geoflewis

In my opinion that’s a remarkable result just using an iPhone camera and phone apps. I’ve occasionally used Snapseed for daytime photo processing, but I’m not familiar with VideoStack, or WaveletCam. Are they free, or paid for apps?

Very nice animation

You’re very welcome. Keep trying and asking questions, there are several excellent planetary imagers here that will help you. The weather in my part of the UK has been cold and clear the past few nights, but with poor seeing due to the overhead jetstream. We’ve had a lot of cloud cover much of the past few months and even when we’ve had clear skies, the seeing this apparition has been mostly very poor.

Thanks Kostas and yes, but you were also responsible for 'encouraging' me to try to image Uranus back in Nov, for which I am extremely grateful...

@Chrb1985 I downloaded and reviewed all the SER files that provided and in my opinion most are unusable. They all seem very out of focus, perhaps because the seeing was terrible. I processed the first three images which were the R-G-B showing the GRS, but these were also very low quality, so the result I got isn't good. This is as far as I felt was appropriate to push the data, but I can see why your were trying your hardest with Topaz and other sharpening tools. I'm not sure whether the above helps or not, but I'd encourage you to try to obtain sharp focus before capturing and if the seeing is really bad, then I would wait for better conditions. Good luck.

Thanks Denys. I ran a sequence of 25x1m videos with a 10s interval between each (though it doesn't need any interval), which I batch processed through AS3! and Astrosurface to produce 25 Tiff images. These were then taken into PIPP to produce the GIF animation.

Having said that the Io transit of the GRS on 9 Dec would be my last planetary session this apparition, I was tempted out again on 10 Dec. The conditions were much calmer, with the wind having abated and whilst the seeing was far from good, it was better than the previous night. I ran a sequence 20x1m SERs, but on review the last few were very poor, so I split the first 14 SEEs into 2 sets of 7, ran them through AS3!, Registax and WinJupos detotation, then took the 2 higher qualty images back through WinJUpos for manual derotation. Final wavelets, colour saturation and vibrancy were applied in Astrosurface and Image Analyser. I'm tempted to say again, that this will definitely be my last planetary imaging session until the summer, but who knows....🙄🤔

Thanks Stuart, It was fun watching Io actually pass over the GRS, just a pity it was so close to the limb and in awful seeing.

Very nice Pete, I think we all had similar poor seeing, so we’ll done getting those.

Nice capture and processing David

It is certainly possible to capture planetary images with a DSLR, as I have done it, but as others have said, it's not the ideal choice of camera. The method I used was using ImagesPlus Camera Control to capture a series of .bmp images that in effect simulates a slow speed video capture, then stacking those to get a higher resolution image. Back in the day ImagesPlus was a highly respected commercially available software suite for both image capture and image processing. The developer, Mike Unsold, ceased development of the product several years ago, at which time he made the then latest versions of the products free to anyone to download and they are still available on his website. I no longer use the camera control suite (IPCC), but do still use the processing suite ImagesPlus. You can download both suites of software here. Be sure to make a note of the required serial numbers for each product if you decide to try them. Mike also produced many tutorials, including one for planetary imaging using the Live View function of older Canon and Nikon DSLRs which you can see here. ImagesPlus Camera Control supports older DSLRs such as your Canon 60D, but not any recent DSLRs. It certainly worth trying these tools and method and won't cost you a penny. Good luck.

Chris Go uses the old non AI version of Topaz, but from what I understand only for noise reduction, not sharpening. He is also 100% against using the Topaz AI versions. Take a look at the 55m to 65m section of this video tutoral that he did last year. He emphasises over and over again that the most important step is to get the wavelets settings correct, not using other sharpen tools like Nik collection, Topaz, etc. Yes, he does use sharpen tools for final tweaks, but not for the initial processing. If you can't get a good result with wavelets then no amout of later sharpening will yield a good image.

I'd be happy to take a look at processing the raw data if you want to share the files. With regards to cameras, yes my ASI462MC has 2.9mn pixels the same as my 290MM. I have no experience of the other 2 cameras that you mentioned, so can't offer an opinion, but it seems that the 224MC is quite old and discontinued and from what I can tell the 294MC is a cooled deep sky camera not intended for planetary imaging.

Nice video

Nicely done Michael. Jupiter is getting much smaller as it retreats, which combined with the terrible seeing we've been getting, is making it very challenging getting any fine detail.

Wow, well done sticking with it for the entire shadow transit; you got an excellent record of the event. I set up around 3:45-4pm, but the conditions were awful making it impossible to focus with any certainty, so once Io got to the GRS I just went with what I had and captured 25x1m SERS with 10sec intervals so approximately half an hour elapsed time.

Thanks for pointing me towards this post as I'd missed it, sorry. Very nicely done, though I prefer your original version as V2 looks over sharpened to me, with the highlights blown out.

Nicely done Peter. I also tried, but had similar terrible seeing as you. I posted an animation of the event from the 30 mins of data that I captured.

Very nice Reggie

Not sure if you can still get the ASI462MC as zwo replaced it with the ASI662MC, but either would work well with your C11. For Jupiter I shoot a series of 1m duration SERs whether colour, or if I'm shooting mono RRR-GGG-BBB. Typically I'll try to capture at least 9x1m for colour, and if I can get 2 or 3 sequences of 9x1m, then I'll create 2 or 3 high res images using derotation in WinJupos, which can then be further combined together into a super hi res image using WinJupos with manual derotation in PS or Affinity Photo, etc. When I used to shoot mono, I'd typicaly shoot 5 each of RGB, so RRRRR-GGGGG-BBBBB and then use WinJupos derotation using the 'derotation of R/G/B frames' tool to make master R, G and B images before combining those in WinJupos, using the 'derotation of images' tool. I have shot, 5 x R-G-B- but that means manually changing the filter each capture. It does have the advantage of allowing me to create 5 RGB images and then further stacking those in WinJupos.

Thanks Kostas, it was fun trying, but the conditions were dreadful. I wouldn't have kept going in those conditions usually, but it was an interesting event to observe.

I was meant to be on crutches by now, after hip surgery, which didn't happen, so I tried to take advantage of the unexpected opportunity to capture Io's transit of the GRS late on the afternoon of 9 January. It was very windy, very cold and the seeing was awful with Jupiter at only ~40° elevation, sitting above centrally heated rooftops. With Jupiter trashing about on screen from the combination of poor seeing and wind, it was impossible to determine best focus by the time the event started, so just went with what I had.... I managed to commence the sequence just as Io started to cross the GRS, until the GRS disappeared out of view. I didn't spend a lot of time with the post processing, as the poor quality of the data doesn't warrant it. The elapsed time is just under half an hour. I set the GIF to play both forward and backwards with a pause at each end, so whilst no fine detail is visible, hopefully, it will be interesting for those that didn't get to observe the event. Thanks for looking.

The colour cameras are so good now, that in my opinion the quality benefit of shooting mono is pretty marginal. My ASI462MC is also great for longpass IR and CH4, where it is effectively mono, so what's not to like? UK skies have been so poor in recent years, that the seeing can deteriorate in a matter of just a few minutes. I've lost count of the number of times that I ran a seried of RGB (typically RRRRR-GGGGG-BBBBB), only to find that I'd lost the sky by the time I got to the B, so didn't have enough data for a colur image. I'm using a manual filter wheel so automationg a series of RGB-RGB-RGB is not possible. I agree that mono will win out in excellent seeing, but I rarely seem to get that nowadays. I also like that I can more easily captue a sequence in colour that is easier to animate for rotation, transits, etc. Plus events like the 2022 lunar occultation of Mars, happen so swiftly that the only way to get a colour image is with a colour camera. That occultation was my primary reason for buying the ASI462MC, but I was so impressed with it's performance that my ASI290MM hasn't seen the light of day (well night) since I got the 462.

You’ve had a really good run of nights to close out 2023

Excellent