Nice Sunspot Group.

[Baz Pearce]

Yesterday had great seeing around lunchtime. I did a run of stacks of AR1618 in white light. Tried some mono runs and colour too. Using the Astromadster130 and the Philips.

With no barlow:-

At 1.5x

At 2x

At 2.3x

Then added 1.5x digital zoom

The mono shots all came out very hatched.

Anybody know why this has happened?

Thanks for viewing,

Baz.

[sologuitarist61]

That looks very much like pixelation to me, that is that you are seeing the actual pixels that make up the image, I think you can see it in the equivalent colour shot as well, though it is not as obvious.

[DrRobin]

Hi Baz,

I assume you took an AVI and then stacked it in a program like Registax? How many frames did you take? The more frames you take the more the more the pixels will be minimised. I typically take 2000 frames then select around 800 for stacking depending on the quality. When stacking I also turn on 'drizzle' to reduce pixel size. It makes the final image a lot bigger, but I just resize the final pic back down.

The other thing it might be is that often colour cameras loose some ofthe information if run in greyscale, depending on how the camera uses its Bayer matrix and the processing it does inside the camera. Mostly we have no control over this and you might find that your camera is outputting a much lower resolution in greyscale than colour.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Impressive group of sunspots, indeed

[Baz Pearce]

Hi Baz,

I assume you took an AVI and then stacked it in a program like Registax? How many frames did you take? The more frames you take the more the more the pixels will be minimised. I typically take 2000 frames then select around 800 for stacking depending on the quality. When stacking I also turn on 'drizzle' to reduce pixel size. It makes the final image a lot bigger, but I just resize the final pic back down.

The other thing it might be is that often colour cameras loose some ofthe information if run in greyscale, depending on how the camera uses its Bayer matrix and the processing it does inside the camera. Mostly we have no control over this and you might find that your camera is outputting a much lower resolution in greyscale than colour.

DrRobin, i was recording just 800 frames at 15fps (60 secs worth), and using 500+, just because the seeing was so steady. Normally i'd take 3000 at 60fps, and would save minimum 500 for the image.

By the sounds of it i think i will be sticking to recording in colour then. I was just wondering if the mono would pick out the detail a little better.

Baz.

PS. Have you noticed how similar images 2 and 3 are?? I think i've used the same image twice there. I will get my fish and chips for my tea, then take a look at that.

Yumm, something smells good. Catch ya later.

[Baz Pearce]

Looks like i've put the 1.5x image in twice. Here's the correct 2x image:-

Baz.

[Montana]

An excellent set Baz, lots of spot detail

Alexandra

[DrRobin]

Hi Baz,

Looks like you are taking enough frames then so it must be a feature of the camera, it looses some data when in greyscale. I used to use a colour camera for white light, always worked well enough for me and it looks like you are getting better results in colour so I would suggest just sticking with the colour cam.

You got some nice images by the way, hope it wasn't too windy? It was overcast and very windy further north and not much good yesterday either.

[Stephen Green]

A nice group of images Baz

Stephen

[Baz Pearce]

Thanks Gang,

It's fun to run through the range of powers i can get with the AE barlow when conditions allow it. Especially for Lunar imaging. If i include my .6x reducer, 1.3x -2.3x are available as well as up to 8x digital zoom with the flashed Philips.

Baz.