geoflewis

I'm not familiar with this, please tell me more?

Thanks Kostas, I'd be very interested to see your settings for Astrosurface. I also don't know imageanalyzer . Clouds rolled in here after being clear earlier, so no imaging tonight, hence I decided to have another play with yours. This is after derotation, but still looks noisy to me, where your single image is very clean...

Thanks Kostas, I've downloaded them and had an initial play, but ran into a couple of issues with the orientation of the images. I'm so used to having mine horizontal that I really struggled visually applying the wavelets in Registax, then even more so performing measurement in WinJupos as the image is flipped. I got past that and performed the derotation, which did enhance the image, but I think I've been too aggressive in Registax, so will take another look, probably tomorrow. I must say that the quality of your indivial revised 0358 image is superb and so far I haven't got close to that, but will continue to try. I don't use Astrosurface, so I'm interested to know whether you think it's better than Registax. I think I downloaded a couple of years ago and had a play, but gave up on it.

In my experience its rare to see worse results after derotation of the TIFFs created from separate videos, unless I included a really bad one, so it's certainly surprising that the deotation of two similar TIFFs resulted in a worse result than ether of the source files. Would you be prapared to share the TIFFs so that we can have a play please? I don't usually de-rotate SERs, but did experiment with it last year during the Mars apparition. The overheads in file size were huge, but it did allow me to shoot longer SERs, so maybe there could be some benefit sometimes, but my preference remains to shoot a series of shorter videos, process those through AS3! and Registax, then take the resulting TIFFs into WinJupos for derotation. I then take the derotated stack TIFF back into Registax for a tad more wavelets and sometimes a bit of unsharp mask in PS or Affinity Photo. Did you try any further processing after derotation?

The revision is definitely sharper than the original. How did you derotate, e.g. did you deroate the videos, or the resulting TIFFs from each video? It would be interesting to see the 5 TIFFs side by side, maybe one or more them was poor enough to corrupt the end result....🤔

No probs Stuart, I did say videos, but I meant the TIFFs produced via AS3! & Registax from each video. Today I had a play with x3 drizzle on one of the SERs to see had that worked. I’m on my phone now, but will put up the comparison later for anyone interested. There’s a possibility for a clear sky tonight here up to about midnight, so I may take another run a Saturn. Clouds forecast to return after midnight, so probably a bit too early for Jupiter and Uranus though.

I didn’t derotate the videos, but I did use WinJupos to derotate/stack the resulting TIFFs from each SER.

Thanks Kostas, The image is from a set of 7 x 60s derotated SER videos captured at 8ms. So I had to run those though AS3! again for the x1.5 drizzle version, then apply wavelets to each resulting TIFF before puting them through WinJupos. The final colour and DN adjustments were in PS(CS2) and Affinity Photo.

Thanks Stuart, I’m still learning how to use the colour camera and I’ve probably pushed the processing too hard. I think I need to shoot a lot more data to get equivalent signal that I get with the ASi290MM and RGB filters. The bayer matrix leaves the red and blue very short of signal, so I probably need to integrate x2/x3 as much data or more.

Thanks Jeremy, If the conditions allow I'm going to see what I can get by adding an IR pass filter into the mix. I haven't even tried Uranus or Neptune since 2014, so it's probably about time. I found it very challenging to get Uranus on the camera sensor the other night, as my eyepieces and camera weren't parfocal and my finderscope was a cheap poor quality one. Neither of those factors are a problem for bright Jupiter, Saturn and Mars, but the much fainter ice giants are something else. I've now added an extension tube to my 40mm eyepiece to get that parfocal with the camera through the C14, plus I've mounted my old 62mm Revelation Astro guide scope on the rig, which together with an equally old 9mm illuminated reticule eyepiece that I originally bought for manual drift alignment, should make centering the target on the sensor much easier... 🤞

@Kon@Space Cowboy I thought I'd see how far I could push the drizzled version and maybe I did leave something on the table. What do you think? I added a fully worked up version, which is slightly larger and has colour saturation and levels applied

Thanks Stuart Ok, I’ll take another look at drizzle with my next set of good data, but at x4.5 px size, I think I’m pretty well sampled…. 🤔

That’s interesting Kostas, as I spent a long time staring at both images under zoom and couldn’t see anything significant. It was actually impossible to apply the same processes, as the larger scale of the drizzled image required completely different wavelet settings in Registax. Essentially I tried to process to similar noise levels, but it wasn’t easy. I’ve a feeling I pushed a bit further with the drizzled version, but then maybe that’s what drizzling allows. Certainly, at least IMHO, there isn’t enough extra there to bother with it on that data set, so I doubt that I’ll use it again.

Hi Stuart, Here's a comparison of my original undrizzled and revised 1.5 drizzled, resized as best I could to the original (drizzle vers still a bit bigger). I can't see any material differences. What do you think?

Thanks Jeremy

Thanks Stuart, I drizzled the Uranus data x3 in AS3! as the image was very pixelated without drizzle, but no, I didn't consider drizzle for Saturn and Jupiter. I'll take a look at doing that, but what do you think it will give me? When I've tried drizzle before all I seem to get is a bigger image. Cheers, Geof

Yes, I'll give it a try. I've not much bother about the 2 outer planets in recent years, in fact I've only imaged them once each back in 2014 with my old 10" Meade, with an even older very slow Imaging Source colour camera. It's about time I gave them a return visit, now that I have better equipment.....🤔

Thanks knobby

Thanks Kostas, Winjupos reported 12.98"/px, so with the 2.9mn pixels of this camera, that gives me approx x4.5 with the ADC in train, which I need for Saturn and also Jupiter when it is at lower elevations. Adding a barlow or PM would put me at x8/x9 which is too much amplification. Last year I took the ADC out for Mars when it was rising high, so added the Baader barlow for about x7 and I may try the same for Jupiter come opposition when I'll mostly image it at +/- 50° elevation. That said, I think the detail coming through without any amplification is already good enough with these small pixels. Cheers, Geof

After a hiatus of several months not doing any astro, I've finally got back to some imaging. After much discussion last year with @vlaiv and others, for these images I decided to leave the barlow out, so no extra amplification beyond what the ADC gives. Here is an IR-RGB image of Saturn with Rhea and Tethys. Next is an IR image of Jupiter with Io ....and an RGB of Jupiter riding high less than an hour before transit. and finally, my first look at Uranus in nearly 9 years. On reflection, I should have thrown the IR filter in the mix to see if I could tease out any surface detail. Thanks for looking.

Amazing image Kostas, well done

That's excellent Kostas.

Grabbed a few images from my home and nearby in South Norfolk, between midnight and 1am…. All captured with hand held iPhone 13. The darker images were 3s exposures. I then drive a couple of miles for a better horizon and took 10s exposures, but I think the display was already weakening, though it was still visible naked eye as a red glow over a large region of the northern sky, with at least one column visible.

Great catch John 👍

Thanks Peter, I’m thinking of getting this montage and the 360 deg map printed and mounted together.