Jupiter advice for the weekend?

[Christopher Davenport]

I need some advice on how to get the detail up and the size of Jupiter.

My goal is to get to a postcard print worthy imagine (for personal use.)  

I am using a 127mm Mak (F11) on a EQ5 Pro and imaging using a QHY5LII (Colour)

Current progress - Some detail but lack size / detail and colour for my print.

Some questions that I need advice on:

Jupiter rotation: 

I have heard that you should not exceed about 90 seconds?

(I just use a image limit 1000 not a time limit @ 5FPS = 3+Min)

Barlow:

Should I increase to F22 or F44?

(Currently I stick to native F11)

Filter:

What is the preferred Filter to use?

(I sometimes use a moon filter.)

Format:

Raw format and debayer in PIPP or Registax?

(I have real problems with Raw so I capture in BMP at 800 by 600 or larger for moons.)

Once I have captured the raw data based on your advice.

I will process and repost to get more advice.

[Beardy Bob]

This is all stuff I'm interested in too. I took my first proper Jupiter image a few days ago with the original qhy5 and was amazed at the amount of rotation between the images taken about 30min or so apart. For what it's worth I've heard that WINjupos is good for derotating images, but I couldn't get to grips with it - it just smeared my image across the screen!. Not much help though, sorry!

[Olorin]

Hi Christopher,

Here is some advice:

1. use F/22 to get a larger Jupiter (don't go to F/44 it is too much)

2. use an IR/UV cut filter

3. make sure your collimation is spot on

4. make sure the focus is spot on

5. take more frames! you can go as far as 3-4 minutes of imaging without any influance due to Jupiter rotation. if you want you can capture for even more time and use WinJUPOS to derotate the captured video

6. use PIPP for image alignment, then AutoStakkert for image stacking and Registax 6 for wavelets, you can finish off with some post processing in photoshop or GIMP

7. when using Registax you can also try the RGB align and RGB balance buttons, the first will align the colors the second will balance out the image color

8. try to use raw and a small resolution (640x480 or even smaller)

Hope this helps

Dror

[Barv]

I need some advice on how to get the detail up and the size of Jupiter.

My goal is to get to a postcard print worthy imagine (for personal use.)  

I am using a 127mm Mak (F11) on a EQ5 Pro and imaging using a QHY5LII (Colour)

Current progress - Some detail but lack size / detail and colour for my print.

Some questions that I need advice on:

Jupiter rotation: 

I have heard that you should not exceed about 90 seconds?

(I just use a image limit 1000 not a time limit @ 5FPS = 3+Min)

Barlow:

Should I increase to F22 or F44?

(Currently I stick to native F11)

Filter:

What is the preferred Filter to use?

(I sometimes use a moon filter.)

Format:

Raw format and debayer in PIPP or Registax?

(I have real problems with Raw so I capture in BMP at 800 by 600 or larger for moons.)

Once I have captured the raw data based on your advice.

I will process and repost to get more advice.

The advice on here all seems good. The other thing you can think of is drizzling. It smoothens out the pixels and helps with detail. (Invented by Nasa for that very reason)! My Ganymede image had a 1.5 drizzle factor, but I have used it to good effect up to 3X. All of this will increase the image scale!

Regards

Regards

[Space Cowboy]

Sound advice from Dror.

Christopher your cam has a ir/uv filter screwed on the end and unless you've unscrewed this you don't need to add any other filters and without the moon filter you should have a considerably faster frame rate.

[DrRobin]

Hi,

I don't know the QHY5-II colour modes but I assume RAW is Y800 or something similar? I use Y800 and debayer in Autostakkert, it works well once you select the right debayer method. The colour balance in your BMP images looks wrong. I have seen this before with colour webcams, change the frame rate or resolution and the colours go all funny. Hopefully someone with the same camera as you can advice on settings.

You might be able to use Registax auto RGB align and auto colour balance, but if the colour codec has chosen the wrong settings every correction will rob you of a little bit of detail.

The detail looks good, drizzle will certainly give you a smoother picture and when seeing is good a 2x Barlow will give you more detail and a bigger image.

It's a great start, plenty to build on.

Robin

[Christopher Davenport]

Brilliant, thanks for the advice.

I will put it to use on Saturday morning during my cloud free window.

News pictures comming on Sunday.

[Christopher Davenport]

Last night was a Pearl for capturing images, I woke at 1am, to find the sky crystal clear, post the midnight rains. (Temp was about zero degrees.)

Quickly dressed warmly and moved my kit out side and setup with Polar and 2 star align by 2am. I did some pre-setup before bed

First up was my Sky at Night tour through my 80ED Frac - Orion, Chrismass Tree, M35, NGC 2301 and 2244. (Gave running man a skip.)

Did a quick sweep of the usual suspects, Andromeda, Pleiades and Jupiter was particularly beautiful in a wide format 28mm eyepiece. 

Setup:

Next I switched to my 127 Mak and my QHY5L (1hr of cooling to -2C) for Imaging of Jupiter.

Laptop booted, RamDisk Initialised at 3GB, EzPlanatery started, camera connected and get focus.

Over the next 1 hour recorded 12.5GB of Data and +- 19000 frames, before pack up and heading in for fear of loosing my toes to frost bight. (-8C)

This was done in 5 data streams where settings where changed and the front of Mak defogged with a blowdry.

Jupiter data streams and settings:

1.) Test run  - x2 Barlow, 640x480, colour +-3000f (1.7Gb 3min25') -2C

2.) First run  - x2 Barlow, 640x480, colour 2705f (1.7Gb 3min13') -3C

3.) Raw Run - x2 Barlow, 640x480, raw 8067f (2.7Gb 3min30') + 1000 dark frames -4C

4.) Raw 14bit - x2 Barlow, 640x480, raw 4028f (2.7Gb 3min30') + 1000 dark frames -5.5C 

5.) Wide Run - 800x600, colour, 1000f (1.2Gb 1Min06') -7.5

I will post my processed images soon but as a taster, I processed the wide run below:

Wide Run - QHY5L - 800x600, colour, 1000f (1.2Gb 1Min06') -7.5

Pipp Align/Crop; AS!2 75% stack/sharpen; Registax 6 Wavelets and RGB Align

Comments

As this was the last run, IO was past its transit of Jupiter.

Was aggressive with wavelets to give Max visabiity of moons.

Small size outcome as drizzle was not possible.

[stargazerslivingroom]

Great to see your improvement following the advice in this thread.

This is very useful for me, too as I'm still a long way behind you.

Excellent Christopher!

Steve.

[Christopher Davenport]

First rounds of processing done, I feel like I have learnt a fair bit about Raw processes and wavelets in this process.

I have had no sucess with Drizzle as it adds alot of noise into the picture and then the wavelets amplifies the noise?

(Anybody who has experience with this please let me know.)

Test run  - x2 Barlow, 640x480, colour +-3000f (1.7Gb 3min25') -2C

Pipp Align/Crop; AS!2 30% stack/sharpen; Registax 6 Wavelets, RGB Align and Contrast

Comments:

I had to throw away 70% of the frames on this run, due to poor focus and dew problems.

Luckily I watched the video after recording and notices the poor picture and rectified the problem.

First run  - x2 Barlow, 640x480, colour 2705f (1.7Gb 3min13') -3C

Pipp Align/Crop; AS!2 75% stack/sharpen; Registax 6 Wavelets, RGB Align and Contrast.

Comments:

This run was somewhat better and I got 50% good frames out of it.

Oddly this stack has produced some ghosting around the edges of the Planet.

​I have exaggerated the wavelets to show this, any ideas how to combat this?

Raw Run - x2 Barlow, 640x480, raw 8067f (2.7Gb 3min30') + 1000 dark frames -4C

AS!2 50% stack/sharpen/de bayer; Registax 6 Wavelets, RGB Align and Contrast. 

(Skipped using Pipp on Raw ones, because I used 1000 stack dark frame.)

Comments:

I first stacked with 75% of frames as these were all good, but still suffered from Ghosting.

So I reduced the stack to 50%, but I am still struggling with ghosting effect, could this be something to do with my Barlow or Dew?

Raw 14bit - x2 Barlow, 640x480, raw 4028f (2.7Gb 3min30') + 1000 dark frames -5.5C 

AS!2 75% stack/sharpen/de bayer; Registax 6 Wavelets, RGB Align and Contrast. 

(Skipped using Pipp on Raw ones, because I used 1000 stack dark frame.)

Comments:

This is my best effort so far, have managed to reduce ghosting somewhat with a histogram stretch and contrast.

But I am losing data like this, so would prefer to get to the root cause.

Is this one good enough to print and show the wife and family, Any last tweaks before I print?

[stargazerslivingroom]

Test run  - x2 Barlow, 640x480, colour +-3000f (1.7Gb 3min25') -2C

Pipp Align/Crop; AS!2 30% stack/sharpen; Registax 6 Wavelets, RGB Align and Contrast

Comments:

I had to throw away 70% of the frames on this run, due to poor focus and dew problems.

Luckily I watched the video after recording and notices the poor picture and rectified the problem.

How did you select 70%? Was that just a rough guess based on your replay and then you used PIPP?

Thanks

Steve

[Christopher Davenport]

How did you select 70%? Was that just a rough guess based on your replay and then you used PIPP?

Thanks

Steve

Hello Steve,

In AS!2 (autostackert 2) when you analyse your data it orders your frames best to worst, and ranks them, so I usually select the percentage of frames that are above a 50 percentage ranking.

I have found that you need at least 750 good frames.

So if you take 2000 frames at least half should pass the test, the more the better though.

I have seen people take 16000 frames and then only choose top quartile and stack 4000 great frames.

I don't know how to get above 8000 frames though.

[Freddie]

A definite improvement on your first image. Keep it up.

[Christopher Davenport]

A definite improvement on your first image. Keep it up.

Thanks, BTW, I did a search on the Wavelets and how to trap noise. 

Interesting read on Registax Website.http://www.astronomie.be/registax/denoiseandsharpen.html

I now understand that I was doing wrong.

Thanks for the advice. Please see this post.

http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/203014-photoshop-tips-for-planets-please-have-a-go/

Also see this thread on exposures, my next challenge!

http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/202986-jupiter-and-ganymede/page-2

[Freddie]

No problem. Happy to have helped you.

[Olorin]

very nice results and great improvement.

Dror

[SnakeyJ]

Stunning improvement in these images Chris, keep going at this rate and you'll be giving Mr Peach a serious run!

[Beardy Bob]

Yeah. Nice work. I've learnt a few tricks from the replies too so thanks to everyone else as well! I'm going to check the link about wavelets too.

[Christopher Davenport]

Stunning improvement in these images Chris, keep going at this rate and you'll be giving Mr Peach a serious run!

Thanks for the approval, it's not a competition really, just want to impress my missus.

Anyway, I am only standing on the shoulders of the giants on this forum.

Maybe Mr Peach can offer some advice on how to get these better?

[Jason71]

Some good images you have taken. Every one is getting better Chris.

[Christopher Davenport]

So I though I would give you all a progress update on my processing and the one I have chosen for my print out.

Final Image for print. (Post card size 125%) of Original. (1.5mb BMP, I have compressed these into Jpeg.)

Comments:

Was aggressive on the wavelets on this one, also have slightly overexposed so that the print comes out better.

Now that I know how to do these I thought I would have another go this evening. Did a single run of 25000 raw images over 5min.

(25% best in stack as a reference frame for a 75% stack and also as a reference frame during wavelets.)

Comments:

Left this smoother as there is far more detail in the 20K frames that where used.