Kon

Thank you very much. You lot are awful.🤣 Neil has been pushing me to get tracking, some offline discussions are inclining that way too. I like the simplicity of getting the dob in and out, good to go once the mirrors are cool. But I can see how having a better setup will vastly improve my captures....hhhmmmmm🙃

Thanks. I am making my life difficult , don't I?🤣. An ADC would be nice but with manual is another challenge to battle.

Thanks. Let's take it offline (I am also down the road from you).

Thanks Stuart. Who needs Barbados when we have sunny Wiltshire 🤣?! All cloudy now 😂

Another excellent morning for imaging; excellent transparency and stability. Jupiter in OSC and Uranus in IR showing its northern polar hood (false colour). 8" Dob, manual, asi 462mc or mm, 2.5xTV powermate, UV/IR cut or IR pass. Jupiter is a derotation of 2x120s and Uranus 8min capture.

Excellent image and processing. Cassini division looks great.

Thanks for trying. It seems there is some loss of details especially around the polar ends. As Stuart suggested I should try drizzle in as!3. I will be revisiting these data when I have some time.

Yes experiment with the bad seeing even then you will see some differences and when the good seeing comes you will have a good feeling what to try. Keep an eye on Jetstream charts too.

Yes if you don't have the details you will not recover them. I tried to push your image but it's soft. The dew might be an issue. I don't have one either. Do you cool your telescope long enough? I usually leave mine out for a good 1hr. Regarding location, I have a friend 20miles from me and we have both been out imaging at the same time and target and one of us can have better or worse seeing than the other, so local conditions will affect your seeing. By the way, what time did you image Jupiter? I usually aim at it's highest point. These days I am imagining between 4-530am.

there you go.

I only sharpen 20% before winjupos and then do my processing. This is one of the best stacks; 25% of 25000 frames at 5.5ms. 2023-09-09-0400_8-Jupiter_pipp_lapl4_ap164.tif

Thanks. Looking through my captures again it seems that I can be stricter in the derotation and drop 2 stacks that are just a bit less defined. This is the stack after winjupos that I used for the posted image. 2023-09-09-0355_1-Jupiter_pipp_lapl4_ap164.tif

I had a go at your original tiffs that you had and this is the best I could get for your Jupiter. It is very soft meaning that either focus is off or seeing was really bad. Could you see good details when you focused or you could not achieve this; later will happen on bad seeing? Not much you can do with these. They are a good start to improve on.

The stacked tiff after autostakkert will do. Put a screenshot of the quality graph for the one you think is the best capture.

But pipp will not stack them. How where these generated? Pipp then as!3?

The file seems tiff. Are these single frames?You should save the whole capture as a movie and allow as!3 to sort the best images.

Even better.

For high resolution images, try avoid the reducer so you can have the optimal sampling.

I will take a look tonight. Are these after as!3?

Your collimation looks fine and even If it's a tad off will not give you awful images. Regarding captures, seeing can really affect things. There have been instances that you see Jupiter boiling or like looking at it through water. Other times this doesn't happen but you can't focus on it due to atmospheric disturbance (assuming collimation is fine). Other times it boils but you can get some good focus. Unless you look at it at the screen it's hard to tell how the seeing is. Regarding exposure most of us capture at 4-6 ms for Jupiter. Different story with Uranus or Neptune or UV/methane filters. As long as your histogram is around 50-70% you shouldn't have too much noise as you are stacking thousands of images. I usually have 25-30000 frames per capture. I stack 25-50% depending on the as!3 plot, where it drops below 50%. Why are you using a reducer? Winjupos will not rescue you if the captures are not good. Finally, I did start with many bad images and awful processing but posting in the planetary imaging forum, I got a lot of good advice and it has hugely improved. I have only been doing this for 2 years. As long as you are open to criticism and trying things then you will improve. My advice is try different things in a session and see what has given a better result. This can be your starting point for next time. Same with processing,, try different software and find what works for you. And post your images and ask explicitly for feedback. I do it many times, even now. We can only improve, and SGL is super friendly. Even messaging some of the imagers here, they will help you. I have got plenty of help like this.

I am a Mac user and I run everything under crossover.

Thanks Stuart. Working from home these days has its perks as I can quickly image at my lunch break. Let's see if we can get UV details as good as back in early June.

Nice to have Venus back on our skies. This is a a quick capture at my lunchbreak. IR pass only as the UV did not show any details. I should probably wait until the disk is fuller. I think lunchtime captures will be great as Venus is high up and the atmosphere should be more stable. 8" Dob, asi462mm, IR pass, 2.5xTV powermate.

The derotation has brought some additional details. Excellent processing.

My two cents worth based on having a very basic 8" Dob setup(similar aperture to what you have). I am all manual, tracking and focusing, no upgrades on crayford the box stanrd one speed, no ADC...you get the picture 😉. I have given up on OSC Saturn but I am getting nice sharp in IR. For Jupiter we are blessed this year, it is quite high up so atmosphere is a bit less of an issue. Firstly, I collimate my Dob before every capture and I do a star test. Focus, I try to get sharp details on the planet, I never focus on its moons. I might have to refocus after every capture. For Jupiter I do 120s captures (3-4 you are doing will smear the fine details due to rotation) and 180-240 for Saturn. Get as many videos as you can and deal later which are the best and derotate them. I aim for histogram of 50-60% and 5ms exposure. I adjust gain to hit the histogram values I want. Try to max your fps so capture at tight ROI. Another important aspect is sampling. The rule of thumb is 5x the pixel size. I have an asi462mc/mm with 2.9 pixel so I need to be at f15; my dob is f5 so I use 2.5TX powermate that brings me to f15. Under excelent seeing you can go to f20 but unfortunatley I did not have the right one for the excellent seeing we had a few days ago. Processing, I use combination of Registax with mild wavelets, Astrosurface and Imageanalyzer but it depends on the capture and conditions. What works for one day will not work for another. You need to find what works for you. This is my recent Jupiter when I had that excellent seeing, so the 8" did deliver exceptionally well at f15 (5x120s derotation) but also another one when seeing was not so good. Keep imaging and hopefully get that good seeing moment.