Kon

After the excellent weekend, tonights session was not as impressive but Venus is completely covered in clouds. I could only see the two white patches at the poles during my capture and the rest was very dark. Interesting development of the cloud features. My usual setup. False colour.

Thanks. I am looking forward to seeing your images later in the summer.

Thanks Reggie. It was a good weekend with the weather.

Thanks Stuart. These took really long to process as I felt I could pull quite a bit of details out. I want to have another go at them. I hope you are out tonight as it was looking excellent earlier on.

Thanks everyone for the positive comments.

Thank you very much.

Thanks Neil. I was taken aback by the capture on the 4th. Not a sign of atmospheric disturbance. I want to revisit the data as I am sure I can pull more out of them. I have more videos from each day to play with.

The weather this weekend was amazing (I do not remember such stable seeing for a long time despite the wind). I managed two sessions on Venus and both revealed nice structures. The clouds really changed between the two days. False colour IR/sG/UV. 8" Dob, manual, asi462mm, UV and IR filters )astromania), 2.5xTV powermate. First is from the 3rd and second from the 4th. Both captured at daylight (~1845 UTC).

Excellent work Stuart. There are so many fine details. The weekend was amazing, wasn't it? Super stable. I need to find the time to process my images.

What an excellent idea! The tracker alone is cool to have.

That's amazing!

They look great! It seems some weird pixilation has happened. I assume you don't see it in the sharpened RGB? I am still going through my captures from yesterday. It's looking good for today too.

Well done on your first early morning outing. Not too shabby considering your issues.

Excellent and spectacular event.

Thanks for your comments. I absolutely agree that playing with the parameters is the best way to get a feeling. I am planning to do the side by side comparison tonight or tomorrow (depends on the passing clouds). But so far for the 462mm, I seem to be able to control the noise quite well. Stuart's first captures withe 462mm are looking great too. Christopher Go is beaming about the very low noise of the 678m. Regarding focusing, I usually start at high gain or exposure and adjust accordingly. As I mentioned before, you are more than welcomed to try my 462mm. I will stop with Venus soon, and you could give it a good try with your morning sessions. Just message me. Yes very happy with the ZWO result. I hope it means that I am doing something right with my captures 😉.

Thanks. Looking at the asi462mm QE at 400nm it's around 90%. I couldn't find info on the 290. Or my filter is more broad at 300-400nm Vs the U-filter 320-380, so more light gathering? The Astromania doesn't have more info on the filter. To get 3ms, my gain is nearly 80%. I am still experimenting with parameters.

I agree processing was a lot easier easier and it took less noise reduction. Regarding focusing it massively helped under the conditions. I hope to have a bash this weekend again. Despite the seeing being good the focus kept changing and the wind was a killer too.

High winds again but I managed a better focus this afternoon. Clouds are again looking different from yesterday. I took the advice from @neil phillips and @Space Cowboy and changed my capture approach. I went for 10ms (~90fps) than my regular 3ms (300fps) and it was a lot easier to manage the noise despite the less frames I had to stack . False colour IR/sG/UV. 8" Dob, manual, asi426mm, UV and IR filters, 2.5x TV powermate.

I thought the PIPP stabilisation would take care of this unless I am misunderstanding. I will give it a try in Winjupos.

I see something very subtle so maybe, but be careful as it has been sharpened quite a bit from the looks of the white edge rind. I am happy to take a look of your stacked tiff before sharpening. @Space CowboyStuart has processed several captures from colour camera that can also help.

Good point on derotation; I will investigate. Saying that, wouldn't PIPP stabilisation deal with that? I always put my captures through PIPP with quality prefiltering.

Thank you all for your positive comments 😁

Thanks Stuart. Yes very chuffed with the ZWO selection. It gives me confidence on my processing but that image I submitted was under the best conditions I had so far with Venus. I am looking froward to seeing more images from your mono captures.

Despite the nice looking skies this afternoon, the winds did not help with this capture. The focus kept changing constantly. The Venusian clouds are there but very soft. False colour IR/sG/UV. 8" Dob, manual, asi426mm, UV and IR filters, 2.5x TV powermate.

Thanks Neil. I am getting what you are saying and it makes sense. I have not maxed out my gain yet and finding the balance is key. I may have been a bit less experimental with the mono captures as the high speed mid-gain is giving me good results but I could well get better with other settings. Weekend is looking promising for this, and I will try make a post if I do get a good comparison.