geoflewis

That's a cracking single image, how long was that run and how many frames? I've never tried that Neil, so could you explain some more please, e.g. what is the processing sequence, which software, etc.?

Excellent Neil 👍

@johnturley sorry I didn't see you reply earlier, but I really couldn't offer a better explanation than Neil has given above. You should definitely try the 14" Newt for planetary, but I'll add 2 very significant things to keep in mind: You must pay attention to accurate collimation of your scope, this is a critical element to successful planetary imaging. As Neil mentioned your scope needs to be properly cooled and collimated; this is not just a throw away comment, it is essential. I believe Damian checks his scopes collimation at the start of every imaging session. Seeing is everything. There's nothing you can do about that, other than move to somewhere like Barbados, where Damian usually hangs out for Jupiter opposition - at least he did until Covid stopped him travelling. For the last few years Jupiter and Saturn have been very low from UK latitudes, so planetary imaging has been a PITA, but finanly we are seeing higher altitudes, so if seeing is good, then we have a chance. There will be some variation in the way folks approach processing, e.g. I don't use PIPP, but I do use both AS3! and Registax. I also use FireCapture for capture with a WinJupos file naming capture setting which creates filenames easily readable for WinJupos derotation stacking. I almost always use WinJupos and find it essential for my mono RGB filter stacking, especially for Jupiter where the planet's rotation is very fast. Some folks argue that very high frames are required (in the multi 100s fps, but it's not my experience and seasoned imagers like Anthony Wesley in Oz suggest that capture is optimised at around 60fps. You definitely need fairly fast capture speeds for lucky imaging to work, but then you also need long enough exposures for the image to be sufficiently bright - it's definitely an area for trial and error. As Neil commented using ROI really makes a huge difference to frame rate speeds and file sizes. Planetary imaging is most definitely a very different proposition to imaging DSOs, but can be hugely satisfying seeing the planetary surface features change from session to session and for Jupiter, right in front of your eyes as your camera captures the data. Good luck and have fun. (PS I'm very envious of your ASI462 - it's on my shopping list to have as a colour, rather mono camera)

Hi John, I believe that the astronomy tools recommendation is for DSO imaging; it's a completely different story for planetary. The general rule of thumb for planetary is to set the focal ratio to around 5x the pixel size of the camera (in microns) in good conditions, 7x the pixel size in excellent conditions - from the uk you can pretty much ignore the x7 as seeing is rarely, if ever, that good. I tend to the view that x3 to x5 is a good working range. Traditionally I've used my C14 with a x2 Powermate, but with the 2.9 micro pixels of my ASI 290mm camera x5 would be ~F15, so it's questionable whether x2 Powermate is too much magnification and I should just go with the native F11 of the scope. I did experiment with binning the camera back in 2020 and had some good results, but the jury is still out. I haven't done any planetary imaging yet this year, so will probably experiment some more, when I get around to it. Neil's suggestion of F11/F12 sounds very reasonable to me. Good luck.

Thanks Neil, I've been eyeing the ASI 462M for some time, not least as a colour camera will be better for events like the upcoming lunar occultation of Mars, so perhaps now is the time to pull the trigger and start to learn how to optimise using it. Do you use any filters with it, e.g. for IR long pass, or is that only with the 178? Also where in Suffolk are you (PM me if you don't want to go public with that), I'm in South Norfolk, so only 10 miles from the Suffolk border and it might be good to meet you sometime.

Oooh, these are really nice....!! 👏 Were they captured with the 462C?

Those are 2 excellent Mars images Neil.

That's a cracking image Neil. I haven't done any planetary work yet this appartion, in fact haven't used the obs for any astro for a couple of months (summer skies and life getting in the way), but I'm really hoping to get back to it soon......

Beautiful....

It might be helpful to see both the stretched uncalibrated light and stretched flat to make a comparison

Ok, I understand now, thanks. So what do the previous flats that you used to calibrate that image show, ie can you see the same dust bunnies on those flats?

Ok, so I’m confused by these 2 statements. What did you mean by ‘still seeing dust bunnies when I finished processing’. What exactly were you processing, if you don’t have any lights?

Can you show an uncalibrated light and a calibrated light using the new flats - both stretched the same so that we can see what the problem is

Here is a look at the Angel Nebula (NGC2170) a region of faint nebulosity and reflection nebulae in the constellation of Monoceros east of Orion. It lies along an imaginary line through Orion's belt stars about 1/3rd of the way towards the night sky's brightest star Sirius. This proved to be a very challenging target, mostly because of it's low altitude, transiting at only 31 degrees from my 52N location. Despite my fairly dark Bortle 4 skies I found that I was imaging the target during the low altitude murk above the horizon, with a nearby light dome from a small rural town 4 miles away causing some annoying LP gradients. I captured approx 18 hours of data with my QSI583wsg-5 through my 4" TSAPO100Q, but had to discard quite a few subs, so the final image comprises approx 7.5 hrs L and 2.5 each RGB for a total integration of ~15 hours. Thanks for looking. As always, comments and feedback are much appreciated.

I agree with what @teoria_del_big_bang said about lunar and planetary imaging being much more demanding on the laptop than DSO imaging. For planetary work you need to capture and download images at very fast frame rates to optimise the ‘lucky imaging’ concept. When I’m imaging the planets, each video being downloaded can quickly reach sizes close to or greater than 1Gb. If the device (PC/laptop) being written to is slow then you may experience download buffering and in worst cases the system may hang, losing part of the capture sequence. You also need greater storage for planetary imaging, as capturing an hour or so of video data can quickly rack up 20-30Gb, or more data files; I have on more than one occasion captured in excess of 50Gb, even 100Gb of data in a single planetary imaging session, whereas an all night DSO session might not even acquire 1Gb data. Ideally you need USB3 written to an SSD for planetary work, but I have successfully used USB2 writing to an older style SATA HD, so I would say give it a try. Conversely the laptop that I use for DSO capture is a 10 year old i5 Win7 with only 4Gb RAM and no SSD, and it is perfectly adequate to control all my observatory equipment for deep sky work. Good luck.

A belated Happy New Year to everyone. I've had a good start to the year, bagging a couple of targets, one new to me and one that I haven't imaged since my urban light polluted DSLR days several years ago when I lived in Surrey. The first is an HaRGB image of Sh2-173 (Phantom of the Opera Nebula). The image comprises just under 5hrs Ha with just over 1hr each RGB, captured with my QSI583wsg-5 camera through my 4" TSAPO100Q over a couple on nights last week. The 2nd image, captured over 2 nights this week, is my first return to IC405 (Flaming Star Nebulat) for several years. It's a tight squeeze in the FOV of my 4" APO set up, so I concentrated on the business end of the nebula, losing some of the nebula's tail. This is also an HaRGB image with a similar amount ouf RGB data as Sh2-173 and just over 3hrs Ha, using the same rig as for Sh2-173. Both images were processed using split star techniques, but I opted to retain the busy star fields, with very litte star reduction, as I like what the rich, coloured stars bring to the images overall. Thanks for looking, I hope that you enjoy them. Critique/comments always welcome.

So many great images submitted in this challenge and these 3 are very worthy winners. 👏👏👏

Thanks. I mentioned the green feature in my narrative. I think it was a passing asteroid; if you look closely the line is in fact red, then green, then blue, moving left to right, which is the order in which I captured the RGB subs. The gaps in the line will be where some subs were rejected from the stack after grading.

Thanks @R1k

Hi everyone, Due to a combination of months of poor weather and my focus (no pun intended) on planetary imaging during late summer / early autumn, this is my first DSO image for over 6 months. I captured 1.5h each LRGB and 4 hours Ha, but the L actually reduced the signal in the nebula, so this is an HaRGB image with Ha added to red, not used as luminence. It was captured with my TSAPO100Q (4" quad) and QSI583wsg camera. This target present better in NB false colours, which will show the tapoles more clearly, but I'm primarily an RGB imager, so other than Ha (to enhance red) I don't have any NB filters. NB there's an asteroid trail seen as an almost horizontal line (starting red, then green which show most prominently, then blue) just below the centre of the image. Thanks for looking.

WOW...!!

Well done for sticking with it Keith. I looked out of the bedroom window at my holiday home, just as I was climbing into bed around 1am Monday morning and saw that there were brilliant stars, but being deep in the woods, I couldn't tell if was a genuinly clear sky, or just a small patch. Sadly I couldn't be bothered to get dressed again and take the 10 min hike over to the observing fields to find out. Based on your home location I think you must be the Keith that I met briefly on my bike on Friday morning (I used to live in Frimley, so not far from you); it was good to meet you 👌.

We’ve just arrived and opened up our static holiday home - just 6.9C inside brrrr, so cranked the CH up, turned the water supply back on and headed over to the village for a hot coffee whilst the caravan warms up. Could see some stars as we walked through the woods, but it looks pretty murky. I’ll pop over to the red field later, or more likely tomorrow sometime, to see who is about.

Ah that's a shame Nigella, I was planning to pop along to say hi. My wife and I will be staying in our holiday home for a few nights, but I have to agree with you and others that the weather really isn't favourable for astro, so I won't be taking any astro gear other than hand held binos and a standard camera + tripod. Maybe we can meet another time... 🤞

Is that Heron 10 Nigella?