ASI224mc 1st light Poor Mars and Saturn even worse!

[Pete Presland]

My kind family bought me for my 50th birthday (18th June) a ASI224mc. I finally got to give it a 1st light on Sunday evening, as a fairly experienced planetary imager I should have known better than think it would be easy   Obviously the targets are not very easy at the best of times and Sunday was not close to the best.

Not sure if I have done anything wrong during the capture or processing, I have included the capture log below. The Mars is not too bad, but the Saturn is pretty yuuk!

Any advice/criticism would be welcome as always. 

Camera=ZWO ASI224MC
Filter=RGB
Profile=Mars
Diameter=16.00"
Magnitude=-1.35
CM=111.7°  (during mid of capture)
FocalLength=6550mm
Resolution=0.19"
Filename=Mars_030716_220728.ser
Date=030716
Start=220728.570
Mid=220805.416
End=220842.263
Start(UT)=210728.570
Mid(UT)=210805.416
End(UT)=210842.263
Duration=73.693s
Date_format=ddMMyy
Time_format=HHmmss
LT=UT
Frames captured=10130
File type=SER
Binning=no
ROI=512x440
ROI(Offset)=0x0
FPS (avg.)=137
Shutter=2.050ms
Gain=275
Brightness=1
AutoExposure=off
Gamma=50
USBTraffic=100
WRed=52
SoftwareGain=10 (off)
HardwareBin=off
WBlue=95
HighSpeed=off
Histogramm(min)=0
Histogramm(max)=183
Histogramm=71%
Noise(avg.deviation)=n/a
Limit=180 Seconds
Sensor temperature=27.1 °C

[xtreemchaos]

thats a great firstlight Pete, your mars is betterthan ive got this year and you have good detail on saturn, it takes a while to get to know your new camera.well done.thanks  ps happy 50th, 50 is the new 30 mate

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Not the best conditions, indeed. Still some detail showing. Congrats on the half century, and the new camera

[si@nite]

A good effort Pete, not easy targets especially when finding your way around a new cam!

BTW welcome to the fifties club!

[laudropb]

Good images for your first light with new camera.

[PeterCPC]

The seeing has been just awful here lately so you may have the same issues.

Peter

[neil phillips]

Hopefully others who use the 224 will no more Pete. All I can tell is obviously seeing was worse than pants, and you do have some serious colour dispersion going on there. Hence all the guys using a ADC. Its a great camera. So its just niggles. Congrats on the first light

[Pete Presland]

11 minutes ago, neil phillips said:

Hopefully others who use the 224 will no more Pete. All I can tell is obviously seeing was worse than pants, and you do have some serious colour dispersion going on there. Hence all the guys using a ADC. Its a great camera. So its just niggles. Congrats on the first light

Yes I thought about the ADC I nearly bought a 2nd hand one off AB&S last week. 

[Dave Lloyd]

Had a look at Mars last night at 167x. There was a disc but absolutely nothing else. Horrible seeing at the moment.

[astroman001]

It's the seeing and altitude. Not much wrong with a 224MC.  Colour dispersion is a big problem at this altitude as Neil says. An ADC is essential really. You can get some reduction by re-aligning the RGB planes in Registax wavelets. Also an auto colour balance will help, again a feature in Registax. I find the colours muted after doing it, so boost saturation in photoshop or similar after. Hope that helps. 

Peter

[Pete Presland]

Thanks for the comments, I figured it was mostly seeing. I think we have been getting battered by the jet stream recently to go with the difficult altitude of the planets. Very impressed with the frame rates though.

When stacking in A/S2 do you need to "force Bayer" or just leave on auto?