Saturn 05.03.13 Reprocess

[theo]

Unfortunately I haven't had the opportunity to catch the last couple of clear nights recently due to other commitments, so have been using some time to go back to an image of Saturn I posted back on the 5th.

Looking back at this image I felt somewhat unhappy with it and so set about reprocessing.

So here is the reworked version (top) and the original.

Hope you guys agree it's a improvement!!!

Regards,

Pete

[nephilim]

WOW!! Both of those images are fantastic in my mind, although obviously the top one is the better version. I'd be over the moon (excuse the pun) with just a 10th of the detail you've managed

Steve

[Freddie]

Definately works for me, nice reprocess. Ring colour looks better and more colour definition on the planet.

[Moonshane]

no comparison for me, the rework is spectacular.

[paul mc c]

Excellent mate,although the reworked image is stunning i like the origional one,as a visual observer it would look more like the view at the eyepiece.

[si@nite]

Top notch Pete stunning image!

[neil phillips]

Colour looks more correct to me Pete, As can be seen by the rings. More blue in the mix. Tighter. Prefer the downsize too. Just excellent, Amazing at these elevations

[Ewan]

Certainly paid off as well Pete well worth doing, a 4th of the way into 2013 with most of it being cloudy so well worth checking data you do get, where i am anyway.

Looks very nice.

[theo]

Thanks all for the great feedback. Glad some of you enjoy the first take also.

Regards

Pete

[Space Cowboy]

A truly remarkable image Pete on so many levels. One of the best OSC images I've seen on the net at any elevation never mind 24 degrees. I never thought this kind of image was possible.

I assume you were using y800 codec?

[theo]

Many thanks Stuart!!

Yes, y800. Its all I ever really use.

Think I read that you have received a new cam. Look forward to seeing how you get on with it and your views on how it compares to your DFK.

Pete

[sologuitarist61]

Excellent Pete

[Mr Bergman]

Oh wow! Top class image!

[theo]

Colour looks more correct to me Pete, As can be seen by the rings. More blue in the mix. Tighter. Prefer the downsize too. Just excellent, Amazing at these elevations

Hi Neil,

Tighter yes.... you hit the nail on the head. That word describes exactly what I was aiming for with this image reprocess amongst the other things.

Appreciate your comments.

Pete..

[theo]

Richard, Mr Bergman, thank you.

Pete.

[Stargazer33]

What a difference! The original picture is amazing but when you compare it to your reprocessed one, well there is no comparison. It is amazing just how much detail you can pull out of an image. Isn't digital photography wonderful?

[Kokatha man]

Hi Pete - I just lost a very length post here I was about to add.....something along the lines of comparing "apples to apples" and showing images at the same scale etc but the nub of it is that the details that were in your original process and more importantly in your raw data are simply outstanding.....unfortunately I think you "squelched" most of that imho with your rework..!

I realise many folks go for the "smooth, pretty picture" with Saturn but to be able to capture surface detail on this distant and low-contrast planet is one of the hallmarks of great imaging - and to do so from your location in the UK this apparition is quite simply amazing!!!!!

With this in mind I have done a fairly quick repro of the older original image above (what you CAN do with your raw data should leave this for dead!!! ) and you can clearly see a very bright spot (probably a storm) almost smack on the CM as well as another to the far left.....plenty of other detail elsewhere and the definition along the boundaries of Saturn's zonal bands is quite amazing, particularly along the edges of the remnants of the old storm band..!

In short I'd suggest forgoing the "smooth & shiny" results because your image holds so much more than that.....I apologise for speaking rather bluntly but after losing my longer, more tactfull posting I just want to convey the jist of that message - and why does SGL continuously have this problem where you have to type into a greyed-out box where your posting is almost unreadable and none of the tools can be applied...it seems very "hit & miss" re working correctly..?!?

Apologies once again and I should add you could smooth my repro down further and still see these details that have been completely obliterated above imho.....remember mine is a screenshot and I'd love to see the raw data reworked by you with a good balance between all aspects - remembering detail is allways better than "smooth & shiny" because really anyone can get that by just running overly-long captures - they'll show great banding but nothing re detail!!!

[Kokatha man]

.....ps Pete: "unaware" folks might look at my repro of your image and think "whoa, this is a bit lumpy" or somesuch - but if they look carefully for a half a minute or so they will then realise they are actually seeing incredible detail in your capture - I had to make this same point with my latest images over on CN this morning....!

[Space Cowboy]

Yep I have to agree with Darryl the image quality is so high I don't think it needed the extra smoothing.

Got myself a mono QHY5L-ll Pete and planning to dabble with the dark arts of RGB though am still sceptical of this strange world.

[Ewan]

That storm remnants is very faint but its there, its great seeing how all the opinions help improve upon what is a very good image, credit to you Pete regardless what angle you take.

I need to get out & have a crack at this but not hopful my 203mm will be adaquate but willing to give it a shot.

Congrats again.

[theo]

Hi Pete - I just lost a very length post here I was about to add.....something along the lines of comparing "apples to apples" and showing images at the same scale etc but the nub of it is that the details that were in your original process and more importantly in your raw data are simply outstanding....unfortunately I think you "squelched" most of that imho with your rework..!

I realise many folks go for the "smooth, pretty picture" with Saturn but to be able to capture surface detail on this distant and low-contrast planet is one of the hallmarks of great imaging - and to do so from your location in the UK this apparition is quite simply amazing!!!!!

With this in mind I have done a fairly quick repro of the older original image above (what you CAN do with your raw data should leave this for dead!!! ) and you can clearly see a very bright spot (probably a storm) almost smack on the CM as well as another to the far left.....plenty of other detail elsewhere and the definition along the boundaries of Saturn's zonal bands is quite amazing, particularly along the edges of the remnants of the old storm band..!

In short I'd suggest forgoing the "smooth & shiny" results because your image holds so much more than that.....I apologise for speaking rather bluntly but after losing my longer, more tactfull posting I just want to convey the jist of that message - and why does SGL continuously have this problem where you have to type into a greyed-out box where your posting is almost unreadable and none of the tools can be applied...it seems very "hit & miss" re working correctly..?!?

Apologies once again and I should add you could smooth my repro down further and still see these details that have been completely obliterated above imho.....remember mine is a screenshot and I'd love to see the raw data reworked by you with a good balance between all aspects - remembering detail is allways better than "smooth & shiny" because really anyone can get that by just running overly-long captures - they'll show great banding but nothing re detail!!!

Hi Darryl,

Thanks for your honesty in your response. Thats what its all about, getting views across the board.

I agree totally that detail is more important than 'smooth & shiny' and to be honest that's what I endeavour to achieve...more finer detail every time I image. I think everyone on here seeks the most detail from their images and is the reason why we all would like more aperture and better cams and other kit!!!

To be honest I believe that each of us would process an Image slightly differently just due to the fact that what is pleasing to one persons eye maybe not so great in anothers.

For me, the original just looked a bit too noisy and this is where I may have pushed things a little too far. Its always a fine balance it maintaining all the detail without too much noise in the image.

I did re process this several times and will definitely go back over these later. Other than that I will certainly have another stab at the original data and see how it goes.

I appreciate and totally respect your feedback here Darryl. You have provided a wealth of helpful information to people on this forum so many thanks for that.

Regards

Pete

[neil phillips]

Its interesting what Darryl says, and i have to agree that sometimes we do endevour too much on the beauty rather than the detail. But hey sometimes there maybe those that prefer that kind of thing. Rather than the scientific approach of revealing surface detail, Say for planetary experts to get a look at a certain feature for example.

Both have there merit but for different reasons.

Noise is something that Darryl rightly points out is universally hated, by most of the uk imagers on this site ( me included ) even if some detail is lost in the pursuit of reducing or avoiding it.

Darryl you often leave comments like squelching, pretty picture, smooth and shiny. Your like the anti smooth police Darryl Just playing

But i do agree one can go to far, in reducing noise, or even trying to avoid it in the first place, by under sharpening. But often i have prefered under sharpened images, to oversharpened images. take your pick ? Even if more detail does pop out.

We all have different levels of distaste on the noise front it seems. The trick is to pull back when the noise starts overtaking the detail, and to keep going when the detail hasnt popped out Enough, but the image still looks like silk.

I still think the repro has merit. the colour looks more correct, and i prefer the downsize.To the original, I will have to get my processing glasses on ( i have two pairs one stronger for the fine detail ) i often wear the distant weaker ones when browsing on here. Im getting worried i need them on all the time now.

Darryl this comment leaves me a little perpelxed you

qoute

With this in mind I have done a fairly quick repro of the older original image above (what you CAN do with your raw data should leave this for dead!!! ) and you can clearly see a very bright spot (probably a storm) almost smack on the CM as well as another to the far left.

Ok i am a little lost what you mean by PROBABLY A STORM. Have you seen this feature in another image that makes it easier for you to tell there is indeed a storm there ? or are you guessing, lets say a educated guess ? Educated guesses are fine, as i often do that myself. But on those occassions i will likely say im not sure. Just incase it is noise ?

You seem more certain but are then saying, probably a storm, sounds like a element of doubt from you to me. And if thats the case how do you know the image with the feature less apparent ( the repro ) isnt just noise that is less obviouse ? or better handled ? I will get my glasses at some point for a finer look at this, before i can say much more.

But

I think obviously the trick is to avoid the noise where possible, but still have most of the detail apparent. Otherwise we could all be wacking the wavlets to a point where more storm detail was obviouse. But the image would look rarher nasty from the beauty of the planet perspective.

I agree with Darryl in that, its a balance. But that balancing point might well be different for different people, and for different reasons.

To give a example many years ago a well known astronomer saw one omy saturn images, and said nice capture ect. And mentioned there was more in the image than i realized. He proceeded to sharpen the image to levels that i personally thought destroyed the beauty of the planet totally, just to reveal such said detail that he seemed very impressed by.

Which is fair enough. But mostly for him. Others that saw the image also said it was oversharpened.

I am not suggesting for one minute that has happened here anywhere. Not at all. Im trying to give a example where the pursuit of detail, can on occassion get obssesive. And somewhat detrimental to those that enjoy the beauty of the planet, perhaps more than they do extracting every last ounce of detail.

There does have to be a balance. And sometimes we push too far, and other times not enough.

Heck my website is filled with such images. Ask a thousand people about those images you may well get back a thousand different answers. Whos right and whos wrong ? perhaps neither to a degree. Depending on what is more important to a person.

But indeed it is good to try and get a balance between detail extraction and noise. Ill put my hands up and be the first to say i do not always get this right. I have often posted two images one too soft, and one too sharp lol. the view has been somewhere in between for the perfect result according to comments that have been mentioned. Getting that perfect balance can sometimes be a lot harder than would first seem. Well it is for me. And i suspect many others. Go easy on some folk Darryl, we all try to do the best with our images. sometimes we hit the nail on the head sometimes we do not. I dont think its as simple as saying many folk in the uk go for smooth pretty pictures, im sure on my site for example i have, over and under sharpened images there. But maybe im not included in the smooth and pretty picture remark ? hmmm

[Kokatha man]

Neil, you seem to be taking my comments about Pete's work as something personal.....Pete has responded to my post (to him about a question he posed!) and his subsequent remarks acknowledge the sincerity/integrity of my response - I fail to see what you're driving at.....I'm sure Pete hardly needs anyone else's "mothering"!

As to the "bright spot" of course it's highly likely to be a storm where sub-surface eruptions alter the contrast - it may of course be milk bubbling up from the local dairy so I'll hedge my bets but tbh I said "probably" because I like to think I have some sensitivity towards possibly sounding like a "smart aleck" - perhaps in vain it would seem.....

I shouldn't be doing basic research for others but take your pick from the first 3 google references I've just pulled here:

http://www.eso.org/s...-no62-59-61.pdf

http://kids.nineplanets.org/saturn.htm

http://kids.nineplanets.org/saturn.htm

If we're being brutally honest I also think there's a lot of confusion between noise & detail, and everyone ought to understand the difference.....it reminds me of someone being asked to weed a garden and ripping everything up, plants and all..!

Also, noise/grain will NEVER look like detail - but like the gardener you've got to first know the difference!

Apologies for being blunt but I took the time to reply courteously and honestly to Pete's question even though I'd just lost my initial intended post through some keyboard pecadillo.....FYI my poor repro had no sharpening whatsoever but the screenshot of Pete's original processing preserved some of the data intrinsic to his raw capture outcome - I in fact denoised that as well as reduced the scale etc!

As I said previously, if anyone likes prominent banding & colouration on Saturn together with a strong Cassini then just click capture with your camera etc and let the avi run for half an hour.....I'm sure it would get plenty of "oohs & aahs" but it would not only be pretty meaningless but also trivial - unless you were starting out and it was part of the learning process to gain confidence & experience.

Some folks here (not me btw! ) have commented about the need for honesty and objectivity on this forum and reading my post again I see nothing wrong with it and believe I was very polite & sensitive as well as very praising towards Pete's efforts.....as I said, it's his prerogative to tell me so or not and if he had I would most certainly have been apologetic for any misunderstandings - a sensitivity I believe I displayed here very recently to someone who placed something of mine which was NOT public domain in said domain.....but I didn't for one moment question his motives nor made any comment at the time on that matter..!

[neil phillips]

Neil, you seem to be taking my comments about Pete's work as something personal.....Pete has responded to my post (to him about a question he posed!) and his subsequent remarks acknowledge the sincerity/integrity of my response - I fail to see what you're driving at.....I'm sure Pete hardly needs anyone else's "mothering"!

As to the "bright spot" of course it's highly likely to be a storm where sub-surface eruptions alter the contrast - it may of course be milk bubbling up from the local dairy so I'll hedge my bets but tbh I said "probably" because I like to think I have some sensitivity towards possibly sounding like a "smart aleck" - perhaps in vain it would seem.....

I shouldn't be doing basic research for others but take your pick from the first 3 google references I've just pulled here:

http://www.eso.org/s...-no62-59-61.pdf

http://kids.nineplanets.org/saturn.htm

http://kids.nineplanets.org/saturn.htm

If we're being brutally honest I also think there's a lot of confusion between noise & detail, and everyone ought to understand the difference.....it reminds me of someone being asked to weed a garden and ripping everything up, plants and all..!

Also, noise/grain will NEVER look like detail - but like the gardener you've got to first know the difference!

Apologies for being blunt but I took the time to reply courteously and honestly to Pete's question even though I'd just lost my initial intended post through some keyboard pecadillo.....FYI my poor repro had no sharpening whatsoever but the screenshot of Pete's original processing preserved some of the data intrinsic to his raw capture outcome - I in fact denoised that as well as reduced the scale etc!

As I said previously, if anyone likes prominent banding & colouration on Saturn together with a strong Cassini then just click capture with your camera etc and let the avi run for half an hour.....I'm sure it would get plenty of "oohs & aahs" but it would not only be pretty meaningless but also trivial - unless you were starting out and it was part of the learning process to gain confidence & experience.

Some folks here (not me btw! ) have commented about the need for honesty and objectivity on this forum and reading my post again I see nothing wrong with it and believe I was very polite & sensitive as well as very praising towards Pete's efforts.....as I said, it's his prerogative to tell me so or not and if he had I would most certainly have been apologetic for any misunderstandings - a sensitivity I believe I displayed here very recently to someone who placed something of mine which was NOT public domain in said domain.....but I didn't for one moment question his motives nor made any comment at the time on that matter..!

Lol Darryl ive certainly seen plenty of spots on saturn, that may or may not be noise. Not suggesting it was noise in the slightest Here, though milk bubbling up from the dairy wouldnt confuse many i dont think ? just perplexed as to why you said probably. I cant be a mind reader. And know your trying to be humble ?

If your trying to be humble Darryl, i see no need to make comments about things like shiny, and pretty pictures ( it isnt the first time and certainly might not be the last ) implying that some on here ( but no names mentioned, must be your humble nature again ) always seem to process in a way that you clearly dont agree with. And isnt particulaly good at extracting detail. or some noise squasing process that the uk crowd seem to like, is a little lets say not very humble at all. And in a lot of cases may not be true at all.

All i was trying to point out is, if thats the case and you feel like that fine. But its a topic ive noticed you mention time and again, about a lot of images taken and posted in the uk. But you tend to speak of it as a general uk thing, rather than any particular individual. Again humble i guess lol. we must all process these same bad ways then Darryl. unlike you of course.

If it seem like i am taking that personally, then im not really, its just something that gets a bit tireing after a while. And as mentioned perhaps in a lot of cases perhaps unwarrented.

In cases where i may have said probably in relation to spots on saturn. Ive always said, i might be wrong, or it may be noise. Just wondered in this situation why you seemed fairly certain yet, countered that with uncertainty.

( this has nothing to do with Pete ) but more a general observation of a constant negative theme that crops up on different posts from time to time. Not sure you mean to do it. But its there.

Of course i think objectivity is a good thing, But the theme that i see being spoken, ( quite often actually ) doesnt always seem objective to me. More a personal distaste or something about the way certain people like to present there images ?

Here you imply someone ( again no name ) doesnt seem to understand the difference between noise and detail

qoute

If we're being brutally honest I also think there's a lot of confusion between noise & detail, and everyone ought to understand the difference.....it reminds me of someone being asked to weed a garden and ripping everything up, plants and all..!

How the hell does anybody not understand the difference. You mean not be able to tell the difference i think surely?

There has been cases where people have run motion films on saturn to verify noise from detail.

I dont take things too personally Darryl. But you are brutally honest, so why are my brutally honest comments about some of the things you say, and perhaps the way you say them somehow personal. I am speaking generally. I have no idea who your constant comments are directed at, about things like too much colour, pretty pictures , ect you know exactly what i am talking about.

But here you go again

what the hell are you going on about here,

Qoute

As I said previously, if anyone likes prominent banding & colouration on Saturn together with a strong Cassini then just click capture with your camera etc and let the avi run for half an hour.....I'm sure it would get plenty of "oohs & aahs" but it would not only be pretty meaningless but also trivial - unless you were starting out and it was part of the learning process to gain confidence & experience.

i personally havent taken a obsessivly long capture run of saturn to bring out the banding, so i can get ooohs and aahs here. im not sure who has ?

or why anyone would bother to do that, just because they might Like strong banding on saturn,

This has nothing to do with very long runs, which would smear detail . So why are you implying that it might. ?

I think its your way of trying to be funny Darryl . Maybe thats a ozzy thing im not sure . But hey ill laugh like the next guy, but why do i get the feeling the jokes on us ?

Think i am being very objective here. You know i speak my mind, we are very similar in that fashion. though the topics might vary between me and you quite a lot.

I tell you what the next time i do any detail squashing procedures on a planet, or if i might like to try some saturation to bring out the colours. or banding. Ill mention it first, so we can get that topic out the way. And hopefully your disaproval wont be needed. I much prefer when you help people rather than say things that might make them feel they are somehow doing something wrong. or are inferiour in some way.But then again we dont know who these individuals are. as its always spoken of like some kind of uk thing. Then again maybe ill do no noise reduction at all, and not even bother to touch the saturation button. Just to point out hey thats nott hard either lol

Big hug Darryl you know you love me really

[RMcCallum]

Fantastic, bands, divison and shadow. Quality.