Struggling to get a decent Jupiter

[Tommohawk]

OK I tried to see if I could record 5x by hooking up with the laptop using the EOS utility - but I'm afraid that doesn't seem possible. When you try and record it reverts to normal view, same as if doing with camera direct.

There are 2 separate issues here. Normal video mode compresses like mad, but also you want a higher frame rate. I think the 1100D only offers one video format which is 25/30fps. It looks like the EOS utility wont help, but maybe magic lantern will - Just had a quick look at ML manual - look like you may be be able to change frame rate which may help a bit but i dont think you can do crop mode or record live view x5.

Also Ive just noticed with my 550D I have option to record in RAW - dont think this is available on 1100D - whether this affect the actual recording I have no idea.

Try increassing the frame rate - you may need to alter shutter speed. Frame rate of 60fps will require 1/60 shutter speed. Also you may need to up the ISO.

Good luck!

 

 

[Peco4321]

31 minutes ago, Tommohawk said:

Good luck!

Cheers for looking into all that. I'll have a go next time, clear forecast tonight but I'm out, typical , beer and telescope do not mix well. 

[Tommohawk]

18 minutes ago, Peco4321 said:

Cheers for looking into all that. I'll have a go next time, clear forecast tonight but I'm out, typical , beer and telescope do not mix well. 

Ha! That's true - and whenever I fix up a night out its sure to be clear!

[adder001]

I have had similar troubles. Initially I got better results with my raspberry pi camera and webcam adapter than I did with my dslr and I could not understand why. I could not believe a £20 basic camera on a Raspberry PI could be better than my £300 DSLR.

Now after quite a bit of research I understand that it is the pixel ratio not just the dpi that matters. When you record a movie with the dslr firstly it records as a .MOV file which is a pain because you need .AVI for Registax and secondly it will compress the data so you lose quality.

I use backyard EOS to record a series of stills that it saves as AVI+JPG and select 5X, also use RAW.  This gives you close to a 1:1 pixel ratio (Using 5x from the camera only zooms your view on the LCD not the recording). You can adjust a lot of setting in there so you can see the results in live view and adjust focus, ISO, shutter speed etc until you are happy with what you are seeing. I have got much better results this way.

Here is my latest Jupiter. It is made using Backyard Eos as stated above from 100 frames, I think the shutter was set to 1/20th sec @ ISO 100 and stacked in registax.

It is by no means the best ever but it was quite low and loads of light pollution so not too bad.

Hope that helps.

BTW if you want to get the moons you need to use a slower shutter speed but that overexposes the planet and you lose detail. If you get good detail on the planet at faster shutter speeds you will lose the moons, so to get it all you will have to take separate images and overlay them.

cheers

[A4Andromeda]

So there I was, perfect night for imaging Jupiter, scope focused, EOS 550D set to RAW + high quality JPEG, BYE to 1000 frames at ISO 200.

BTW, I found that, in order to get decent detail, I had to use eyepiece projection, otherwise all I got was a featureless bright ball, no matter how low the ISO.

But every time I started imaging, my DSLR reverted to low-quality JPEG only. The results, even when tweaking in Registax and Digital Photo Professional, were below expectations, given the setup and conditions.

Then I found a post from 2015 by Guyroch that in order for BYE to keep the same image quality, go to Settings>set to "in-camera", otherwise it will default from RAW to JPEG.

I have never had this problem before, and wonder why the program is written that way. Spoilt the session.

 

 

[spaceman_spiff]

8 minutes ago, A4Andromeda said:

So there I was, perfect night for imaging Jupiter, scope focused, EOS 550D set to RAW + high quality JPEG, BYE to 1000 frames at ISO 200.

Hi A4Andromeda, Good shot there but your 550D has the movie crop mode which is better for capturing Jupiter. Set it at 60 frames/s, ISO 100-800 exposure 1/60 and see what you get.

HTH Dan

[Owmuchonomy]

Dan is spot on.  Use 640x480 movie crop mode and stack your movie files in AS!2.

[Tommohawk]

52 minutes ago, spaceman_spiff said:

Hi A4Andromeda, Good shot there but your 550D has the movie crop mode which is better for capturing Jupiter. Set it at 60 frames/s, ISO 100-800 exposure 1/60 and see what you get.

HTH Dan

Agreed, as per earlier posts in this thread, video crop mode is the way to go for sure.

Its quite a nice result, but video crop is likely to be better.

Not sure what kit you're using A4Andromeda but I've experimented extensively with various settings and ISO 400 is consistently better than 800. On the screen it looks a bit too dark, but it always processes better. The image I posted earlier in this thread was done with ISO 400.

My processing is PIPP to convert MOV to AVI, AS12, Registax for wavelets only.

[A4Andromeda]

Thanks for the comments.

I may be missing something here, but when I set the camera to movie mode, I get the message: "Ensure a lens is attached"

How do I get round that, if I'm shooting through a scope?

[Tommohawk]

46 minutes ago, A4Andromeda said:

Thanks for the comments.

I may be missing something here, but when I set the camera to movie mode, I get the message: "Ensure a lens is attached"

How do I get round that, if I'm shooting through a scope?

That's an easy one - just ignore it! Mine does the same

[Petergoodhew]

I've always struggled with capturing Jupiter with a DSLR.  I think you need a higher frame rate camera.

Here's a capture I did 2 days ago using an ASI120MC camera and a 2.5 barlow. I shot 27463 frames in 5 minutes (so 91 frames per second) and stacked the best 50% of them in Registax.

I find the seeing improves later in the evening so I captured after midnight, which was when I could see Jupiter rather than neighbours' trees!

[Peco4321]

Bit of an update on this, I feel I am now getting the best possible from my set up, without investing in new camera or software so I'm fairly happy.  Recent improvements I think are as much down to the seeing as much as anything else and processing procedure as follows, PIPP, AS2, wavelets in Registax. 

[A4Andromeda]

Nice image!

I assume you are using movie crop: I have started to try this, still getting used to it. What ISO setting are you using?

The received wisdom is ISO 400-800 but I can't get an image in live view unless I set my DSLR to 6400. Any other setting, and it disappears: any ideas why?

 

[Peco4321]

40 minutes ago, A4Andromeda said:

movie crop

I don't seem to have this option, I keep hearing about it but not sure how to set it. ISO I change to about 1200. 

[Davey-T]

55 minutes ago, A4Andromeda said:

Nice image!

I assume you are using movie crop: I have started to try this, still getting used to it. What ISO setting are you using?

The received wisdom is ISO 400-800 but I can't get an image in live view unless I set my DSLR to 6400. Any other setting, and it disappears: any ideas why?

 

You can turn on / off "live view simulation" if you disable it should display live view bright enough to see regardless of the ISO setting.

Dave

[Tommohawk]

1 hour ago, A4Andromeda said:

Nice image!

I assume you are using movie crop: I have started to try this, still getting used to it. What ISO setting are you using?

The received wisdom is ISO 400-800 but I can't get an image in live view unless I set my DSLR to 6400. Any other setting, and it disappears: any ideas why?

 

I guess will depend to some extent on scope/barlow. Bigger aperture = brighter image. What setup do you have?

[A4Andromeda]

2 hours ago, Davey-T said:

You can turn on / off "live view simulation" if you disable it should display live view bright enough to see regardless of the ISO setting.

Dave

Thanks Dave, but I can't find that in my EOS 550 D menu: where should I look?

Andrew

[A4Andromeda]

1 hour ago, Tommohawk said:

I guess will depend to some extent on scope/barlow. Bigger aperture = brighter image. What setup do you have?

I guess that could be it.

Celestron 9.25 SCT and EOS 550D. I'm using eyepiece projection, Celestron telextender with 20mm eyepiece and neodymium light pollution filter. I did consider adding a single polarising filter if the image was too bright.

I started off with a 2x Barlow as well, but found that my  images were too large and grainy so removed it.

[Davey-T]

24 minutes ago, A4Andromeda said:

Thanks Dave, but I can't find that in my EOS 550 D menu: where should I look?

Andrew

 

It's under one of the red menu settings on my 60Da, suppose Canon may have left it off the 550d just to be annoying.

Dave

[Tommohawk]

8 hours ago, A4Andromeda said:

The received wisdom is ISO 400-800 but I can't get an image in live view unless I set my DSLR to 6400. Any other setting, and it disappears: any ideas why?

 

This seems odd - I get quite a nice bright image with my SW200 and powermate x5 (actually x6~) which equates to about F30 at ISO800, and moderate brightness at ISO 400.

So would think your F10 SCT should give brighter result with x2 Barlow ... odd. Unless the IR has something to do with this? Mine is modded - maybe the IR makes the difference?

[A4Andromeda]

12 hours ago, Tommohawk said:

This seems odd - I get quite a nice bright image with my SW200 and powermate x5 (actually x6~) which equates to about F30 at ISO800, and moderate brightness at ISO 400.

So would think your F10 SCT should give brighter result with x2 Barlow ... odd. Unless the IR has something to do with this? Mine is modded - maybe the IR makes the difference?

My 500D is modded as well, so I don't think it's the IR.

I will play about with settings and filters and see what I get.

There must be an obvious solution, professor....

[A4Andromeda]

On 03/05/2017 at 20:59, Tommohawk said:

This seems odd - I get quite a nice bright image with my SW200 and powermate x5 (actually x6~) which equates to about F30 at ISO800, and moderate brightness at ISO 400.

So would think your F10 SCT should give brighter result with x2 Barlow ... odd. Unless the IR has something to do with this? Mine is modded - maybe the IR makes the difference?

I think it was the filters I was using on the eyepiece: cut out too much light.

I tried the camera out tonight without the filters and got a good image at ISO 800, so-so at 400.

[Tommohawk]

On 04/05/2017 at 23:01, A4Andromeda said:

I think it was the filters I was using on the eyepiece: cut out too much light.

I tried the camera out tonight without the filters and got a good image at ISO 800, so-so at 400.

Sorry bit off topic but I'm just trying out ASIMC which has no IR block - as I understand it - and wondering if I should use IR filter. I have one, and tried it briefly but haven't had time to do proper test with/without. I always got good results with the modded 550D without filter so I'm thinking I should stay the same - no filter.

I'll put a thread elsewhere on the ASi issue, but for now I'd suggest no filters - the result below was done 24th April, modded 550d no filter. Sw 200 with x5 powermate so F30 ish.

 

 

 

[A4Andromeda]

2 hours ago, Tommohawk said:

Sorry bit off topic but I'm just trying out ASIMC which has no IR block - as I understand it - and wondering if I should use IR filter. I have one, and tried it briefly but haven't had time to do proper test with/without. I always got good results with the modded 550D without filter so I'm thinking I should stay the same - no filter.

I'll put a thread elsewhere on the ASi issue, but for now I'd suggest no filters - the result below was done 24th April, modded 550d no filter. Sw 200 with x5 powermate so F30 ish.

 

 

 

That's a great image, sharper than I've achieved lately, even after focusing on a nearby star (Aldebaran) and using a Bahtinov mask.

I have found that when using movie crop, any filter I have used reduces the amount of light to an unacceptable level. On the other hand, if I do standard Bulb shots in BYE I need filters otherwise all I get is a featureless bright disc no matter what the setting. That is what confused me in the first place (being confused seems to be my default position).

Just getting the hang of PIPP, couple of useful features: it centres the final .AVI movie in the frame, and restores white balance where a modded DSLR has been used.