Single frame Luna Processing

[RichM63]

Due to about 10 days of solid nightly fog, I've had to take refuge in looking through unprocessed pictures from earlier in the month.

Kit, 7D + Tamron 150-600 VR etc @ 600mm.

Single frame still, run through PSP 9.

But now I'm stuck. Is this the best I can expect out of a single frame CR2 to jpg, or am I missing an adjustment to bring out better detail and crispness?

Any tips much appreciated. Rich

 

[johnfosteruk]

Looks good to me Rich. In my experience too much introduces a ton of noise to single frames. 

Saying that You could try pasting the sharpest looking channel to a layer, reduce the transparency a little and see where that takes you. 

[RichM63]

Cheers, John, I agree about noise.

I tried what I think you said, and pasted the red channel back in and merged. No idea as to how to adjust transparency. Oh and I salt n pepper noise removed.

I think it is a little less fuzzy, certainly the background sees a change.

Best, Rich

[johnfosteruk]

It does. And the maria seem a little clearer too. 

Transparency wise does this help - http://learn.corel.com/tutorials/working-with-transparency/

[xtreemchaos]

that's a great single frame Rich, id be well happy with it, ive been looking through old data too, did manage a few moon shots lastnight. hope the weather changes soon. thanks, charl.

[RichM63]

Right, thanks, I've now got it as to how to remove the background, but I don't see how this helps with the subject. (confused-dot-rich)

You may be wondering why I'm interested in single frames; firstly I'm lucky to have no LP and mainly, because back in the 70s when I worked in a Dickensian photographic dealers, every Saturday morning we would have loads of oddball guys  coming in with their B/W film shots of the Moon for developing, taken with kit that today we would run a mile from, ie stacked teleconvertors on f6.3 lenses at best, held up on really shaky tripods, with ASA 400 film.

It was always my job, to go through all the Contact Sheets, just to see if they had anything other than a blurry blob at best. (and then give the news), mind you I did get paid for what was a brilliant job for a teenager.

So today, rather than taking video, I'm more inclined to find out what I can do with a single frame, and then move forward with stacking single frames. (Davefrance came up with some great kitchen table German stacking software PICOLAY, it just works  )

In a sense, I want to see just how good a single frame can get, when compared with a dedicated ATIK or ZWO imaging rig, which might be off budget for most punters, and frankly I sometimes wonder as to why bother stacking the best 400 of 100,000 frames to arrive at an image that could have been taken with a cell phone. (interest in how to, and technique, aside  )

Anyhow, that's the background for the Single Frame experience.

Cheers guys, Rich

[johnfosteruk]

I didn't look at the video I posted, I just assumed it was the one for the job!!! oops

What I was getting at with the transparency is having two layers, one with the original image, on top of that the extracted red channel with reduced transparency.  I've often found one of the channels to be less noisy than the combined image, but the transparency is to retain the details from the other channels to some small degree.

Not sure if that fits your plan though.

I think we should make this a what's the best you can do with a single frame thread!!!

Having a bash now.

[johnfosteruk]

Also, I know what you mean about the minimalist approach, it's why I've not been in any rush to upgrade the gear. I remember my old pentax slr that my Gramps gave me and going out with his old prinz scope to stargaze

 

[johnfosteruk]

1 hour ago, RichM63 said:

and frankly I sometimes wonder as to why bother stacking the best 400 of 100,000 frames to arrive at an image that could have been taken with a cell phone

It definitely makes a difference. Single frames can be good but you can't sharpen the hell out of them without making noise. Here's my best efforts (processed as per the PM I sent you minus the first 2 steps obviously). Just single frames picked at random from the sets.

Just before 1st quarter on March 4th. 

Full moon from 12th March