Stacking lunar images using Canon DSLR

[bus_ter]

Good point James. I'll do 4) also :-)

[ilove1995]

Roger, JamesF, hope you can help me out here...

Finally got a chance to take a number stills of the moon earlier this week with my Canon 600d attached to my Nexstar 4se. Ended up with 124 raw files to play with. Had my first go at using PIPP last night which did a good job of centering the images and saving the resulting files to TIFF.

I then followed Rogers solar tutorial taking on board James's advice as well and also read up on the examples on the astropipp site. I'm happy with the resulting TIFF files but I cannot get either registax5 or 6 to process them. I've tried experimenting with just 4 files to begin with which both versions of registax can open no problem.

When I attempt to align though using any random crater I get memory errors in both versions. Registax 6 for example I've even tried setting just 3 align points on one crater with only two TIFF files loaded but it still runs out of memory. I've got quite a high spec machine running 32 bit windows 7 with 4 gig of memory so I think that should be suitable enough for the job.

The TIFF files are huge though, around 33mb per file. When I processed using PIPP I set the pixels to 4200 x 4200 to get the image in the frame how I wanted. I have attached one of the TIFF files I am attempting to process. The image is slightly under exposed which I believe is recommended for registax.

Could the problem be the pixel size I've set in PIPP or is it simply the size of the TIFF files (bearing in mind I'm only experimenting with a handful in registax to get me started).

I still have the original raw files which are approx 18mb per file so I can always run them through PIPP again once I know where I am going wrong.

Cheers

Al

001.tif

[JamesF]

I use Registax6 and get it to set the align points rather than choosing them myself. Usually it will choose 1799 points. I use the slider to wind that back to somewhere nearer 100 to 200, then run the align.

Before doing that though I'd probably get PIPP to stretch the histogram.

James

[ilove1995]

Cheers James. PIPP's instructions recommended stretching the histogram but I only read this part after I created the files. I'll repeat the process in PIPP based on your advice.

With the size of the TIFF files being 33mb each and the pixels set at 4200, could it be also that registax is unable to cope with this?

Al

[JamesF]

I choose 2800x2800 for my lunar and solar images, which is a reasonably good fit for the image size I get (the 450D sensor is 4272x2848). I think 4200x4200 sounds too much for you because the 60D sensor size is only 5184x3456. If you pick a smaller size and then use PIPPs "test" button, you can see if the framing is suitable. Perhaps 3400x3400 would be a better starting point? A quick check of my last set of TIFF files shows them to be 15MB.

It could be the file size that is causing the problem in Registax. I've never tried it with anything that big.

[ilove1995]

Thanks for this James, I shall give 3400 x 3400 a try. I will also aim to keep the TIFF file sizes below 20mb to see if this sorts out the memory issue when using Registax.

Once I have this nailed I'll post the final image on this thread...

Al

[cgarry]

I agree with James's advice completely. In addition, in PIPP you might want use a 'crop offset' as well as a 'crop size' to place the moon in a more central position in the TIFF images. I don't suppose it really matters, but it always feels wrong to me when some of the shadowed part of the moon is not actually in the image.

Chris

[ilove1995]

Hi Chris,

Must admit that's been bugging me as well so I'll take the opportunity to offset the image whilst I run it through PIPP again. Once I have this moon image nailed I'm going to run some avi's I took of Saturn recently through your software as I had some problems with cropping which I know PIPP will be able to resolve.

Thanks

Al

[ilove1995]

Ok I'm starting to get somewhere now that I have reduced the cropping but I'm still experiencing a few problems...

I reduced the X & Y axis crop in PIPP from 4200 to 3300 which got the TIFF files sizes down from approx 33mb to 20.7mb (I found for every 100 reduction in the X & Y axis I saved 1.3mb from the resulting TIFF file size).

I also set the Histogram Stretch in PIPP to 100% and set it to produce 100 of the best TIFF files out of the 124 raw files I uploaded.

Next I attempted to load just a couple of TIFF files in Registax 6 to start out. Registax was able to load them and also managed to automatically select align points which I reduced from approx 900 to 154. Pleased to see at this point there were no more memory errors. Spoke to soon as when I clicked to align in Registax 6 it crashed.

I then tried Registax 5 and to my surprise it handled all 100 TIFF files no problem.I set a 256 alignbox which I used on a group of craters to the right of the attached file.

Once the alignment process finished I set wavelets then clicked on the Final tab to rotate the image by 128 degrees.

The resulting image has two obvious problems (and probably more that I have not seen yet). Firstly because I set such a narrow alignment the rest of the image looks no better than one of the single frames. More obvious though is rotating the image in registax has created a box around the image.

Is there a way in Registax 5 to set an alignment for the whole image? I might just continue attempting to get this working in Registax 6. Also should I attempt the rotation in something like GIMP instead of Registax 5?

Cheers

Al

[ilove1995]

With regards to Histogram I actually set it to 70% and not 100% like I said on my previous post.

[ilove1995]

Actually I think I've worked out how I got the box. It must be when I amended the Contrast and Brightness in the wavelets tab...

[ilove1995]

Ok I've sorted out the rotation issue, just need to work out how to align the whole image in registax 5 if it can do it. Otherwise I'll just have to keep trying getting this to work in registax 6.

[ilove1995]

Ok, I'm admitting defeat. No matter what I try Registax 6 simply refuses to process the data. I tried it with TIFF files down to 19mb and even with the files converted to jpg. I think the problem is registax simply can't handle 16million pixels.

Registax 5 though can handle the TIFF files but only works when I set a single alignment. I've tried several times to set multiple alignments but it completely smudges the image.

Attached is the final image run through registax 5 but with only one part of the image used as a reference point so it's not very good. That said I've learnt alot about registax and PIPP. I think next time I will step the quality of the camera down to take large jpg's around 8mb. I'm even thinking of putting an offer in for my friends old Canon 400d which he no longer uses.

Al

[JamesF]

That's really quite odd. What spec is the machine you're running Registax on?

James

[ilove1995]

Hi James,

Here's the spec of the desktop I'm using for all my processing:-

Al

[ilove1995]

Clear skies tonight...

Took 125 frames of the moon at iso400 1/1000. Used PIPP to output the best 100 frames then stacked and applied wavelets in Registax 6. Tried experimenting with image quality and found that the best I can do with my Canon 600d is to take pictures with medium jpeg set using 8m pixels on the sensor. Try as I might I am unable to get registax 6 to process the full 18m pixel images this camera can offer, regardless of them being jpeg or raw.

Chris thinks this may be because my desktop is running 32bit windows 7 as he was able to process some earlier raw files I sent him last week taken at full size using a pc running on 64bit windows.

Best I have got so far so all I can do is keep experimenting and hopefully find a way of processing raw files on my camera using my current setup. Registax 5 is able to process my raw files but I can only get it to align a small area of the image.

Anyway attached is tonights shot, I'm mostly happy with it...

[JamesF]

That may well be a good point about 32 bit vs. 64 bit. It's not something that had occurred to me. I resisted the move to 64-bit for quite some time because it meant I could continue to use the hardware I already had, but when the ceiling collapsed last year due to a burst pipe I decided that life was too short to resurrect what was left. It has actually made things easier in some respects, especially now some software is only being released in 64-bit versions.

James

[ilove1995]

James, does the raw images you take of the moon stack ok in Registax 6 with 32 bit windows using your 450d? I'm seriously thinking of picking up a second hand one because I'm not sure if I want to go down the 64bit route just yet.

I'm going out now to image Jupiter to make me feel better...

Al

[JamesF]

James, does the raw images you take of the moon stack ok in Registax 6 with 32 bit windows using your 450d? I'm seriously thinking of picking up a second hand one because I'm not sure if I want to go down the 64bit route just yet.

Unfortunately I can't answer that question now.

Microsoft insist that my 32-bit copy of win7 (which I bought from a reputable source and is totally legal and above board) is not genuine Scumbags.

James

[ilove1995]

That's not very nice of them

[IanL]

I wouldn't necessarily think that 64 vs 32 bit would fix your issues. I run Win 7 64 bit and I find both Registax 5 and 6 with 6GB of RAM incredibly flaky. Depending on whether I am stacking AVIs or TIFFs, size of file, which version, what steps I take in the software, etc. it can crash at the drop of a hat or work perfectly. There seems to be very little logic as to why or when it will fail; Registax 5 is usually a bit more reliable than 6 but doesn't have all the same features.

If you look at some of the feature updates and instructions between the two versions, memory handling definitely seems to have been problematic and something that was being worked on, but there have been no updates that I am aware of since May 2011. I have started using other software with more success, e.g. http://www.autostakkert.com/

[JamesF]

I use AS!2 for planetary images too, but I've found it struggles with full disc solar and lunar images so I've stuck with Registax 6 for that.

James

[cgarry]

Windows 32-bit vs 64-bit is very important when it comes to memory and you have more than 4GB fitted, though I agree that it is not the whole story with Registax.

http://msdn.microsof...imits_windows_7

Like James I use AS!2 for planetary images, but it runs like a dog with solar and lunar images, Reg 6 works so much better for this type of imaging, for me anyway!

Cheers,

Chris

[JamesF]

Like James I use AS!2 for planetary images, but it runs like a dog with solar and lunar images, Reg 6 works so much better for this type of imaging, for me anyway!

I'm so pleased someone else has said that. I was beginning to wonder if it was just me

James

[ilove1995]

Worth me mentioning that Chris was able to align/stack the full frame raw images I sent him in Registax 6 whereas I was only able to align them using the same software. Difference being Chris uses 64bit as opposed to me using 32bit.

I might try my hand at processing these files through Lynkeos on the mac. Hadn't thought of that until now.