Jupiter: Widefield and close up

[cuivenion]

Hi, All the images were taken with an Altair GPCAM and Skywatcher 200p on an AstroEQ Vixen GP. They were all captured with Sharpcap and processed with PIPP, Autostakkert, Registax and Gimp 2.9 Beta.

These two were taken on 06/04/2017.

This is 900 frames stacked showing all the galilean moons, at about 2000mm focal length using a Astro Engineering AC333 2x Barlow. Taken at 03.09am:

Same focal length, taken at 3.05am. Best 35% of 4747 frames:

These two are from this morning.

Another widefield shot showing all the galilean moons, again at about 2000mm focal length taken at 3.02am. 1800 frames stacked:

This next one is at 5000mm focal length, using a Revelation 5x Barlow. Best 50% of 3766 frames.Taken at 2.37am:

I thought I'd try a rescale in GIMP and to my surprise it came out OK, so heres a 2x resize:

I'm especially happy with the larger image. My previous images at this focal length haven't been anywhere near as good. Progress and some clear windless nights, can't be bad! Any suggestions or comments welcome.

 

 

[tooth_dr]

Nice views of Jupiter on both sides 

[cuivenion]

3 minutes ago, tooth_dr said:

Nice views of Jupiter on both sides 

Thanks.

[Grotemobile]

U have got some cracking shots of Jupiter. Especially the ones

with the moons. Very good.

[cuivenion]

1 minute ago, Grotemobile said:

U have got some cracking shots of Jupiter. Especially the ones

with the moons. Very good.

Thanks, I do like widefield shots. I've always wanted to try my hand at a Jupiter moons animation but I never seem to get the opportunity.

[Craney]

Hi there, Great pics...  I am wanting to improve my Jupiter shots and am liking the detail on yours.   Couple of questions ??

Do you find the 5X Barlow an easy beast to use ??  I have an Explore Scientific 5X, reportedly a good piece of kit but... I just seem to get a larger blob of fuzziness from which to achieve some kind of focus.

How do you get a good focus ?   Trial and error or do you use a mask on a a bright star nearby ?

How does an 8 " Newtonian compare with an 8" SCT in terms of imaging,  obviously the SCT has the focal length but I am finding the image size is not the problem, its the clarity.

Sorry to ask, but your pictures are a good deal better than mine and I have similar kit.

 

Regards,

 

Sean.

 

[Grotemobile]

3 minutes ago, cuivenion said:

Thanks, I do like widefield shots. I've always wanted to try my hand at a Jupiter moons animation but I never seem to get the opportunity.

I have never tried to do any wide field shots of Jupiter. No way to do that

with my set up . I think I would need a focal reducer .

[cuivenion]

1 hour ago, Grotemobile said:

I have never tried to do any wide field shots of Jupiter. No way to do that

with my set up . I think I would need a focal reducer .

The 200p is quite versatile, it does catch the wind though, it's a bit of a sail.

[cuivenion]

1 hour ago, Craney said:

Hi there, Great pics...  I am wanting to improve my Jupiter shots and am liking the detail on yours.   Couple of questions ??

Do you find the 5X Barlow an easy beast to use ??  I have an Explore Scientific 5X, reportedly a good piece of kit but... I just seem to get a larger blob of fuzziness from which to achieve some kind of focus.

How do you get a good focus ?   Trial and error or do you use a mask on a a bright star nearby ?

How does an 8 " Newtonian compare with an 8" SCT in terms of imaging,  obviously the SCT has the focal length but I am finding the image size is not the problem, its the clarity.

Sorry to ask, but your pictures are a good deal better than mine and I have similar kit.

 

Regards,

 

Sean.

 

Thanks Craney, I'll try to help. Just to be clear though the larger image is by far the best result I've had at that FL. I'm not rattling them off every night.

I focus on one of Jupiters moons at about 400x in the Sharpcap preview and get it as small and bright as possible. Just adjust the gain or exposure if the moons are too faint.

A 5x Barlow with a 200p will give a resolution of 0.15", but U.K seeing conditions don't often support that. A x2 or x3 Barlow is often the better choice.

Unfortunately I've never used an SCT so I can't help you there. What scope and camera are you using? 

[Craney]

Last night I was using my  Meade Lx55 8" SCT with 2x Powermate with ZWO 120mc.    I have just been processing and this is the best I could do...

Does not have that finer detail..... even stacking best 300 from 3000 frames.

 

 

I have a 200PDS, maybe I should give it a go....

[cuivenion]

7 hours ago, Craney said:

Last night I was using my  Meade Lx55 8" SCT with 2x Powermate with ZWO 120mc.    I have just been processing and this is the best I could do...

Does not have that finer detail..... even stacking best 300 from 3000 frames.

 

 

I have a 200PDS, maybe I should give it a go....

Hi, I was going to respond last night night and typed a long post out.... and then hit the wrong button and deleted it all. I'll get back to you later on today. I think you need to stack a lot more frames.

[Craney]

No worries.  I was processing last night and the results have stayed more or less the same in terms of detail.  I was thinking of other factors like non-aligned light train, collimation etc...

My tracking is pretty good  ( Use PIPP as well) ,  seeing can't be that bad !! can it ??.....    compared to results from last year I have improved a bit.   It is when you see what is possible..thats when it becomes an itch that just needs scratchin'.     I suppose it is what keeps us wanting to go out at unGodly times of the night !!

[cuivenion]

8 hours ago, Craney said:

Last night I was using my  Meade Lx55 8" SCT with 2x Powermate with ZWO 120mc.    I have just been processing and this is the best I could do...

Does not have that finer detail..... even stacking best 300 from 3000 frames.

 

 

I have a 200PDS, maybe I should give it a go....

Hi, I would definitely stack more frames. The more frames, the higher the signal to noise ratio and the more aggressive you can be with wavelets in Registax, or whatever sharpening tool you use. Of course you need decent quality frames, but there shouldn't be that much of a quality dropoff until you get to the last quarter of the avi. Here's my processing workflow:

1. Load your avi into PIPP and select the planetary option, reorder the avi in quality order and do not discard any frames. Debayer if using RAW.

2. Load PIPP avi into Autostakkert and analyse. The best way to choose how may frames to stack is to run through the avi and see where the frame quality starts to degrade severely. In Autostakkert you can choose to both stack a number of frames and a percentage, so you can choose to stack say 300 and 80% and experiment with both images.

3. Open stacked image in Registax. Use auto colour correct. Autostakkert can RGB align while stacking, so no need for that in Registax. With the wavelets I only use the top three sliders, usually just the top one. I'm usually very aggressive with the top slider and max it out, then use the denoise and sharpen tabs in the top slider in increments to make adjustments.

4. Open the image in whatever image processing you use (I use gimp) and do your levels, curves, saturation, noise reduction, unsharp masking etc.

Hope that helps.

[Craney]

Thanks Cuivenion,  never really played with the levels in Registax, didn't think they did very much and it was all a bit of voodoo  ( oops...think again Craney).....

 

 

Here is a re-tweak..  Now we are getting somewhere.  I have developed a few features !!

I will go for more frames next time.  I tend to want to capture every object in the sky when it is clear and try to pick up the pieces later.

Many thanks for your help.

 

 

Sean.

[cuivenion]

No probs good luck!

[Grotemobile]

5 hours ago, cuivenion said:

Hi, I would definitely stack more frames. The more frames, the higher the signal to noise ratio and the more aggressive you can be with wavelets in Registax, or whatever sharpening tool you use. Of course you need decent quality frames, but there shouldn't be that much of a quality dropoff until you get to the last quarter of the avi. Here's my processing workflow:

1. Load your avi into PIPP and select the planetary option, reorder the avi in quality order and do not discard any frames. Debayer if using RAW.

2. Load PIPP avi into Autostakkert and analyse. The best way to choose how may frames to stack is to run through the avi and see where the frame quality starts to degrade severely. In Autostakkert you can choose to both stack a number of frames and a percentage, so you can choose to stack say 300 and 80% and experiment with both images.

3. Open stacked image in Registax. Use auto colour correct. Autostakkert can RGB align while stacking, so no need for that in Registax. With the wavelets I only use the top three sliders, usually just the top one. I'm usually very aggressive with the top slider and max it out, then use the denoise and sharpen tabs in the top slider in increments to make adjustments.

4. Open the image in whatever image processing you use (I use gimp) and do your levels, curves, saturation, noise reduction, unsharp masking etc.

Hope that helps.

That is a very good report on how to get things done. I have learned something from that. Well done

[cuivenion]

3 hours ago, Grotemobile said:

That is a very good report on how to get things done. I have learned something from that. Well done

Thanks, glad you found it helpful.