geoflewis

So an update for anyone interested on how long can you go....?!! I joined all my SERs (so over 20 mins) from the session on 2 Oct in PIPP and tried to stack best 5% of those and it fell over. It seems that there might be a cut off to the elapsed time after which PIPP and/or WinJupos doesn't know what to do with the transiting moon and shadow without smearing. Probably more testing is required, but actually the limb edges start to get messy if one goes too long, so I'm concluding that ~6 mins per SER is probably the sweet spot if there is a transit in play and maybe 8 mins to 10 mins, if there's no transit happening. Of course YMMV.

This has been a great discussion about best capture and processing techniques, really apprciate all the contributions from everyone. So based on @neil phillips findings, I decided to use PIPP to join 4 x 2 min SERs from the end of my capture sequence. I ran that through AS3! at 10% to create a reference frame, which I then used to de-rotate the 8 min PIPP SER in WinJupos. Took this back int AS3! and grabbed best 5%, into Registax6 for wavelets, then Affinity photo for final colour saturation and levels tweaks, plus a slight denoise for a smoother look and feel. Et voila.... Nice round moon shadow, with no smearing, so I think the jury is in. No need for lots of separate SERs, just go long with the capture in good seeing, or join separate shorter SERs in PIPP and WinJupos de-rotate will handle it.... Thanks everyone, it's been a huge learning experience for me. I now doubt that I'll ever go back to using the ASI290MM for multiple R,G,B captures with all the headache of processing and combining those 15+ videos and then having to fix a smeared transit in post processing.

Thanks, I guess the C14 bring's it closer 😀

That's both interesting and good to know. I can't fathom how that would work, but who cares so long as it works

I didn't know whether to post this as a separate thread, but I decided to process the earlier SERs captured as Io approached and then began it's transit. As it's essentially the same session, I opted to keep it all together. Just 3 images annimated using PIPP. Just a bit of fun really.

Thanks Craig, pity your seeing didn't improve as mine did.

That is interesting Neil, as I would expect the moon and shadow to blur, as those are transient effects not travelling at the same rate as Jupiter's rotation. I'll be interested to see what you learn from longer video de-rotation attempts when a moon and/or shadow is in transit.

Thanks Kon, I guess my main concern is whether the different make filters are parfocal (probably not). I sometimes used my IR filter with the 290MM to dial in focus and could then pretty much use that setting for RGB & IR, but these were all Astronomic filtrs. If the Astronomic IR 742 isn't parfocal with the ZWO UV/IR cut, then that method isn't going to work with the colour camera. I can of course pull the IR filter from the other FW and try it, just haven't done that yet. Maybe I could use the Astronomic Lum filter instead of ZWO UV/IR cut as then the L and IR would be parfocal... I think Lum is in effect a UV/IR cut....🤔

I knew that the transit would blur, hence I captured a sequence of only 2 min SERs rather than a longer run, to keep that down, but in addition I also captured a 1 min SER for what I knew would be close to the midpoint of the sequence. It was from this lower resolution stack that I cut and paste Io and it's shadow over the blurred part of the more detailed WinJupos stack.

Thanks Kon, which IR filter are you using? I have the Astronomik 742 PRO in my other filter wheel that I use with the ASI290MM (mono) camera, but I don't think that will be parfocal to the ZWO UV/IR cut, or methan filters that came with the camera, so I haven't tried it yet (I have those 2 in another manual filter wheel for convenience). I see that ZWO do an IR850 for £25, so maybe I should get one of those, but that really long pass and it's cheap so wonder if its any good.

Thanks both

Thanks Neil, I had better results with the mono camera last year, but I think that included using an IR grab (or mabe just the R+G) as luminance to sharpen it. Not so easy with a colour image, but we're really not getting any surface detail at these altitudes.

Here is my 1st image of Saturn this year, already well past it's opposition in August. Image was captured with my new ASI462MC colour camera through the C14, prior to the Jupiter captures for which the final image was posted earlier. The seeing was poor in the horizon murk, at it's lowly ~20 deg elevation. This image comprises the best 5% of a 10 min SER video run through AS3!, without any de-rotation, then sharpened with wavelets in Registax 6. A slight colour saturation boost was applied in Affinity Photo with further light unsharp mask applied to the red and green channels and layered as a luminance at 70%. Thanks for looking.

I really like this Neil, great composition, good details and colours just right.

Very nice, I haven't tried Mars yet this apparition, but hope to get on to that fairly soon

Excellent annimation

A lovely series of images.

Thanks Neil

Thanks Neil, I dialled the sharpening back a tad on this version from the one that I shared with you privately. It was a very subtle change, but I though the cloud edges were just a bit too well defined for a gas giant.

Thanks Jeremy, much appreciated.

I had my 2nd session with my new ASI462 camera on the C14 last night. The seeing was better than last week, but still very in/out, with focus changing minute by minute, making it difficult to determine best focus. Io and it's shadow were in transit, so I opted for a series of 2 minute SER videos, which I de-rotated in WinJupos before grading in AS3!, with further derotation and stacking of the TIFFs in WinJupos. Sharpening was done using wavelets in Registax6. The stacked image had a large blur where Io and it's shadow were in transit, so I pasted them back into the stacked and sharpened image from a single SER that represented the correct timestamp of the de-rotated image. Final colour saturation and levels adjustments were applied in Affinity Photo. As others have reported, Io itself is somewhat lost due to poor contrast aginst Jupiter's bright cloud surface. Thanks for looking, comments and feedback welcome.

Excellent result Neil. As you know I was out last night with my C14, still processing the data. I had trouble with Io in post, which as you commented is likely due to contrast effects. I've had better results with Io using an old TIS colour camera previously, so got sidetracked wondering what the heck.... I'll get my processed later and put it up in a separate thread. As you also observed the seeing was very in/out with focus changing rapidly minute to minute, so in the end I went with what was something of a gut feel on best focus. We really need to have a session with more stable seeing to nail the result.

It's set here in the De-rotation of images tool. The default is 1.00, but I recall that Damian Peach advises to dial that back a bit. Like most things, it's worth experimenting with different settings.... Good luck.

Excellent result Simon, some really good detail in there. WinJupos can give you some 'funky edges' as you put it as there is less data there to de-rotate, i.e new stuff rolled into view, or old stuff rotated out of view as Jupiter rotates. I usually apply limb darkening (LD) at 0.80 when compiling the image, which I think helps mask these imperfections.

Thanks Chris, yes started out as crap seeing, then got better, only for the clouds to arrive - fun hobby isn't it 🙄. Post processing is also a real challenge, so I'm very grateful for some pointers received from @neil phillips.