” they mentioned?) and they have quietly corrected and updated the specs and the camera hasn’t changed at all and always switched to HGC at 252. B ) ZWO released the camera with the HCG set at 152, then decided at some point to change this on the cameras to the new HCG point and released those into the wild, again quietly. Either way what I find fishy is how quietly they changed the specs… not even FLO knew about it! They didn’t tell their customers or dealers?! You’d think that if it was scenario B and this change made the camera better in some way they’d be making a song a dance about how it’s better than their competitors models, but I haven’t seen anything like that. This makes me think it might be scenario A and the lack of announcements are because they are keen to avoid a rush of complaints/returns from people who are miffed that their camera didn’t work as it was advertised. I will accept they ZWO may have made announcements/explanations as to the change of specs somewhere and I just haven’t come across them. I’m all ears if so.

Indeed… it’s nice to hear praise and acceptance of something new rather than the usual “new stuff is rubbish - everything was better in my day” attitude that we see daily for a certain member demographic (not Olly!)

Nice!