Jupiter First attempt RGBL with ASI120mm

[sulaco]

Evening Folks,

Here's my first attempt using my new ASI120mm and Baader RGBL filter set on the SW200p HEQ5 and Revelation 2.5 Barlow on the 4th at 11pm.

I got the camera about a month and a half ago but as the weather has been so bad I've not had a chance to use it so feeling a bit rusty with planetary imaging.

RGB= 2000 frames each

L= 2600

Captured in Fire Capture 

Thanks

[theo]

Glad you managed to use your new cam for the first time. They are great cameras and can delivery very nice planetary images. To be honest if conditions are reasonable I would consider just capturing RGB frames as most detail (nearly always anyway) will be obtained in the R filter and you can always substitute the luminance with the red giving you RRGB. This is good for extracting all the detail from your images but can reduce colour vibrancy. Careful processing can overcome this to a certain degree though.

In poorer conditions the other option would be to use a iR pass filter which can also be a lum substitute. These filters are good at cutting through poor seeing as they only allow though the wavelengths that are least effected by the seeing.

Well done though.

Pete

[sulaco]

Thanks Pete for the advice, it's been a while since i las did any planetary imaging and I was using my QHY5v colour camera which was ok but best left as my guide camera.

The air wasn't very stable that evening and the scope needs re collimating I noticed whilst having a look about after imaging. The colours obtained via the rgb are just so much better though.

Thanks

[todd8137]

Looks great you,must be pleased

Pat

[sologuitarist61]

That is a very nice image!

[ArmyAirForce]

A friend recently got the colour version of this camera, then loaned it to me. I was very impressed, and my mono version should be arriving in the next day or so, so it's interesting to see your first effort at RGB with this camera. Seeing has been very poor of late, but this camera was giving significantly better results, even in bad seeing. A couple of days ago, I was shooting Jupiter at 213fps, a marginal increase over the SPC900 I had been using at 10fps!!

I'm hoping to try the colour cam on the clubs 14inch Meade tomorrow night.

Looking forwards to seeing more of your results.

[Pete Presland]

a very nice start, obviously the seeing conditions vary so much its difficult to evaluate an image but it looks pretty good to me. i am thinking about upgrading to a new mono camera from my dmk21 the ASI120mm comes ups a lot in the research i have been doing so it will interesting to see your future images. 

[sulaco]

Hi Pete, what a coincidence, I was just looking at you obsy build thread. Looks great, I'm planning now for a similar sized one in the spring.

These cameras are great and good quality manufacturing when you think of the price. I reckon I might invest in an IR pass filter as mentioned above by Theo.

Sent from my GT-I9100P using Tapatalk

[Stephen Green]

 Nice image

  Stephen

[SnakeyJ]

The astronomik proplanet 742 is widely used NIR filter and works well at this apperture - found it to be excellent for lunar and Jupiter, though not as good on Saturn which is much dimmer.     Used as a luminance it will give detail, but is not a good substitute for true luminance data.   I think Theo's suggestion of R-RGB looks better than IR-RGB.

By no means the best example, but for comparison here's an IR and Lum frame from a recent run on Jupiter (PP742, Baader CCD Lum, QHY5L-IIM with Exp200P):

2013-12-29-0030.2-JG-IR.tif   2013-12-29-0032.8-JG-L.tif

Does illustrate the difference between the channels.

Edit - The PP742 is probably more useful on Saturn at larger aperture, though I found Red was noticeably better with my 8" newt!

[catman161]

A friend recently got the colour version of this camera, then loaned it to me. I was very impressed, and my mono version should be arriving in the next day or so, so it's interesting to see your first effort at RGB with this camera. Seeing has been very poor of late, but this camera was giving significantly better results, even in bad seeing. A couple of days ago, I was shooting Jupiter at 213fps, a marginal increase over the SPC900 I had been using at 10fps!!

I'm hoping to try the colour cam on the clubs 14inch Meade tomorrow night.

Looking forwards to seeing more of your results.

I use the ASI120MC with Sharpcap 2 and can never get it I capture at a rate higher than 30fps. Could you advise on how you got yours to capture at 213fps? That's absolutely amazing!

[ArmyAirForce]

What computer did you use to run the camera? I was using a Win7 Laptop with dual 2.2GHz processors and 4Gb RAM. I did a test indoors yesterday. During the capture, at 320x240pixels, it was 1.62GB of RAM with no other programs running. CPU was 60 to 80%, 117fps. At 640x480 pixels, 1.77GB ram usage, 86% CPU usage, 98fps. The Gain and exposure vary the capture speeds, so it also depends on those settings. Frame rate set to infinity, Exposure typically 7 to 8, Gain 60 to 80, WB 5000, Gamma 50, brightness 0, RGB24.

Shooting the Sun yesterday, varied from 26fps @ 1280x960, and to 213fps @ 320x240. I got 126fps at 800x320 for a long region of interest to catch the big Sun spot group AR 1944.

The lady who loaned me the camera was only getting a little over 100fps on her 1GB RAM laptop.

[sulaco]

The astronomik proplanet 742 is widely used NIR filter and works well at this apperture - found it to be excellent for lunar and Jupiter, though not as good on Saturn which is much dimmer.     Used as a luminance it will give detail, but is not a good substitute for true luminance data.   I think Theo's suggestion of R-RGB looks better than IR-RGB.

By no means the best example, but for comparison here's an IR and Lum frame from a recent run on Jupiter (PP742, Baader CCD Lum, QHY5L-IIM with Exp200P):

2013-12-29-0030.2-JG-IR.tif   2013-12-29-0032.8-JG-L.tif

Does illustrate the difference between the channels.

Edit - The PP742 is probably more useful on Saturn at larger aperture, though I found Red was noticeably better with my 8" newt!

Thanks for the examples there is a really clear difference with that filter, very subtle  detail seems much sharper. My other issue that evening was getting to grips with Fire Capture which is a great App but hadn't fully appreciated the amount of presetting there was for each of the filters in terms of exposure, gain and gamma so the initial use of it was trial and error.

[sulaco]

I use the ASI120MC with Sharpcap 2 and can never get it I capture at a rate higher than 30fps. Could you advise on how you got yours to capture at 213fps? That's absolutely amazing!

Try using Fire Capture, it's a far more comprehensive app.

[SnakeyJ]

Thanks for the examples there is a really clear difference with that filter, very subtle  detail seems much sharper. My other issue that evening was getting to grips with Fire Capture which is a great App but hadn't fully appreciated the amount of presetting there was for each of the filters in terms of exposure, gain and gamma so the initial use of it was trial and error.

Not certain with the colour cam, as I've only played with a few webcams, but with the mono I was advised to disable or set gamma to zero - leaving the adjustments for post processing.   Sure someone else here can confirm or deny this.

FC is quite handy in remembering the camera settings for each filter - which makes it simpler within a session to concentrate on grabbing the data with only occassional tweaks to keep the histogram around 75%.    I tend to focus and then flip through each of the filter profiles to adjust the settings before starting a run - though you do need to keep an eye on the histogram and make the occassional tweak.    When the image dims and histogram falls sharply it's usually high cloud or dew on the secondary (or objective for fracs).    

Being rather follicly challenged, my good lady was rather surprised/suspicious when I put a £5 Tesco value hair dryer in to the trolley a few weeks back.    But it does the job perfectly and saves me smuggling her posh hair dryer out to the observatory.    Clears the secondary in 20-30 seconds, but takes a couple of minutes for the seeing to settle back down.