Mars 18th March 2012

[ejwwest]

First serious attempt with Mars with my DFK21AU618 on my EdgeHD 925 with cheap 2x Barlow:

Mars by ejwwest, on Flickr

Still a long way to go to get focus, capture setting and stacking settings right!

[ejwwest]

Here's tonight's attempt:

Mars by ejwwest, on Flickr

[Asimov]

You should be getting better results than this, even in the poorest of seeing. These almost look like single frames to me. What stacking program are you using?

[ejwwest]

Registax 6

Here's another from last night:

Mars by ejwwest, on Flickr

[lukebl]

I agree with Asimov, something's definitely not right there. You should be getting much better images with a 925. That blurring looks like the result of terrible seeing or something, or maybe the telescope hadn't cooled down sufficiently. A rubbish Barlow might also be the cause. Try it without. How many frames did you use? I generally use no fewer than 3000 at 30 fps.

[ejwwest]

I agree with Asimov, something's definitely not right there. You should be getting much better images with a 925. That blurring looks like the result of terrible seeing or something, or maybe the telescope hadn't cooled down sufficiently. A rubbish Barlow might also be the cause. Try it without. How many frames did you use? I generally use no fewer than 3000 at 30 fps.

I used about 1500 frames out of 3000. I was not getting 60 fps either, more like 15-20 (set up with Y800/Y800, no debayering, about 1/100s exposure and 60fps: it may be my laptop USB bus and disk speed are limiting factors). Not sure about the barlow (it's an Orion one I got 20 years ago in the USA) but using both my Baader hyperion 13mm and 5mm (for visual) didn't show that much detail so could be the seeing and scope perhaps not having cooled down.

[lukebl]

Not sure about the camera settings. I always use YUY2, which only goes up to 30 fps anyway, with debayering on. Never used Y800 as I just can't get decent results with it. I'd defintely look at the optics/cooling-down to improve things.

[Asimov]

Well if that's a stack of 1500 there's more than one thing going wrong for sure. Yeah could be cooldown time. Minimum 3 hrs for my carbon fibre C11, ally will be slightly quicker. I'm guessing at a combination of poor local seeing, insufficient cooldown times, & possibly miscollimation. < Checked it lately?

[ejwwest]

Cooldown may be a problem but the scope is kept in the garage so should be closer to ambient temperature. However, I did start using it very quickly after setting up.

The scope may need collimating but probably isnt far off where it should be. Star images in the 13mm Baader look fine, but definitely asymmetric in the 5mm, though that may be amplifying the bad seeing too. I'll have a go at recollimating on the next good night.

I'll reprocess the AVIs tonight with AS2 as per your other thread and see if that improves things. I would note that one of my contacts in Flickr (also with the same scope and camera) thought the one at the top was reasonable compared with what he's done. But he hadn't seen any of yours!

[ejwwest]

OK, I ran one of the AVIs from last night through AutoStakker and then used the similar wavelets in Registax 6. There is more detail here.

Mars by ejwwest, on Flickr

And the one at the start of the thread:

Mars by ejwwest, on Flickr