Saturn April 19-20th QHY-DFK IR-COLOUR

[Space Cowboy]

Seeing went from the worst I've ever seen to reasonable for a 20 min window. Combined dfk colour and qhy IR pass captures between 12.33 and 12.50am.

Colour QHY5L-ll cam came yesterday but had major colour balance issues so need to get some advice using that.

QHY IR+ DFK colour:

DFK colour:

Another combo version :

DFK colour run through pipp :

Here is an image with the colour QHY the colour balance is horrid I'm clearly doing something wrong (wavelets no other processing, seeing was much worse on this)

[Alan]

Some nice shots Stuart. To my eyes images 3 and 4 are the best but not a lot to choose between the DFK solo and IR combo.

I had a go last night but only bothered with IR as the seeing was awful. Did you use the eyepiece turret?

Cheers

[Space Cowboy]

Thanks Alan yes the seeing was at its best during the DFK capture. I decided the conditions were too poor to use the wheel as the extension increases scale. I need something like a 2.5x barlow for that as these were taken with my 3x tal.

[neil phillips]

Might well be your best one yet, despite the up and down seeing. So worth it i think. I didnt try, because im decorating and its madness here at the mo. You will know when you hit the good seeing ( and it might not even happen this low ) is when the cassini is clean at the front. ive only managed one or two reds myself where the cassini is fairly clean at the front. Green and blue just kill it stone dead. Its tricky this year as we are finding out. All the more remarkable for the guys that have had a clean cassini in colour. Freddie Pete Chris Ect. with the best seeing. I am sure theres more to give Stuart ? what do you think ? If its any consolation i can tell you got a good set of SW optics. They are perfoming well. A bargain you got with this scope

[si@nite]

No 3 for me stuart is the best, better than i could manage, well done.

[Space Cowboy]

Thanks Neil the way seeing was at the start last night I did not expect to grab images of any use but yes these are my best so far this year. With good seeing I expect to improve on these by a large margin but as you say will that happen?

Think I've got a better understanding of the qhy colour settings from the qhy forum so can give that cam a proper test next time. The colour QHY is much more sensitive than the DFK with a faster frame rate at less gain. Still had to use 100% gain on the dfk to get 30fps.

Cheers Simon!

[theo]

Nice captures Stuart. Seeing has been poor for quite a while now so I hope we get a dose of the good stuff soon!! You have done great with these though.

I had some real problems with the new ASI cam and Firecapture but thankfully have resolved it now...phew!! Hoping to get out there tonight.

Pete

[Space Cowboy]

Thanks Pete! Steep learning curve with these new cams especially having to use different capture software. Firecapture is a great program but it does take a while getting to grips with all the options and where everything is. I just found last night a drop down menu off the gamma control to adjust the colour channels for the OSC QHY which I'd no idea were there at first.