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WHY??????!! Absolutly sick of this.

NIGHTBOY

By NIGHTBOY
in Getting Started With Imaging

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Macavity

Macavity

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Just for the sake of fairness and balance... Registax is rubbish 'in your opinion' its a free program that someone took time to develop and allows hundreds of users to process poor avi files into pretty decent images. I do feel for you though... Hope you sort it out :-)

Exactly so. Signed, the PLF - "Programmer Liberation Front". :D

Though useful to learn of others' experiences... preferences...

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NIGHTBOY

NIGHTBOY

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I'll be totally honest. I've found it an absolute headache from start to finish. I've spent hours/nights on it getting no where. Yes I'm not computer minded but even so, been very close to loosing my rag many times. It always seems like one step forward 2 back. would be nice if it told you your file was too big instead of just closing down. just my 2p's worth.

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allcart

allcart

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Totally agree nightboy. If a proggy just freezes or closes down, it looks like it has crashed. A simple on screen message saying the filesize is too big etc would give an indication of the problem and stop all the frustration.

I use AS!2 and love it.

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Steve Ward

Steve Ward

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It's a program that captures the liveview stream from Canon EOS cameras and effectively turns them into video cameras , the advantage over the built in video output from the 1100D or similar is that it downloads straight onto the laptop harddrive in a folder of your choosing , as opposed to just being recorded on an SD card that you then have to faff about downloading after a few shots.

You can capture full frame or at 5 x zoom .

http://sourceforge.net/projects/eos-movrec/

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JamesF

JamesF

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Ok so here's the final image, now I'm sure you'll agree its pretty pants. Is this all I can expect from a dslr mounted on a 200p dob??? The video I took was about 1min 50 secs.

A 200P dob has a focal length of 1200mm.  That's going to give you 172 arcseconds per mm at the image sensor.  Jupiter at its closest (which it isn't, yet) is 50 arcseconds across, so I'd say it will only cover about 0.25mm of your camera sensor.  I don't know which camera you're using, nor how it does video, but if the pixel size of the camera is around 5um that's going to give to an image of Jupiter about 50 pixels across.  That really isn't very big whichever way you cut it.

I've always said that you can do some planetary imaging with a dob, but it is very awkward.  You really need a lot more image scale to get a decent image and that means using some fairly large barlows, which make tracking the planet even harder.

Planetary imaging is not a walk in the park.  No-one should think it is.  I reckon it took me around two years of practice before I started to get images I was happy with on a reasonably reliable basis and I'm still nowhere near the standard of others posting here.  And that is with a scope and camera suited to planetary imaging.  Getting things wrong is part of the learning process.  There is no value in getting wound up when you have a bad night.  I've spent three or four hours some nights in the freezing cold capturing data only to find the next morning that it was rubbish and not even worth processing.  You learn what you can, change whatever you think might need changing, put it down to experience, move on and aim to do better next time.

James

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JamesF

JamesF

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Totally agree nightboy. If a proggy just freezes or closes down, it looks like it has crashed. A simple on screen message saying the filesize is too big etc would give an indication of the problem and stop all the frustration.

I use AS!2 and love it.

In this instance part of the reason for the problem is history, I think.  The kind of size video file that can be produced now was rare when Registax v5 was released.  I'm not even sure it was possible to produce files larger than 2GB when it was originally released.  I've always had the impression that the 2GB "fix" was a bit of a hack that became redundant in the developers' view once v6 was released.

James

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RikM

RikM

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Nightboy if you are using a big chip and letting the planet drift across then PIPP as a first step will save you loads of hassle by getting rid of all the black space that does nothing but take up file space.

JamesF's processing walkthrough in the thread he linked to is spot on. That's exactly the way I do it as well (not that that is any recommendation, my planetary images are pretty hopeless) but that method is by far the easiest way to get the best results out the data you have.

If you don't have a tracking mount, you can't use a small chip webcam, so I would suggest sticking with the DSLR output and using PIPP to crop it down to manageable data.

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JamesF

JamesF

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God I wish I had a tracking scope....

If you're moderately competent at DIY you could make an equatorial wedge for a dob and motorise it to track well enough for some imaging.  There are several examples in the DIY section.

James

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NIGHTBOY

NIGHTBOY

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Nightboy if you are using a big chip and letting the planet drift across then PIPP as a first step will save you loads of hassle by getting rid of all the black space that does nothing but take up file space.

JamesF's processing walkthrough in the thread he linked to is spot on. That's exactly the way I do it as well (not that that is any recommendation, my planetary images are pretty hopeless) but that method is by far the easiest way to get the best results out the data you have.

If you don't have a tracking mount, you can't use a small chip webcam, so I would suggest sticking with the DSLR output and using PIPP to crop it down to manageable data.

Get you. Yes that's what I'm using, non tracking 200p dob and my D700, I set it to video and let the image drift through the viewfinder.

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JamesF

JamesF

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Nightboy if you are using a big chip and letting the planet drift across then PIPP as a first step will save you loads of hassle by getting rid of all the black space that does nothing but take up file space.

This is a really good point.  There's a lot of black around your image.  PIPP can crop all that off for you, making processing faster and almost certainly fixing the file size issue.  You can probably tell PIPP to crop the image to 150x150 quite safely, but it has a test mode for you to try it out to make sure.

James

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JamesF

JamesF

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So what webcam would people suggest??

The SPC900 is really the one to go for, if you can find one for sale second hand.  ZWO have a new low-end planetary camera out -- the ASI034MC, but I've no idea what it's like yet.  I know at least two people on SGL have it and I'm sure they'll be posting images soon.  If you want to keep the spending under control, bide your time and buy second-hand.

However, and this is probably important; the sensor on a planetary imaging camera is tiny.  Perhaps six times smaller than your DSLR.  Trying to keep the planet on the sensor with a manual dob will likely drive you nuts.  Be in no doubt about this.  If what happened with Registax over the last few days has driven you to distraction, the difficulty of keeping a planetary image on a webcam sensor will probably have you throwing all your kit into the next county.

I would stick with what you are using now.  Perhaps look at adding a 2x or 2.5x barlow as you become more confident.  Learn your way around the imaging software available.  Get to be comfortable with it. When you feel you've achieved as much as you reasonably can, have a review of where you are and what you'd like to be able to do and then decide what is the best way to get there.

James

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JamesF

JamesF

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  1. Yes I've tried that james but as soon as I go below 1200 1200 then press test, the picture looks like some old spectrum game, loads of blue blocks?

In that case I'd post a specific question about that.  Chris, the author of PIPP, is a regular SGL reader and may be able to offer advice.

James

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