The Moon at 1000x Magnification (video)

[JamesF]

Just been having a play Mike, just wanted to see what detail might be trying to hide in there.

That looks very impressive.

James

[Mick UK]

Cath i think bringing more detail out in the image tends to create to much noise when you enlarge it, its certainly a lot sharper but if you enlarge them both and compare them side by side its a trade off between more detail and more noise or more natural looking and no noise, and to honest, once printed out as a photograph, my personal choice is the more natural look, although as the saying goes....beauty is in the eye of the beholder

[Mick UK]

Your scope would never focus at x1000 Web cams 15mm maybe your scopes practical power is what ?m

Pat

My error Pat, i was always under the assumption that the webcam was classed as the equivalent of a 6mm eye piece, and judging by the replies it looks like ive been mistaken.

How would i find out what the true magnification is? is it a given that the webcam is the equivalent of a 15mm eyepiece?

The highest practical power for the 250pds is 500x.

[todd8137]

Not sure ,to,be honest I,have a c9.25 with a good 2.5m focal lenght and I use 2x Barlow and dmk 21 mono so not sure what mine would be. I did,a,vid the other night night with the 16" reflector and the same camera you used as I find converting raw to any other formats looses quality .i used the logitec had software that came with it .going to try the hd cam tonight as well as the dmk

Stick at it tho I love the moon vids and my YouTube Chanel as loads on there search for me todd8137 get some more done whats it like with out the Barlow I shall try tonight with the 2.5 tele tonight fingers crossed

Pat

[Cath]

Cath i think bringing more detail out in the image tends to create to much noise when you enlarge it, its certainly a lot sharper but if you enlarge them both and compare them side by side its a trade off between more detail and more noise or more natural looking and no noise, and to honest, once printed out as a photograph, my personal choice is the more natural look, although as the saying goes....beauty is in the eye of the beholder

Yup, you're no doubt right there

I was bored so thought I'd had a quick 5 mins seeing what I could extract from your image. I was only using an old 8-bit image editing program on my small (but beefy 13") laptop and thought I'd post what came out.

Anyway, lawn mowed, hot tuppa tea by my side, sunny as anything, lovely and warm. Nice day

[Cornelius Varley]

There is no true magnification. The webcam may give you a field of view that is similar to  a certain focal length eyepiece, but, in reality, the value is meaningless. A better figure to work to is the arcsecond/pixel ratio which, for imaging, makes more sense.

[Mick UK]

Pat, ive been looking at your Youtube videos (some really cracking ones there by the way ) and i was wondering (im trying to compare camera's here) in this video...

which you used the dmk21 mono camera, have you uploaded it at its original resolution? the reason im asking is that if you look at this video i took with the MS Lifecam Studio and put both videos at maximum settings and open them both up to full screen, the one with the dmk21 loses a lot of sharpness and pixelates where as the the one with the Lifecam doesnt.

I guess it begs the question.... is the dmk21 really a better camera for £285 as opposed to the Lifecam at £48 ?

[JamesF]

I guess it begs the question.... is the dmk21 really a better camera for £285 as opposed to the Lifecam at £48 ?

Depends what you want to do with it really I think.  I struggle to see that any of the DxK21 cameras are really worth the new price when compared to the competition these days and if you want to take large-ish images of Moon craters then the limited resolution of those cameras when compared with something that will do 1280x1024 for instance is something of a handicap.  For planetary imaging however, where the targets are not as bright and need a more sensitive camera, don't really require the resolution and the camera can provide high frame-rate mono or raw colour data I think the Lifecam loses out.

For images such as those posted in this thread I'd probably be very tempted to use the Lifecam myself if I didn't also have an ASI120MM.

James

[todd8137]

Hi when use in the 12" scope I was using a spc900 Philips cam the other were,done with the dmk but camtasia my video,editing ssuite will not except raw video so I have to convert them so the converter I use is rubbish but I would,say the dmk is leaps,and bounds of the webcam ,I have the said webcam you have and will have a play with it tonight I just looked at yours on YT it analysed it at 30fps and 720 not 1080p ,if I can fine some way to convert raw video that will not be to lossy I will be happy what did you use ?

Ps this is my camera

http://www.firstlightoptics.com/imaging-source-cameras/dmk-21au618as-mono.html

Pat

[todd8137]

Depends what you want to do with it really I think.  I struggle to see that any of the DxK21 cameras are really worth the new price when compared to the competition these days and if you want to take large-ish images of Moon craters then the limited resolution of those cameras when compared with something that will do 1280x1024 for instance is something of a handicap.  For planetary imaging however, where the targets are not as bright and need a more sensitive camera, don't really require the resolution and the camera can provide high frame-rate mono or raw colour data I think the Lifecam loses out.

For images such as those posted in this thread I'd probably be very tempted to use the Lifecam myself if I didn't also have an ASI120MM.

James

Hi James will shall see,set the 9.25 up and I have the same life cam so will so,will shoot some avi's tonight and see how they turn out ,the life came does have wide mode and a zoom feature that can make the detail look bigger and zoom right in will give it a blast tonight

Pat

[todd8137]

The said video was what it says a test also I did have to convert which killed the res

Pat

[todd8137]

The said video was what it says a test also I did have to convert ,the final images speak for them selfs in the vid. which killed the res

Pat

[Mick UK]

Pat, sorry about that, i posted the link to the wrong video, i have 2 of the same area, this is the one i should have put up thats at 1080 resolution.

heres a screen shot of the video information.....

I use Sharpcap to capture the footage then convert the file which is  4.88gb using Freemake Video Converter (free) into an avi file (49.5mb) for uploading onto Youtube.

When you open Freemake add your video then chose avi, another box opens (avi output options) then choose HD 1080p and convert.

Im just going to put the original 4.48gb file on my 55"  HD tv and see what it looks like!!   brb

[todd8137]

Nice will give the software a look later as a will try and convert the raw camtasia out puts the vid in mp4 a think so it might be up scaled to hd. Not sure was a long time ago

Pat nearly dark getting excited

Pat

[HumptyMoo]

Going back to earlier convo's I can tell from the video info that USB 2.0 is the item giving you grief, 58mb/s is roughly 30% more bandwidth than USB 2.0 can handle in real world terms, even though the specification is 60mb/s for 2.0 you'll not see that in actual use, most I've personally seen is about 40-45mb/s.

give it a little while for 3.0 to recoup its design costs and I'm sure we'll get some nice bits of cheap kit coming around the corner, after all, the computing industry isn't known to hang around

[Mick UK]

Heres a photograph ive just taken of the moon video been played on my 55" HD TV.

The qaulity is spot on although around the edges of the screen there are some grey dotting which i assume is down to the telescope not been as focused on the outside of the image as it it towards the middle.

Perhaps i should invest in a field flattener to sort this out? would that work using a webcam?

[Mick UK]

Going back to earlier convo's I can tell from the video info that USB 2.0 is the item giving you grief, 58mb/s is roughly 30% more bandwidth than USB 2.0 can handle in real world terms, even though the specification is 60mb/s for 2.0 you'll not see that in actual use, most I've personally seen is about 40-45mb/s.

give it a little while for 3.0 to recoup its design costs and I'm sure we'll get some nice bits of cheap kit coming around the corner, after all, the computing industry isn't known to hang around

As i mentioned earlier in the thread Humpty, theres a usb3 1080p webcam just come out although the price is over £200 at the minute, hopefully it will quickly be reduced as other companies bring out their own models.

The future is looking exciting technology wise for us astro imagers  :smiley:

[todd8137]

There's tree dead pixels as,well in a triangle it's in all your pics and video it will look good on a hd tv but not every one looks at Sgl on one,let's see what tonight brings

Pat

[Mick UK]

There's tree dead pixels as,well in a triangle it's in all your pics and video it will look good on a hd tv but not every one looks at Sgl on one,let's see what tonight brings

Pat

3 dead pixels?  are you referring to the 3 black dots at around 7 oclock below and left of the crater?  i think thats muck on the camera/powermate if you are :shocked: :grin:

[HumptyMoo]

I could be talking rubbish here but it just looks like a bit of noise that is more evident at the edges because it is not so readily hidden by the centre being more in focus (which I think is what you are inferring anyway ).

My PC monitor is 1920x1200 so a bit better than HD, however as it is only 26" so the pixel density allow for much closer scrutiny before the pixels are clearly visible.

Maybe you could try a control capture of a white background or some other uniform contrast, just to see what noise is generated at that res by the cam itself? *shrug*

[Mick UK]

I could be talking rubbish here but it just looks like a bit of noise that is more evident at the edges because it is not so readily hidden by the centre being more in focus (which I think is what you are inferring anyway ).

My PC monitor is 1920x1200 so a bit better than HD, however as it is only 26" so the pixel density allow for much closer scrutiny before the pixels are clearly visible.

Maybe you could try a control capture of a white background or some other uniform contrast, just to see what noise is generated at that res by the cam itself? *shrug*

Good idea, i'll try that now

[Mick UK]

Humpty, heres a quick vid uploaded onto youtube at 1920x1080 and uploaded in its original state which is 237mb at 8 seconds length.

Im not sure if this helps or not, i just took it pointing it at my pc monitor and moved it slightly now and then to give it some different contrast.

The marks are not there now and i after checking i noticed they were on my baader filter which ive now cleaned.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFtGePCzgZ4&feature=youtu.be

[HumptyMoo]

I don't know if you managed to look as well, but I am pretty sure the cam was showing noise when going from dark to light. unfortunately I couldn't frame by frame it on youtube very well, but, it does seem that at 1080p at least, has delay in the sensor changing from black to white, which would figure if the edges of your moon shot were wobbling slightly out of focus, rapid back and forth grey changes might be tripping it up.

I may well be wrong though, just to give you that feeling of confidence To be fair though I am just "calling" on a youtube vid so you can hopefully understand my non committal stance.

[HumptyMoo]

Also, MS does not support that cam at 1080p, probably due to the bandwidth issue we already identified.

MS merely state that it is capable, which sure does give a lot of legal wiggle room At 720p it is supported though, The sensor is the first component in the chain, remember that the hardware/firmware that is reading the signal may be well be machine coded/software written to work at 720 but is stretched at 1080.

My main train of thought though is that even though it is clearly a decent cam, given your shots, it was designed to focus on head shots in stable lighting and background conditions, asking it to peer into the heavens is asking it to do several 24 hour shifts on a Sunday for single pay

[chrisjose1913]

Very nice, i must ask have you ever pointed at the Apollo landing site ?