neil phillips

Just for fun re running 2016  SW 300p ASI 290M Data. 571 frames each. 4 pane mosaic. Autostakkert box 24. 9000 map points each pane. Registax linear wavelet 2 only. Further sharpening light levels and noise reduction image analyzer size 100%

Getting a tube extender soon to raise it up. but heres mine 80MM Opticron on AZ3 mount  if the extender puts it off balance i will sort it with a counterweight. so far its performing well. but needs raising hence a tube extension 

If astroboot was still running i would say no hesitation in trying this,  SW Capricorn 70mm refractor got the tube assembly for £30 they had a few. wish i had got two.   At Nearly F13 it has negligible false colour 

super sharp optics, best cheapest grab and go i ever got.  a scopetech F12 80mm would set you back over £400 

I used astra image many moons ago. Seem to remember some good deconvolution sharpening routines on there. Always liked experimenting. Drizzle was just a resize option i tried.  As you know Mike its data that counts. Get good data and a lot of experiments will likely work out ok.  Looking foward to seeing your new Frac under good seeing. Got my old EQ 4 mount running. And got lucky finding a RA drive for it from Germany. Frankenhammer is no more

Soon i should at least be able to do some barlow work with both the 114 Newt, and 120 achro Evo. A bigger mount is weeks away. But ordered. Smaller instrument work is a lot of fun. Having a lot of fun using smaller scopes lately. Very satisfying ive found. Its all art to me. The level has become more irrelevant as the years have gone by. Loving my astronomy again. Thats the most important thing for anyone. Not scope size

5 hours ago, WestCoastCannuck said:

I like the first image best....  as I see it in post.   Its fine blown up too, for looking for fine details....  but for eye impact IQ (hmm.... .  I rather like that phrase!)....  Number one.  Downscaled as I see it in post on my screen.  The second is fine too....  just a bit over sharpened to my (admittedly conservative) eye.  :)))))

Truly a great image no matter how you look at it!

Mike

Hi Mike Thanks for that. I agree the top image does give you that natural wiggle room that a lot of us seem to want to nail. Infact its your work both in quality and sharpening presentation, that has been making me think a lot about it recently. Understanding your approach and appreciating its strengths. (but also considering any weaknesses) As i said before no one gets something for nothing. Different approaches will have different strengths and weaknesses. It works both ways. No one is right or wrong its personal taste i guess. Me and you are closer on this, than we are far apart i feel. I Wanted to do a 150% resize for the purpose you talk about making it easier for the eye to pick out two close points, with a lot of the smaller hard to see borderline craters. I Just tried drizzle to achieve this resize, as its not something i do a lot. I didnt expect drizzle to be doing anything special to the image. But was fun to experiment with nonetheless. Next time i may just resize as its faster. Or not resize at all. I wanted 150% But SGL turned it into more like 200% a bit over the top to be honest. But as you say resizing does make it easier to pick out fine details. Sometimes worth trying perhaps ? 

Nice shot

4 hours ago, wouterdhoye said:

Absolutely stunning image, Neil! Thanks for sharing. 

Clear skies,

Wouter

Cheers Wouter

4 hours ago, CraigT82 said:

Some super fine detail in that one Neil, and the face of a little green man hiding in the shadows?! 

 

lol. Couldnt see it at first. Your eyes are good. Its faint but its there. 

Lovely crater often neglected. From 2016 ASI 290M SW300p Autostakkert. two captures joined on pipp. 14000 frames stacked 900

1 minute ago, vlaiv said:

Rough measurement gives ~ 0.12437"/px

That in turn gives 4810mm of focal length with 2.9µm pixel size. 305mm is aperture, so effective F/ratio is ~F/15.772

You were using IR pass filter with 685nm cutoff frequency.

I'd say that you are roughly twice over sampled - but we can calculate it more precisely.

Indeed, critical F/ratio for this combination is ~ F/8.47 - almost the half of what you used.

Not only that you don't need to drizzle - you can in fact bin your data x2

Your certainly one for numbers Vlaiv. But yes your correct i likely was oversampled. I was using lots of different combinations back then 3 or 4 different cameras

I should probably have thought a lot more about Focal length. Its something i will be thinking about when i start hi res again. Infact i was calculating this recently for when i start hi resolution again. Some have even suggested like Christophe Pellier that oversampling isnt always all bad. But i will leave that for others to debate. Certainly when i start again i will be thinking a lot more about What camera i am using with any particular focal length. 

3 minutes ago, vlaiv said:

In order for drizzle to have any chance of bringing improvement - you need to under sample to begin with.

What F/ratio were you using for ASI290?

In any case - here is non drizzled version upscaled to drizzled version and again - blinked:

Now your making any separation gains to the eye identical but doing it in reverse the result will be the same. Nothing

It was a long time ago i never kept the stats. Often i would put in tube extenders for more Focal length. So am unsure of the exact focal length ? 

What bugs me is if i put up a 150% resize. Why does SGL Software resize it to more like 200% ? losing the balance i was trying to achieve ?

Fair enough. But dont forget by downsizing the drizzle you are negating any effect or separation improvements to the eye gained by drizzling ? ( especially these old eyes)

Agreed separation of close fine detail isnt really showing ( at full size differences ) in these examples. But i strongly suspect it could on occasion with the right data, and two points being hard to separate by eye.

30 minutes ago, vlaiv said:

I see no major difference between the two. Second one is just a bit more aggressively sharpened - and that is good, but if you resize them to the same size - they are virtually identical (nothing gained by drizzle).

True to a degree. But more aggressive sharpening certainly can make small detail far easier to see. I have had many instances where i have under sharpened, and the small fine detail is impossible to see. Only with more sharpening did the detail become more apparent. If your suggesting more sharpening can not reveal more detail. I politely disagree. Its very easy to prove this is so. if i redo a version of this and use 2 on the top registax wavelet scale. Highlight a area were the detail is borderline to the eye. Then do the correct amount  of sharpening to allow that borderline detail to be seen. The detail in the under sharpened image will be totally missing.  Infact think i am seeing this effect here. Without having to under or over sharpen to prove it ? Btw  drizzle or resizing can make separation easier to see too

18 minutes ago, CraigT82 said:

Fantastic Neil, I think I prefer the second one

Interesting Craig, thank you for giving me your honest veiw. I wonder a lot about perceptions. I prefer the top. there is less detail but has that slight natural softness, so many including me try to achieve. There is no wrong and right. Different strengths and weaknesses In both approaches. Thought i had lost this footage. i reprocessed it on here a while ago. But that was just levels from a tiff. More interesting from scratch. And actual ser files. More control of any outcome

Joined 4 avis together using PIPP and stabillized. total frame count 32000. Stacked 900. Did a 150% drizzle Auto stakkert. Box size 24.

Registax linear top wavelet only. Further  sharpening and noise reduction image analyzer. Light level adjust image analyzer. Not as natural perhaps as the original. But showing a touch more detail maybe in certain areas ? still like the dark and moody original mind.

What a large mass produced chinese Newtonian can achieve. The best capture i ever got. The scope cost me £100 SW 300P

ASI 290m camera. Neq6 mount. Altair planet killer IR Filter

Wonder what size craters i am getting down to on this ? Notice how not worrying about smoothness as a goal driven pursuit. It is allowing it to take on a fine sandy appearance. This is not possible with over smooth processing. Or at the very least very difficult. I miss that old scope

Top image 150% drizzle SGL Resizes this to around 200% as a guess ? 

Bottom image pushed harder (not as natural ) 100% SGL Resized to 150% as a guess. 

13 hours ago, StuartT said:

I was interested to read this statement in the review posted by Neil Phillips.

A note here about the Skymaster and the Skymaster Pro: the only clearly recognizable difference I found between the two consists of a brighter image in the Pro version; in all other respects, the Pro did not do substantially better than the basic Skymaster.

 

Yes concerning when your spending more money. If the reviewer is correct ? But i note he owns all those binoculars. Uses binos a lot, many different ones.

He also said out of the cheap options against the two Celestrons the Opticrons were the best.

I like you got The Celestrons new. They also were out. Replaced them for the Opticrons lo and behold they was far better. sharper for sure. I never tested the pros version of the Celestrons though. He says the Opticrons are working at 70mm ? Uk reviewers put them at 76mm. The pro Celestrons are working at 80mm. So worth considering. But with a tiny sweet spot compared to the Opticrons. For the price performance the Opticrons are worth considering. I like em

Thought this was interesting read

APM MS 20x80 ED - A Brief Comparative Review - Binoculars - Cloudy Nights

3 hours ago, CraigT82 said:

Excellent Neil! Don't think I've ever gotten a decent image of Petavius myself. Did you ever use the fan cooling on the hypercam? 

I did Craig, Never run comparison tests mind. Working in winter would negate much impact for lunar anyway i would have thought. ? Summer imaging. The noise levels may benefit in theory ? Deepsky probably the fans biggest advantage. But as i say would need testing and comparing for the lunar question. Cheers

4 hours ago, WestCoastCannuck said:

Wonderful view Nieil!  Bad seeing well overcome apparently with lucky imaging and great processing. 😎

Yes credit to Emil and Autostakkert here. Its fun running old data. Just discovered my old SW300p Clavius data that i am presently messing with. A lot of fun. 

Cheers Mike

Captured ages ago. Just looking on a old hard drive. Average to poor seeing  10" Orion Altair Hypercam 224 colour camera

4 hours ago, CraigT82 said:

Thanks Neil. I'm sure your 10" will be up and running soon.

Yes I know what you mean about the washed out look... The Copernicus image is suffering with this but it was looking harsh and I felt I had to dial back on the contrast.

I really need to write down a processing workflow and stick to it for consistent images, as currently I just wing it and see what works which leads to images looking nothing like each other. 

My favourite out of these three, aesthetically speaking, is the Montes Caucasus one, which is ironic as that was captured under the worse seeing of them all! 

Ive been winging it for years.  Used to hate burnout or clipping religiously. Lately ive come to realize for the most dynamic brightness levels a little bit of clipping on certain craters in sunlight can not really be avoided. If you drop the histogram to a level where there is zero clipping in direct sunlight craters. The dynamic range will suffer. As of april 2021. I am now of the opinion that clipping should be tolerated ( within reason ) to allow a full dynamic range across the lunar surface. Its a change from my previous position of avoiding clipping so religiously. Hope to show what i mean when i get going proper in about 6 weeks time. But next chance you get Craig, try some shots allowing direct sunlight crater rims to clip, ever so slightly. (And i mean slightly ) For the reason of increasing the dynamic range in areas that are not fully illuminated. You should see your images not only not too dark. (under exposed) But the vitality brightness levels, and dynamic range will look a lot more inspiring to your eye. Try see if you agree. Just trying to share with you my experiance and current position on balance.

Lovely sharp detail. Tonally nice on this one

Lovely data Craig your making me itch to do hi res again. Got to wait for a pandemic delivery now.

Watch the gamma or brightness to compensate for dark images it can get a bit tonally whited out.  Dynamically flat. Thats some lovely hi res captures there though Craig. your Newt rocks for sure

How many of you are confident Adam is not talking about there telescope ? I will kick this off its not my Celestron 114 Newtonian. Or my Evostar 120. Though that is a lttle soft. As most F8 medium size achros are.

How well do you know your equipment. How confident are you about your images ? I am guessing its some deep sky images. But could be wrong. I have seen one very expensive telescope appearing to under perform. But one has to be careful about soft images, because focus and seeing can mimic soft optics.

Just read Adams update. After posting lol