My latest attempts with the SPC900 & Jupiter

[mikehab]

I've done another re-process of the AVIs I took the other night with the 840K - this time I joined two AVIs together in VirtualDub and cut out some of the poorer frames.... then cropped in Castrator, stacked in AS2!, then RGB Aligned and Wavelets in Registax. Getting there slowly.... ;-)

Mike

[tingting44]

Morning Mike, excellent image buddy!! everytime you will notice your pics improve with practice, its a nice feeling, also may i suggest PIPP for some of the work you done, PIPP can join the 2 avi's together, center and align and takes out all the bad frames in one process its one hell of a pre PP tool, not sure if you have used it but its so nice to use, big thanks to Chirs/Cgarry for working so hard on PIPP

EDIT< Mike how do you do your pics like that? so they enlarge when you click them?

[SnakeyJ]

RIGHT....this has to be the last re-touch lol i dont want to over do a good thing till it gets boring to look at lol

Martin - I like the scale of the last image, perhaps just a little soft on the detail and I prefer the penultimate image which is smaller but more punchy - but its so close/such a difficult balance to get right and ultimately a personal preference on this I feel. I've tried drizzling and upscaling my images in registax, but without excellent data to start with it all ends up too woolly - after the drizzle the wavelets seem to have little or no effect. Perhaps ASI2 is going to prove better on this, so I think I'd better have a look at this and see which suits best.

I can't afford to invest in Photoshop - but did have a play with GIMP, which has some great blur/denoise functions - like photoshop its vast in function, but there are some quite good tuturials out there aimed at astro use.

BR - Jake

[tingting44]

Thanks Jake, its hard as some people say they like it soft natural looking, some people say they like it with more wavelets etc lol so i done couple of each variation, but my own preference is with yours, i too also like the smaller more punchy image myself, not sure if im going to be able to better this detail with my scope, but im sure going to try lool

Clear Skies

Martin

[SnakeyJ]

This camera's good, and you managed a very good capture despite the local light pollution and Jupiters getting a smaller target every day now. I reckon you can get better with a little luck on conditions and perhaps at a darker site, but to get the very best quality you you need more apperture - a big mak or sct, then maybe a higher res ccd camera - this all starts to get expensive and less mobile. With my budget its got to be learning to get the very best out of what I've got/ can afford - and I reckon those images of Jupiter are a long way along the road. This forum really helps as its easy to find help and advice from people with similar equipment and see their images for comparison and inspiration

[tingting44]

yeah will be interesting when i do finally get out to my dark spot and see the difference a dark spot really makes, will be soon hopefully, its just hard to pull myself away from my garden viewing sometimes lol with cups of tea and soup on hand, toilet, tv, wife etc loool its a big effort for me to actually pack everything up and head out for a 40 min drive to actually get to the new forest dark spot lol but will make the effort soon

your right jake, if i won the lotto next week id but a, C14, SW AZEQ mount, with some top grade ccd and a lot of bells and whistles lol and of course a house in the new forest lol so id live in the dark spot lool

what did we use to do before internet and forums eh buddy? lool

clear skies

Martin

[SnakeyJ]

Know what you mean about those home comforts - at 46 I'm a lot less prepared to rough it

Think I might have to add an astro campervan observatory to that lottery win list

[Sully]

I'll definetly be trying out the settings you passed on the other day. Do you use an auto focuser? Also I use the bahtinov for focusing when observing, but when ever I try when imageing the object just disapears, an tips?

cheers

Sully

[tingting44]

Hey Sully

you have to, i was shocked when i tried them lool

No i dont use an auto focuser, not that i wouldnt love to lol just no funds for AP at present

i have the bahtinov mask also, but tbh i get better results when i focus by eye, the mask is ok but conditions change, like seeing, cloud, atmospheric conditions, so i normally adjust by eye just before i record, tbh im not that keep on the bahtinov mask...

also you say your object disapears when you use the mask for imaging.... when trying to get an object bright on the spc900 screen on your laptop use these settings to make sure it will beover exposed so it will easily be visible if you pass it on your live view, and just be careful when putting mask on and off it does not nudge the scope etc as the smallest nugde and it will surely be gone on the live view, so just take time and be careful when 1st trying to find your object and focusing mate

here are the setting just load it into sharpcap's settings and you will get my "finder" profile

Sharpcap does not seem to be loading for me at the mo, but will post when it does

clear skies m

Martin