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More captures with SDC 435 and C8

DoctorD

By DoctorD
in EEVA - Reports

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DoctorD

DoctorD

Posted
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Hi

Here's my efforts from 2-5-13 all taken with my C8 at F3.3 using the SDC 435 mounted on my iOptron Minitower form my suburban garden.

I did not capture any darks so have removed the amp glow gradient using Photoshop and the tutorial in Steve Massey's Deep Sky Video Astronomy book. All a little rushed as I was so excited when I saw the improvements I could make! I may try again with a little more patients creating the gradient.

I noticed that there was quite a lot of movement between frames, not just field rotation. I think this may be down to some slop in both axis - I'll have a go at adjusting the stop bocks on the Minitower to see if it improves. You might notice some strange shapes - these are the hot pixels wandering around - dark frames should reduce these.

All taken from the comfort of my study with the C8 mounted on the minitower out side on the drive with 10m of cables.

The more I learn about this wonderful hobby the more I want to learn!

Clear Skies

Paul

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post-11951-0-47328500-1368258797_thumb.j

post-11951-0-38259700-1368258800_thumb.j

post-11951-0-10796100-1368258805_thumb.j

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Carl Reade

Carl Reade

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Great shots Paul, your M51 is very good! I notice you use AGC set to high, do you find a lot more noise at this setting? I would love to see your M51 capture just to see what the processing can do.

Cheers Carl

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DoctorD

DoctorD

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Hi Carl

M13 has AGC set to Low - and there is less noise, however a lot depends upon the Brightness setting on the camera and I usually keep it between minimum and half way.

SSNR and SSDR both OFF to allow more control over processing in DSS - if I'm viewing on LCD monitor only then I usually turn these both on.

Here are single frame captures of all the above extracted with Virtualdub from the avi file and M97 processed which did not upload for some reason.

Clear skies and thanks for your kind comments.

Paul

M3.bmp

M13.bmp

M51.bmp

M53.bmp

M97.bmp

post-11951-0-33207000-1368265079_thumb.j

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Steve_Max127

Steve_Max127

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Great set of images Paul, must try my hand at a few as I've only tried live viewing with video so far. Someone bought me Steve Massey's book for Christmas think it is about time I started reading it looking at you results.

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nytecam

nytecam

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Nytecam try buythis.co.UK 90.00 quid....Davy

Thanks Davy - looks interesting - in 'clearance' there's a £15 CCTV Sony box cam but jumps at checkout to £30 [incl VAT and standard £10 postage] !! Probably ok for lunar / planets with 1/50s - 1/000,000s[?] but I need sensup for DSOs. Other cams have no spec sheets. I'll keep looking. Last autumn LNtech Hong Kong did a £50 CCTV LNtech 300? box cam with latest Sony colour chip and sensup x512/ x1024? but can't find it now :shocked:
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DoctorD

DoctorD

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M51 and M97 re-processed with hot pixels removed.

I took some dark frames, stacked in DSS, used PS to create a hot pixel mask and then used this in iPrep to remove hot pixels form original frames.

Then stacked on DSS and created gradient in PS and subtracted this from the stacked frames.

I need to grab more frames in future to reduce the background noise.

Enjoy

Paul

post-11951-0-15712300-1368828157_thumb.j

post-11951-0-23289800-1368828159_thumb.j

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DoctorD

DoctorD

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Hi Carl

I extract the frames from the AVI file using Vob frame Extractor

http://www.qcuiag.org.uk/VOBFE/

This allows you to select which frame to extract - these are stored in the target directory as .BMP

At x512 capture and the maximum setting in Vob Frame Extractor you seem to get a duplicate of every frame but this is no big deal as they are not that big anyway.

Then in DSS just load all the frames into DSS as "light frames" and let DSS do it's magic.

The save the file as a TIFF file - 16bit per colour in DSS, edit in PS adjusting levels, contrast & brightness in 16 bit mode before converting to 8 bit then saving as BMP or JPEG.

I've been trying iPrep to remove the hot pixels from the BMP files before sending to DSS - you need to create a hot pixel map, basically a dark frame with the amp glow removed.

DSS hot pixel detection doe snot work well with video captured files as the hot pixels are usually spread over a number of pixels by the video decoder. DSS thinks these are stars and may try and align with them.

http://jaggedplanet.com/iPrep.html

I have tried using dark frames with DSS but found that the dark frames are usually brighter than the light frames - probably due to the AGC effect in the SDC 435.

Still lots to learn!

Clear skies

Paul

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DoctorD

DoctorD

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Hi Carl

I extract the frames from the AVI file using Vob frame Extractor

http://www.qcuiag.org.uk/VOBFE/

This allows you to select which frame to extract - these are stored in the target directory as .BMP

At x512 capture and the maximum setting in Vob Frame Extractor you seem to get a duplicate of every frame but this is no big deal as they are not that big anyway.

Then in DSS just load all the frames into DSS as "light frames" and let DSS do it's magic.

The save the file as a TIFF file - 16bit per colour in DSS, edit in PS adjusting levels, contrast & brightness in 16 bit mode before converting to 8 bit then saving as BMP or JPEG.

I've been trying iPrep to remove the hot pixels from the BMP files before sending to DSS - you need to create a hot pixel map, basically a dark frame with the amp glow removed.

DSS hot pixel detection doe snot work well with video captured files as the hot pixels are usually spread over a number of pixels by the video decoder. DSS thinks these are stars and may try and align with them.

http://jaggedplanet.com/iPrep.html

I have tried using dark frames with DSS but found that the dark frames are usually brighter than the light frames - probably due to the AGC effect in the SDC 435.

Still lots to learn!

Clear skies

Paul

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DoctorD

DoctorD

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Hi Nytecam

There are a few reviews of this camera on cloudy nights:

http://www.cloudynights.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php/Cat/0/Board/VAA/Number/5283940/page/0/view/collapsed/sb/5/o/o/fpart/all

http://www.cloudynights.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php/Cat/0/Board/VAA/Number/5391973/page/0/view/collapsed/sb/5/o/o/fpart/all

If you get one, let us know how you get on.

HTH

Paul

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Carl Reade

Carl Reade

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Hi Carl

I extract the frames from the AVI file using Vob frame Extractor

http://www.qcuiag.org.uk/VOBFE/

This allows you to select which frame to extract - these are stored in the target directory as .BMP

At x512 capture and the maximum setting in Vob Frame Extractor you seem to get a duplicate of every frame but this is no big deal as they are not that big anyway.

Then in DSS just load all the frames into DSS as "light frames" and let DSS do it's magic.

The save the file as a TIFF file - 16bit per colour in DSS, edit in PS adjusting levels, contrast & brightness in 16 bit mode before converting to 8 bit then saving as BMP or JPEG.

I've been trying iPrep to remove the hot pixels from the BMP files before sending to DSS - you need to create a hot pixel map, basically a dark frame with the amp glow removed.

DSS hot pixel detection doe snot work well with video captured files as the hot pixels are usually spread over a number of pixels by the video decoder. DSS thinks these are stars and may try and align with them.

http://jaggedplanet.com/iPrep.html

I have tried using dark frames with DSS but found that the dark frames are usually brighter than the light frames - probably due to the AGC effect in the SDC 435.

Still lots to learn!

Clear skies

Paul

Cheers Paul will have a go at that. Astronomy software is now taking over the laptop :grin:

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DoctorD

DoctorD

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Hi Carl

There's plenty of detail in there - well done.

More frames will reduce the background noise and you might want to hand select the best frames for stacking in DSS or select the best using the score in DSS.

You have a few less hot pixels than me - you could try using the clone tool in PS to remove these.

I'm discovering that post processing gives me something to do on these cloudy nights!

Clear skies

Paul

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shirva

shirva

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Would like to give congratulations to Paul n Carl on the great photos and sharing there findings with us all and to the way I think the way this forum is picking up with participants like nytecam and Steve mak 127 lets keep it going folk...keep the reviews and mods coming in... and a welcome to all joining in on the video section of sgl....Davy

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