geoflewis

I set up for a session on Jupiter late evening around the time it was transitting, but the seeing was very poor, so whilst I kept banging away, I think they all end up in the trash can. I then waited for Mars to gain some elevation, not expecting much, but as it would be only my 2nd attempt for Mars this apparation and with the new colour camera, I wanted to establish some working capture setting in FireCapture hopefully for better conditions in the coming weeks. I was right about the seeing, with Mars like a boiling tomato about to explode, but whilst I was playing around, I had a brief period around 1:45am-2:00am (BST) when the seeing improved allowing me to capture this image. It is the best 1000 frames from 75,000 captured during a 6 min SER at 5ms (200fps). Just fairly light wavelets in Registax, as it wouldn't take anything more, then final saturation and levels tweaks in Affinity Photo. I resized to 192dpi for a smoother finish and a larger image for publiaction. It's nothing to right home about, but Mars is still a long way away, displaying a disc of <14 arcsecs, so hopefully better is to come. The dark triangular of Syrtis Major is central with the huge circular impact basin Hellas Plantia towards the south. Blue clouds and ice are also seen at the north pole. At the time of this capture Mars was at an elevation of 44°, so I kept going for another hour hoping that the seeing would improve again as Mars gained greater altitude, but even with Mars in the mid 50s° elevation, it was not to be. Instead I popped over to the nearby rising waning Moon to take a look at some feature there. If any are worth sharing that will be on a separate thread, but I was cold and tired after 6 hours at the scope, so called it a wrap around 3:45am. Thanks for looking.

There you go, nice result

I've been doing a bit of both. Using PIPP to create a reduced quality graded SER, which I de-rotate in WJ, then I take a few (typically 3) finished TIFFs from each SER back into WJ to de-rotate and stack those, with a final light wavelets in Registax. I'm still refining my method with this new colour camera, but I'm liking the combination of longer (6 min) SERS, quality trimmed through PIPP and de-rotated in WJ, rather than lots of 1 min mono RGB SERs. Probably Mono RGB with multi short SERS each stacked then deprotated will give the best results, but it's a lot of work for small gains and IMHO not worth it unless the seeing is spectacular and long lasting... Yeah right, this is the UK....🙄

Excellent animation and still frames from the session.

Nice Moon image Neil. I was out there last night and it was certainly windy. I tried Jup and Mars, but could barely get the image to stay within the ROI, let alone see a good focus positon, so I gave up. I did grab a single run of Mars just to have something in the can, so I'll take a look at that later. I didn't even consider trying the Moon....🙄

Very clean image with lots of detail, nicely processed.

Thanks Kon, yes, there was a lot of dew formimg on the OTA, mount, finder scope and telrad, but the dew strap kept the corrector plate of the C14 clear.

Gorgeous Moon mosaic and all the feature images are excellent too.

Thanks Neil. I still think that most (80%, 90% 🤷‍♂️) of the time the jetstream is a killer, but I've experienced this a few times, so there's definitely something at play. Of course the jetstream forecast is just that and at best updated every 4 hours I think, so things change. I'm fortunate to have an observatory, so setting up is pretty quick and the tube fans help to stabalise the OTA fairly quickly.

It's a good time to get back into planetary imaging with Mars very high elevation this year, albeit fairly small disc, plus Jupiter gained a lot of altitude and will even better next year. Saturn is also heading north, so the coming years will be getting better for it too. There are lots of options for capture and processing and mine changes as technology advances, especially with the superb colour video cameras now available. My toolkit now comprises: ASI462MC (colour) FireCapture - for data capture, using SER. I typically set a fairly tight ROI, and capture 6 mins per run at 8ms (125fps) PIPP - to quality trim large SER file for faster post processing (new tool for me in 2022 since using colour camera) AS3! - to grade, align and stack images (exported to Registax at 16 bit TIFF) Registax 6 - wavelet sharpening, RGB alignment, colour balance (also exported as 16 bit TIFF) WinJupos - derotation of SER and sometimes subsequent TIFFs from Registax Affinity Photo - final levels and saturation tweaks and any anotation. Hope this helps, but there are many ways to skin the cat.... Good luck.

Anotated version....

Thanks and yes, I've experienced the same. I suspect that I was imaging Jupiter through some mist, as I had to set the gain a tad higher than I've been doing recently and my last capture before trying Mars was fading fast, no doubt as the mist/fog thickened.

Thanks Stuart, yes we only now for sure when we get out there and try......

Thanks Bob

Both are excellent images

There is a strong body of opinion that high resolution planetary imaging isn't possible with a fast jetstream parked overhead. Whilst experience indicates that is a reasonable general rule, there have been several occasions when that has not been proved true. Take last night as an example...... My wife and I had been binge watching the David Tenent 4 part series "Inside Man" and were heading for bed around midnight, but as usual I popped my head outside first and to my surprise there was a clear sky. I checked a couple of weather sites, including the jetstream forecast and thought, NO, I'll be wasting my time, then thought again, well why not give it a go. FYI here are 2 jetstream forecast for midnight 14 October and 1am 15 October - different sites, but essentially the same with a fast jetstream parked over the UK. So how did I capture this? Ok, so maybe not fully hi res, but far better than I saw a few nights ago with the jetsream out of the way. I managed 5 x 6 min SERs over about 45 mins, the above image comprising best 6000 frames from 3 of the de-rotated and quality graded SERs, so 18000 frames in total. After Jupiter, I thought I'd try Mars for the first time this year, however, by the time I got Mars on the sensor and defined capture settings in FireCapture, fog had rolled in so quickly that Mars was no longer visible naked eye, and the nearby waning Moon had dimmed considerably, so I called it a wrap. It seems that if the jetstream doesn't always get you, then fog definitely will. So back to imaging through a fast jetstream; it's something that I've discussed a few times with my mentor, Dave Tyler, who suggests that it's not just the jetstream, but whether it comprises a steady laminar flow, or there is turbulant mixing going on. My location in south Norfolk was right in the middle of the flow last night and I suspect that whilst the atmosphere was fast moving, it was doing so at a stable rate, not mixing as much as it might do at the edges of the stream. It's just a contention, but nevertheless, not for the first time I was able to image fairly successfully through the jetstream. I'm interest to learn what others think about this.

I'm not even sure that there is a correct answer, so yes, some sort of concensus, is likely the best we can do 🤔. If we think about DSO NB imaging (not something I do BTW), it seems that the colours are adjusted to help better reveal structures and I think to some extent we do this in planetary processing without even considering it. Even the process of wavelet sharpening in Registax alters the colours, never mind any saturation that we apply to give images more 'pop'. I suspect that the varying bandwidth of different broadband colour (RGB) filters used in mono RGB, or even OSC cameras will yield their own variations. Colours off the 462 chip reflect its greater sensitivity to IR and we know what adding IR to an RGB image does to the colours.... 🙄

This is a really excellent thread. I definitely find the colour of the planets tricky and see a lot of variability even from amongst the so called experts, e.g. Damian Peach, Chris Go, Anthony Wesley (Bird), et al. Like @neil phillips, I now usually use Registax colour balance tool for consistency, but as Neil reports Registax can get that wrong if the image is already well balanced, so I sometimes double click (to check what it did) and/or tweak the histogram. As @CraigT82 comments, we are not helped in our endeavours by the significant range in colours in images posted from Hubble and Juno data, as these reflect the preferences of the person processing them. Of course the colours of the planets vary over time so finding / using historical 'reference' images also doesn't work. In the end I think we all end up with somthing that pleases ourselves personally and is hopefully within a 'normal' range and not too 'out there'.

Nice images and an excellent comparison of the effects of variable seeing.

Really excellent Pete, well done. We just never know when the seeing is going to come good, but you got it....👏

Yes, agree not looking good, plus I'm travelling w/c 22/10, so won't be able to image any of the planets until 28/10, so I'm hoping that there is a window sometime next week, or it's going to be Nov.....🤔

Lovely image

Nicely done Tevor

Well you did it again Neil. I thought that there were too many clouds to even look, how wrong was I, that's a lovely image.

That’s awesome 😎