Tommohawk

Very nice first Mars image. Just one suggestion - if you run it through PIPP and ask it to equalise RGB channels you may get a nicer colour rendition with a whiter pole. My sensor is similar to yours and this certainly helps with my images.

That's a very nice Mars! Couple of thoughts. I'm not keen on oversaturated images, but the colour seems a bit muted. Also, there have been some interesting posts recently about the best exposure time for Mars and planets generally. I've always gone for the fastest possible exposure to "freeze the seeing" but the consensus seemed to be that too short an exposure doesn't give optimum results. Folks were talking in the 5-15ms range if I remember rightly. 0.45 seems very short, though your image does look good. I used Toupsky last night for Mars and had to use incredibly low gain to give adequate exposure time. With my camera I have gain settings up to 50 and I was set to between 3-5. That gave exposure times of 8-10 ms. Not saying that's best for me or you though! Either way, you shouldnt have to reduce the exposure to 0.45 just to get a good frame rate. 5ms should give 200FPS if your system is up to it (ie using ROI, USB3 etc) and if the system isnt up to it reducing the exposure wont help. Does that make sense? BTW like you I also struggle with identification of features!

Another great Mars image Craig! The seeing wasn't so good last night I thought in my neck of the woods... I'm just playing with my images now and trying to knock them into shape.

Maybe if you post the camera type and capture software plus image someone might be able to suggest how to sort the exposure issue? If buying another camera I'd definitely suggest second hand. I dont think cameras really suffer from wear and tear like other items so second hand could be a good buy.

Looks very nice! FWIW I share your pain with refractor spacing blues - I had to completely give up with one scope. But that image looks fine for star shape, doesn't it?

Not sure I know the answer to this, and it must depend on the stacking software. I'm guessing you're using DSS? In DSS you can definitely use different formats for lights and calibration - I routinely used CR2 files for lights and tiff for master calibration. DSS stores the master calibration files as TIFFs. Having said that, your example suggests otherwise. I seem to recall DSS uses 16bit masters which isn't ideal... although I dont think that would cause your issue. TBH although I used DSS happily for some years, I found it a bit unpredictable and in the end paid for Astropixel processor.

Well hopefully you can reveal all when you're done testing/experimentation!

I'm intrigued! Is this a "hard" filter ie a real glass type thing you use when shooting, or a virtual one used in processing?

I'm sure you're right... but not clear what you mean by night flats?

I would say that's pretty good. I used DSS for ages but have now moved over to APP - it does seem more reliable. You seem to have lost some of the blues maybe? Also you have something of a trail that might have happened on one sub only - how many did you take, and do they all show the same trail? Maybe if you post some more details re your kit and settings folks here could make more constructive observations? As you say clear skies would help!

Looks great, lovely job! Surprisingly little noise for ISO 6400 too.

Here is my take on it. First you need to get your head round the transmission curves for this camera, show by this chart: Note that the RGB matrix bleeds IR on all channels - lots of it. If you use an IR pass filter then obviously only IR will reach your camera. The ASI290MC is sensitive to IR (825nm) on all pixels so you will get a lovely IR image. IR is less affected by atmospheric turbulence so you can get good resolution, but obviously only mono. If you now remove the IR pass filter the RGB filters can now capture colour - excellent. BUT all the RGB pixels will also capture IR which will spoil your RGB image. So you use an IR cut filter to ensure your RGB is not contaminated by IR. IR images are sometimes used as a luminance layer to give extra resolution to the image, but probably give little improvement when the target is at higher elevations - as Mars is now - because at that altitude there is not so much atmospheric turbulence - provided seeing is OK. Other interpretations are available!

Yes, the thread has quite a lot of dust on it! When you say it will prime focus, not sure what you mean. You mean it will focus with eyepiece?

Very nice! Not sure I'll be able to capture them as you have but will certainly look out for them next time I'm looking at Mars.... when the clouds clear!

Maybe put the new laptop on your Xmas wish list!

It's a nice result, lots of detail for such a modest aperture scope. The smaller SCTs do seem to punch above their weight. Not sure how you're capturing and what exposure you're using but you might improve things further by using more frames. Use USB3 if you have it, and capture using ROI. With that camera you ought to get 100fps easily - oner say 4 mins that would give 24000 frames. Also if you align the histo curves you should get a whiter polar cap.

That looks like an interesting article... I need to read it properly. But off the top of my head provided you aren't clipping data and are saving as RAW I guess the histo shouldn't matter too much. Someone will doubtless correct me though! When capturing without WP correction the histo distribution tends to be much as you describe for Mars. I tried comparing this to WP correction applied at time of capture, ie aligning RGB curves and it seemed to make little difference.

Wow what a fantastic rig! That pillar looks 6 ft tall!! or maybe its just a funny camera angle. If it really is that tall you'll have fun with a manual filter wheel! Do post the images though - hopefully they should be something special if all goes well - good luck! Ehh? sorry posted twice - thought the first one hadnt gone.

Wow what a fantastic rig! That pillar looks 6ft tall! Maybe just the camera angle. I'm guessing you either have electric focuser... or stepladder. And you have manual filter wheel?

Not sure how much access or clear sky you will have with this scope but I would get set up early. As Craig says Jupiter and Saturn maybe not great but good to practice on to iron out any glitches ahead of the main event - Mars. I'd love to see the results too!

Also, if it's like the ASI290 you will get faster frame rates by using 10 bit capture. It's a bit more noisy but with zillions of frames stacked it shouldn't matter. Also USB3 of course if you have it.

Thanks Martyn. Yes I fully intended to just do Mars but the seeing was pretty good and I couldn't resist! Looks like we're stuck with clouds for a while - hopefully a break again as we get to opposition.

Completely agree. Its a nice image and I don't know this camera but I can't see the need for binning with such a bright target. As Bryan says you should get plenty of FPS by using ROI without the need to BIN. Which capture software are you using?

Fantastic set of images especially with such modest aperture - nice work!

Thanks all for the likes and positive comments. Ideally I'd like to compare to the result with my ASI290M - but with this setup the camera is at the newt's prime focus (no secondary mirror) so the filter wheel would get in the way somewhat. Maybe I could just capture in mono with IR filter and see how the detail compares? Not really a valid comparison I guess. But if it looks good I could resize it and use a Lum layer? Hmmmm.... I think it would take too long to refocus and I'd get too much rotation.