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Jupiter processing experiments

neil phillips

By neil phillips
in Imaging - Planetary

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neil phillips

neil phillips

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I wanted to try ninox after stuart informed me there was a windows version avalaible. worked fine on straight videos but not others that i saved from the 15th aug, which was slightly better footage.

so i attempted to weed out as many bad frames as i could on a fairly good red avi from the 15th aug, first i ran it through k3ccd, then i killed a lot of frames manually in virtual dub. ( took ages ) then ran it through k3ccd again killing more. then ran it through reg 5 killing more bad frames ended up with about 4000 stacked in reg from 9000 originally 60 fps.

100% capture and 120% resize on the first. the second was ran through k3ccd instead of the last run on reg as before. Televue 5x powermate

Did a x2 then wavelet in reg, downsized to 128%, not sure if all this has tightened it up, but the tiny white spots on the north polar region have come into sharp focus maybe ?

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k3ccd tools version 128%

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neil phillips

neil phillips

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Thanks Frank

Freddy when your good seeing comes, you wont be saying that. Just twiddling my thumbs here, ive missed some possible chances recently due poor to weather forcasting, and tiredness.

I saved the footage onto a portable hardrive. So wondered if if i could really go to town on it, It has lots of nice frames, but ive noticed at this focal length theres a lot more bad frames, then at lower FL and its a case of getting rid of them. i must have deleted about 1000 by hand watching the shadow as i did it, often it split in two so was deleted. but there was many sharp ones.

The ultimate processing would involve killing every single bad frame by hand, because despite 3 or 4 runs through software gradully killing the bad frames. some always seem to remain. Can see why the want humans on Mars,

Cheers Freddy

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Space Cowboy

Space Cowboy

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Just had a look at your original images Neil and these are cleaner around the edge for sure. Shame your still having trouble with Ninox I take it the dragging and dropping is still not working?

This is the beauty of British weather...plenty of processing time.:)

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neil phillips

neil phillips

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Hi Stuart, no its not the dragging, what i think it is, i saved the avis by making a new avi from k3ccd tools then saved onto a portable hardrive, somewhere along the line ninnox doesnt read those avis correctly, if i use a straight captured avi with bmps from k3 ccd it works fine, just the new k3 avi saved onto a portable hardrive is the problem, i will certainly try ppm centre at some point, as i had it running. i think the images do look a little cleaner maybe. so maybe worth the effort

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astroman001

astroman001

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Hi Neil,

The hard work has certainly paid off, I have always wondered how much better the image quality would be if I spent the time to manually reject the poor frames rather than rely upon the Regi quality filter.

For me it's just too much work to do on 3 or 4 avis of 2000 frames each for one final image. One night of superb seeing is what I want!

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frewi808

frewi808

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Hi Neil,

Well,..... before in the 'old' days, I selected all the good frames by hand before loading in Registax V5, and you know what, it did not have a better result then having Registax selecting the 50% or so 'his' good frames.... It really was not worthed going thru all this, so I settle ith a bitsy inperfection and blame it on the seeing....... Maybe I will do it again, when I can get the same results as Damian Peach, but I doubt it.....

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neil phillips

neil phillips

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Hi Peter yes good seeing over processing any day, i agree. i wont be making a habit of this weeding out of bad frames, as you say, it just takes too long

Just bored Freddy, weather is unstable a lot here, so just keeping handy, I personally do find lots of bad frames remain no matter how i process them, so was just interested to see if i could tighten the shots a little, but i agree the improvement is subtle if at all.

Hi Rik i would like to get Astraimage, as i know that many recommend the deconvolution there. I only use the circular blur deconvolution on image analyzer, which i assume is not as good. At some point i will try to get Astraimage. as i think i will like it. ive played with the free trial before

Cheers

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Kokatha man

Kokatha man

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Neil, ninox (or ppm centre, which is the same thing!) is very pernickity about filenames.....certainly the suffix and/or what comes before it - as an example, on my home pc running XP pro when I convert my avi into bmp's for running through ninox, after you open the avi file in VirtualDub you then have to "export" the opened avi into a bmp folder you've created.....in the window that appears for this operation XP pro has ".avi" on the end of the filename and you must backspace this bit out or else the bmp's will be created with ".avi.bmp" on the end of each bmp - ninox won't cop that..!:D

On my laptop with Windows 7 the ".avi" is automatically deleted and you don't need to worry therein.....

Be aware that ninox's quality grading isn't foolproof - like Registax's grading you're allways going to find frames that are rejected where you'll think "hang on, that's better than some of those it has accepted!" but I don't think unless you literally went through them all by hand/eye you could possibly achieve those sorts of results - and that'd be ridiculously laborious!

I use a quality estimation command in ninox whereby the image is downsized a couple more times than the default (which I think is 3 lots of down-sizing offhand - downsizing sharpens the images as you'd appreciate and assists ninox to determine the relative "sharpness" in contrast between each image amongst other things) - but ninox won't completely satisfy extremely close scrutiny re the grading, but gives pretty darn good results regardless!

Most of these quality grading/estimating algorithms rely on finding areas of good conrast in each image to get the grading, along with other similar factors like sharp edges.....smaller images like (say) Saturn (which can appear more sharp in contrast variation than larger images) will usually give higher overall values for ninox grading (you can watch the number estimate it asigns to each image as it flicks by if you want to stuff up your eyesight!!!;):D)

This also means that usually the green and blue channels can give higher contrast values than the red by virtue of what we see on Jupiter in particular (remembering for example that the GRS is allways more pronounced in these channels than in the red) - even though red is most often patently a better-detailed image!

I'm no rocket-scientist with pc's and software and the like, but once you observe this stuff for a while you see what's happenning and can get a handle on it pretty quickly.....it's like when you copy a command line text and insert it into the ninox program and ninox says "nope - I ain't working!!!:p:)) - often you'll find that in copying "Microsoft Word" substitutes a dash for what should be a minus or you've omitted something small like a spacing etc.....

Another good aspect to ninox is that it certainly makes for much easier rgb alignment of the channels in processing...

Happy to elaborate further if you like, and/or pm me if there's anything specific re ninox.....also, my suggestion would be to forget k3ccd and just convert your avi's to bmp's with VirtualDub (it's freeware!) if you wish to play around with ninox/ppm centre....!:D

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neil phillips

neil phillips

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Hope your finding it interesting guys

H Darryl dont forget im using the windows version so im not doing command lines. the problem i encountered was caused i think by making a optomized avi and saved it on a portable hardrive before i did the bmps, when i did just bmps from k3ccd it seemed to work fine, i will experiment. i think optimizing and quality estmating the bmps ( k3 ) before ppm centre gets them shouldnt hurt. the first time i tried with a captured avi it seemed to wotk well. ill keep you updated how im getting on, just want some calm seeing, but uk weather isnt great at the mo after i missed some chances, ugh Cheers for the info. lets hope for some quality chances soon

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neil phillips

neil phillips

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Great big shot of jupiter. What telescope do you use?

Hi its a Orion 245mm Europa, modified with a fan, and drilled back plate to aid ventilation. though still with a 3 not 9 point cell. F6.3 1/10th pv. I belive all optics vary to some degree good uns bad uns in between uns. this is a good un, i have had some lemons.

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TheThing

TheThing

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Great shot Neil, or am I not allowed to say that?

At the risk of another long lecture from you, the larger of the two images looks a little 'softer' focus wise. Would this be an artifact of the resizing at all?

Although we don't always hold the same opinion (and it is ok to have differing opinions, to disagree and/or to suggest different ways of doing things. How boring if we all agreed ot simply toed the line for a quiet life?), I would be amongst the first to heap praises on a good image when I see one and these are 'great!'

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neil phillips

neil phillips

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Great shot Neil, or am I not allowed to say that?

At the risk of another long lecture from you, the larger of the two images looks a little 'softer' focus wise. Would this be an artifact of the resizing at all?

Although we don't always hold the same opinion (and it is ok to have differing opinions, to disagree and/or to suggest different ways of doing things. How boring if we all agreed ot simply toed the line for a quiet life?), I would be amongst the first to heap praises on a good image when I see one and these are 'great!'

Well if you had really understood my long lecture, im sure you wouldnt still be asking silly questions like am i allowed to say great shot ? The fact that you are really speaks volumes i think ?

But just for clarification, ill try one last time. I wasnt for one second saying that people shouldnt say great shot, nice shot. Hey what a shot lol.

Ive explained in the long lecture, that what infact i was saying was, i hope stuart didnt mind me talking more in depth about hes processing rather than just saying GREAT SHOT. How silly to think i could have, or am saying such a thing, when ive been on forums probably for at least 6 or 7 years saying exactly just that to people.

Although my prefered sentence is nice shot, as many on here will know.

Not sure if thats cleared this up yet, i thought it was cleared up with my explanation to brant. But clearly it is not ? Hope it is now.

And i really dont think these discussions we are having has anything to do with not having the same opinion. But i notice thats what your trying to turn the discussion into. Very clever.

How can it be when construtive advice is seen as somehow dangerouse and off putting to begginers who quite frankly asked for opinions ? in the thread where you first disagreed with me, they didnt seem worried why should you ? I wonder will you always dissagree, i suspect so, wonder why ?

That might well be just a little parenoid to say the least, especially as such said begginer asked for constructive comments. Kind of lost on that one a little.

same for me telling Stuart how my processing has changed from what he is presently doing, to me raising luminence a little lately.

On that front, my processing on shots where i have done similar to stuart, you must see as quite correct then. Which is odd as my processing here is exactly what i suggested for Stuart to try, but apparently you like this processing ?

So heres the problem, saying to someone dont adjust a image before you have even seen the result of such a change, or even a comparison, again speaks volumes to me,

Hard to say 100% dont change a thing when you cant really see if those changes actually worked or not ?

But im guessing you can do all of this in your minds eye. well if you can you certainly have a talent. One i havent been able to master without at least experimenting a little, often ill disagree with people thats how it should be, as you suggest. but usually im open to persuation by example are you ? its like case closed from you isnt it. One thing ive learned which i belive has helped me improve. its never case closed im afraid. Or rarely is, unless your DP, hence continual experimentation. To answer your last question there could be many reasons why the larger image was softer. as if i remember i processed it slighty different. Anyway now i have all that off my chest. If your going to disagree please at least try to make it from experiance. Not just off the cuff comments, which im sure they are. ive give my reasons here. apologies for such a long lecture again

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