geoflewis

7 minutes ago, neil phillips said:

Just grabbed a colour shot before the scope hit the tripod legs 

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.

1 hour ago, Kon said:

Pretty good considering the conditions. Cassini division nicely resolved and some banding coming through on the planet.

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.

5 hours ago, symmetal said:

That's impressive Geof.  Clean edges and rings. I took a few 2 min videos of Saturn last night before Jupiter too. The processed Jupiter ones were disappointing, so I didn't check the Saturn ones but it may be worth a go.

I didn't think of doing long Saturn videos but there's little to blur compared to Jupiter's rotation so it's worth a go in future. 😃 Your 6000 frames would be a 10% stack I assume.

Alan

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.

17 hours ago, vlaiv said:

This leads to two very simple formulae - you can pick which one prefer:

F_ratio = 2 * pixel_size / 0.5um (500nm) = 4 * pixel_size

F_ratio = 2 * pixel_size / 0.4um (400nm) = 5 * pixel_size

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.

Just now, Trevor N said:

Thanks Geof. I find it a bit of a black art really. Never sure what I have until I complete the processing. Trevor

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.

1 hour ago, CraigT82 said:

 

Nice work bet John Rogers was pleased to get those. 

Thanks Craig, I hope so 🤞

11 minutes ago, symmetal said:

More excellent images there Geof, especially the animation. 😀

Alan

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.

49 minutes ago, CraigT82 said:

Had a reprocess of this data on my lunchbreak today, this time used only 10% of frames rather than the 40% of the original posted image.  I think it's an improvement: a bit less 'wispy' for want of a better word.

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.

4 minutes ago, neil phillips said:

Hey bud. Good to see you around. Wondered how you was? After my last message. I figured you needed to have time away from astronomy. Don't forget I gave up for 5 years. So that's why I wasn't bugging you. Ladies and gentleman a old friend of mine. A really excellent planetary imager. Was looking on your page a while back Stuart. Man you did some great stuff back in the day. You only really get back into it when you start to feel it again. For me it was building my daughters old telescope back into service, and imaging with it. And the pandemic. If it hadn't had been for the pandemic. I don't think I would have started again. As I had too many plans for family life by the Suffolk coast. But here I am.  It's been a while Stuart hasn't it

What a weird future we turned out to have. Would love to see you start up again. The astronomy world needs talented people like you showing everyone how good planetary imaging can be.

Great to see you posting on the forum 

49 minutes ago, Space Cowboy said:

Still knocking out some good stuff Neil!  As every the perfectionist 😉 I need to pull my finger out and get back into it!

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.

4 minutes ago, GordonD said:

That's a great image and an absolutely superb animation. Great stuff!

Thanks Gordon

11 minutes ago, neil phillips said:

Very Nice Geof. A lot of data well processed

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.....

9 minutes ago, JeremyS said:

Lovely 👍🏻

Thanks Jeremy