geoflewis

Ooooh, that's very nice Neil

That's a nice Mars Neil. I was out for dinner with friends yesterday evening and lots of hazy cloud about when we got home, so I didn't even bother to open up.

FWIW here's the best of what I got last year with the mono ASI290MM. As per the annotation this is an IR-RGB image, but also taken when Saturn was less than 1 month after opposition on 2 Aug 2021, so it is probably not a fair comparision to what I'm trying to do with the colour camera, now nearly 2 months after this year's opposition. That said, it was a slightly lower elevation and some better polar detail was revealed.

Thanks Kon, yes, Cassini and some banding is about the limit of what I can get currently with Saturn at ~20°, so I'm not too bothered with chasing the impossible 🙄. It's just nice to have a record from this year, to show the closing ring position.

Thanks Alan, yes as you say no detail to blur on Saturn that I'd be able capture at its current altitude in these seeing conditions, so a single long run and no de-rotation. 10 mins gave me 75000 frames so 6000 is a bit less than 10%. No particular reason for 6000, other than I tried various stacks at 5% and 10% then 2000, 4000, 6000, 10,000 frames and on balance 6000 gave me just enough sharpness, with sufficient in the stack to push the waveets pretty hard. I certainly went harder than I would normally, but I think I just about got away with it. The Saturn images I'm getting with the ASI462MC are not as crisp as I could manage the last couple of years with the mono ASI290MM, but that's probably brcause I could capture IR as well as R,G,B and IR cuts through the crap much better and I haven't tried using an IR filter with this camera as it's in a different FW.

My attempts at Jupiter last night all fell to the guillotine, so I was determined to try to salvage something from the session. Each night I set up on Saturn before Jupiter and actually last night my final run proved to be a tad better than any others, so I pushed, pulled and dragged this out of it. It's the best 6000 frames from a 10 minute SER.

Excellent explanation vlaiv and the first time I've seen it set down why the 4* to 5* pixel_size is recommended optimum for planetary imaging. I'm now using ASI462MC (which has 2.9um pixels) with my C14 and ADC. Until using this camera I typically included x2 TV PM in my imaging train, targeting say F20-F22, but the initial results with the ASI462MC camera were terrible, so I took the x2 PM out. With the ADC in train the native F11 of my scope is pushed nearer F12/F13, so bang in the middle of the target of those 2 recommendations (2.9*4=F11.6; 2.9*5=F14.5). Now I won't waste my time experimenting with the x2 TV PM again.

Oh and ain't that the truth......🙄

Lovely set of images Alan. I agree with others, the Mars is excellent, but Saturn and Jupiter are none too shabby either.

Nice images Trevor. You're right about thermals off roof tops, they are the bane of my life (well planetary imaging life) as my house is east of my observatory, so everything rises over it. I have to wait until targets gain a lot of altitude and even then I usually get my best seeing after the target has transitted and heading west as by then I'm imaging over back gardens and fields.

Very nice Neil, my conditions were very poor last night. Jupiter was boiling early on, probably from thermals off my house roof, so I waited an hour for it gain altitude, but when I got back outside the sky was very hazy with thicker whisps of cloud, so transparancy was way down. I did shoot a couple of sequences, but haven't processed them yet, as not expecting anything much from them.

Thanks Craig, I hope so 🤞

Thanks Alan. The animation is a lot of work, but fun to do once in a while, when the seeing is consistent enough for a long run.

It's definitely an improvement Craig. Limiting to 10% has allowed a lot more detail to pop out.

Ok, last upload from me on this thread. Just put together 3 different annotated views to submit to BAA, so thought I might as well share them here too....

Thanks Stuart, yes, the C14 comes into its own once the seeing is good enough and the target has some altitude. I've just swapped to a colour camera after several years of mono, so received a lot of mentoring from @neil phillips from choice of camera, through to optimising capture and new processing techniques. Neil really got me running pretty quickly with this new camera.

Hi @Space Cowboy I just saw Neil's post, so went back to look at your Flickr page - some fabulous images there, so I hope to see you back with more on here before long.

Animation of Jupiter GRS transit on 6 Oct 2022, from Norfolk UK, latitude 52° 30' 27". C14, ASI462MC. Total of 16 x 6min SERs captured at 8ms/125fps. Processed through PIPP, WinJupos, AS3!, Registax6, Affinity Photo. Annimation comprises 92,000 frames (best 6000 per SER) from nearly 3/4 million frames captured over 2.5 hours elapsed time. Not sure if this is within the comp rules, but thought I would add a single frame from the rotation as a reference hi res image. If not allowed then please ignore.....

Another nice Jup Neil and that Saturn you posted from earlier in the year is a cracker from our latitudes; I haven't been able to get close to that in the few sessions I tried, but we are now nearly 2 months past opposition, so I probably missed the boat. Was that also with the colour camera, any IR lum, or pure RGB?

Nice comparisons. The images from the Mak 150 are winning here 👍

That's very nice Kon. Seeing all the decent Mars images now popping up, I need to crack on with my 1st image from this apparition soonest......🤔

Thanks Kon, that's very kind of you. I wish I could lose the limb artefacts in the animation, but I had some gaps during the capture runs, so had to push a bit to fill the gaps.

Thanks Gordon

Thanks Neil, It's not looking good for tonight here, clouds have piled in over the last couple of hours. Could do with some shut eye though, so maybe not a bad thing.....

Thanks Jeremy