Full moon with QHY5L-II Mono and IR-pass filter

[Jannis]

This is the full moon from just a coupple of hours ago. First time i use my IR-pass filter, and first time i use the QHY for anything else then guiding.

Taken with Astronomik ProPlanet 742 IR-pass and QHY5L-II Mono. Recorded 1000frames with EZPlanetary from each part of the mosaic.

Stacked in AVIstack2, stitched in MS ICE, and processed slightly in PS.

Full res available here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/apwgczv1xui7wcs/Fullmoon-19-10-2013.IR-akam-sgl.jpg

[Luke]

Very nice, Jannis   How do you find the QHY compared to your DSLR for the moon?

[Jannis]

Thanks.

I found the 5L-II a bit difficult to use compared to the DSLR.

Not because of the camera itself i think, but because EZPlanetary is a real PITA to work with, and crashed probably somwehere between 20-30 times during last night. Where i'm used to a DSLR that simply just works - every time, all the time.

Tried firecapture as well, and that was rock solid, but either it didn't have all the camera options i wanted, or i simply haven't understood teh program completly yet. I'm hoping it's the last option, as i'm getting really tired of EZPlanetary...

However when it did work, it was very nice and easy to use, and even easier then the DSLR.

Oh, and be awere - this camera is space hungry! I though i'd be fine for the night with ~60GB free space - that lasted about 20 min...

But with  image quality, I didn't notice any massive difference. It's still better overall then the DSLR, and with slightly higher resolution. But even with the IR-pass filter i still didn't get the feeling of a really sharp moon.

It's my first night with this cam though, so with more time i'll probably get better results.

What's a bit more interesting is i was able to capture M57 in IR as well - so it's confirmed that IR deep sky is possible with this cam - now i just need to figure out what i can use IR data for...

[Luke]

Ouch, what a lot of crashes!   Looks really great for a first night with the cam, look forward to seeing your future shots with it.

[SnakeyJ]

Nice full moon Jannis - I've just done my own mosaic of the moon tonight with the QHY and IR-742, using EQMosaic for the first time.    The camera is certainly IR sensitive enough.

I gave up on EZP well before using it and settled on Firecapture which is really very good and much more fully featured.    Sharpcap is also widely recommended and very similar in features.

[Sandancer10]

Hi Jannis, I read with interest your comments about IR photography and deep sky objects. I have a dedicated IR camera which I use for normal photography as I love the effects you can get using this medium. I thought that IR was not possible for AP as every post I read someone seems to be using IR filters to block it out.

I have wondered whether it's possible to get extra detail from nebula etc with this type of AP although I havn't tried it yet.

I took my first shots of the Moon recently using my DSLR (Canon 600D) straight through the focusser and I was pleased with the result, but I think the Moon must be a good candidate for IR due to the high contrast. Have you any IR pictures you can flag up of deep sky as I would be very interested to see them.

Brenda

[Jannis]

Jake: very interesting. Do you have a full res pic of it? I'd love to compare it to mine, as we both used the same camera and filter

Brenda: i have the picture, yes, just not right here and right now. I'll upload a little later.

It's aperantly fully possible to capture IR data from nebulas it seems, as i surly got a result, and i dubt the filter is letting through anything else.

But i've never worked with anything but RGB files before, so i have really no idea how to add that layer of IR data into an RGB picture, and select a color for it.

The pic i got of M57 was very poor though. Very noisy, and very blurry. Blurry is probably due to my focusing and poor tracking due to no guiding and strong wing.

The noise was odd thoug. It was lines all over the picture, and every now and then the upper and lower part of the picture just lit up really strong.

I only took short exposures though, i think it was 30 or 60 sec. Would love to try long exposure with low gain and guiding.

[Pig]

Really great image, the full res is even better   On top of this its your first go.  

Its got to be worth a Jaffa award   

[Jannis]

Thanks!

Here is the M57 IR data, btw:

http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/197522-ir-data-what-to-do-with-it/

[SnakeyJ]

Jake: very interesting. Do you have a full res pic of it? I'd love to compare it to mine, as we both used the same camera and filter

Hi Jannis,

not as smoothly processed or cropped, but here's my 9 pane mosaic at 900mm f/l taken last night with the PP742/QHY5L-IIM

Only a very rough process on the data, stacked in AS!2, wavelets in R6, cropped in Gimp and combined in MS ICE.   

[Luke]

Lovely shot, Jake

[Jannis]

Very nice capture indeed. Looks like you've got it a bit more detailed then me also. May i ask what exposure and gain settings you used?

[SnakeyJ]

Very nice capture indeed. Looks like you've got it a bit more detailed then me also. May i ask what exposure and gain settings you used?

Thanks Jannis - I was using full frame @ 8bit depth with very fast shutter and gain set below 100 (around 70-80 I think, but for some reason firecapture logged this as a zero value!) - With the moon, I try to achieve 60-70% illumination according to the histogram, but in this case it was a little higher than norm!

FireCapture v2.3 (beta 14) Settings

------------------------------------

Observer=Jake Gully

Location=Bembridge, Isle of Wight

Scope=SWEXP200P

Camera=QHY5LIIM

Filter=IR-PASS (PP742)

Profile=Moon

Filename=2013-10-19-2213.3-JG-CH4.ser

Date=20131019

Start=221322

Mid=221326

End=221331

Duration=8s

Frames captured=200

File type=SER

Binning=no

ROI=1280x960

FPS (during start of capture)=25

Shutter=0.756ms

Gain=0

Histogramm(min)=12

Histogramm(max)=221

Histogramm=86%

Noise(avg.deviation)=9.98

Limit=200 Frames

I only shot 200 frames per panel and then stacked the best 125.    I do find AS!2 really nice for stacking lunar/planetary, especially as it will batch process all the capture files unattended.   I used R6 for wavelets, though many seem to prefer R5.    I've not used AVI stack so can't give a comparison, but I do find SER format writes more quickly achieving higher frame rates (as this part is handled by the capture application, I assume that the codec is more efficient/less processor intensive?).    I definitely think firecapture has the edge for controlling this camera (though it is written in Java and many say that Sharpcap performs better on older hardware and netbooks).    My capture laptop is an old HP625, running Win7x64 on a dual core Ahtlon II P320, which has no problems.

Looking forward to a shot at Jupiter with this combination - last year I shot some IR-PASS using my firefly mv and got much finer detail than with the L filter.    I did try it out on Saturn earlier this year, but found the IR was to weak,  the frame rates were very low and as the elevation and seeing were poor the results were not as good as my L channel.    For Saturn I found that R-RGB worked best with the 200P, though perhaps a bigger newt would edge it with the IR-PASS?     Venus is the obvious target, though not had a go at this to date.

[Jannis]

I see. Interesting to see that we used quite a bit different settings. I'll try settings more equal to you next time and see if it's any different.

How is fire capture with long exposures, btw? I know it's a setting for "long exposure mode" in EZP, but i don't know how that is in FC?

[SnakeyJ]

Much better for LX - EZP crashed every 5 mins, but u want firecap beta 2.3 b14 for best results. Still a little clunky, but no hangs recently

typed on my mobile with Tapatalk

[Jannis]

Ok, good to know. But is there a seperate long exposure mode setting in FC i need to turn on/off like in EZP?

[SnakeyJ]

Jannis - its set automatically once the exp goes over 3 seconds. Though you may need to turn high speed back on if doing any planetary later.

Though FC remembers cam settings for different profiles (Moon, Jupiter,DSO.....) and u can add your own.

So much more featured. Will also do you ascom filter wheel, focuser and help guide for planetary.

typed on my mobile with Tapatalk

[Jannis]

Allright, sounds all good. I'll just drop EZP from now on then, and focus on FC.