Absolute beginner with first camera

[Neil Mack]

Apologies for asking a question that must have been asked a thosand times before - but where can I find a simple step by step guide to capturing and processing a planetary image? The bright shiny red ZWO camera arrived today , and I have got it talking to FireCapture on the laptop, and even making a short movie. The movie is monochrome (the camera label assures me it's colour) but I mustn't quibble. But then what happens? Does SharpCap sort and stack the frames?

I crave simplicity, and (preferably) written answers (on one side of a postcard). Can anyone point me in the right direction?

 

 

[ronin]

What is the scope, and the mount and what additional items have you in terms I suppose of barlows ??

I would quibble if it is mono and you specifically wanted colour, there is a minor difference.

[Cornelius Varley]

5 minutes ago, ronin said:

What is the scope, and the mount and what additional items have you in terms I suppose of barlows ??

I would quibble if it is mono and you specifically wanted colour, there is a minor difference.

A colour astro camera will record in mono, storing the colour content until the video file is debayered at the processing stage. The camera will achieve a higher frame rate if it only displays mono.

[Cornelius Varley]

Download Autostakkert , Registax plus the update and PIPP , these will be your three main image processing tools. Autostakkert and Registax are image stacking programmes which will take your video file and stack the best images from the video into a signle still image for further processing. PIPP is a pre-processing programme which can crop and select the best frames before stacking in Autostakkert or Registax. It is also able the debayer the video capture to restore the colour content.

[Neil Mack]

It's not much, but it's a start!

 

[Neil Mack]

Final attempt of the evening - complete with free satellite. I don't think Damian Peach or Christopher Go have much to be worried about.

[cuivenion]

Both cracking images. Looks like you've hit the ground running.

[Neil Mack]

7 hours ago, cuivenion said:

Both cracking images. Looks like you've hit the ground running.

Thanks. That's very generous.

[geoflewis]

8 hours ago, Neil Mack said:

Final attempt of the evening - complete with free satellite. I don't think Damian Peach or Christopher Go have much to be worried about.

Hi Neil,

That's a pretty darned good image taken from as far north as you are with Jupiter as such a low altitude currently. Damian Peach is currently using the 1m Chilescope and from what I've heard not much bothering trying to image from the UK this year and Chris Go is in the Philippines, which is about the perfect location for imaging Jupiter. I note that your OP asked for simplicity on one side of a post card, but in due course you might want to consider adding WinJupos to your work flow to de-rotate and stack more data, which will allow you to sharpen the final image a bit more.

Nevertheless it's a great start. Good luck with the seeing...

Geof

[Neil Mack]

1 hour ago, geoflewis said:

Hi Neil,

That's a pretty darned good image taken from as far north as you are with Jupiter as such a low altitude currently. Damian Peach is currently using the 1m Chilescope and from what I've heard not much bothering trying to image from the UK this year and Chris Go is in the Philippines, which is about the perfect location for imaging Jupiter. I note that your OP asked for simplicity on one side of a post card, but in due course you might want to consider adding WinJupos to your work flow to de-rotate and stack more data, which will allow you to sharpen the final image a bit more.

Nevertheless it's a great start. Good luck with the seeing...

Geof

Thanks Geof.  That's kind.

I really have to wait till Jupiter crosses the meridian, because to the east of me lies the water, which often seems to bring special seeing problems of its own! All the same I was surprised how much a four inch refractor could reveal with a lot of help from software. The original .avi "movie" didn't look at all promising. I'm certainly impressed by the ZWO ASI120MC - it seems a great little camera for the money. I shall investigate WinJupos.

 

I wish you steady seeing too.

Neil

 

[geoflewis]

21 hours ago, Neil Mack said:

I wish you steady seeing too.

Thanks Neil, the seeing has been very fickle this year, but we live in hope....  ;-), Geof

[Neil Mack]

Although the air is steadier tonight, and the midges are leaving me alone, I don't think this represents an improvement on the previous one. How long a sequence is optimal for Jupiter? Presumably "optimal" will depend on focal length (just over 2000mm in my case)? And how many frames should I be asking the Pipp software to select out? I'm guessing that will depend on seeing conditions, but is there a sensible minimum number of frames to be worth stacking? And what have I done to give the planet a raggedy edge?

 

Any pointers or suggestions gratefully received!

[cuivenion]

30 minutes ago, Neil Mack said:

Although the air is steadier tonight, and the midges are leaving me alone, I don't think this represents an improvement on the previous one. How long a sequence is optimal for Jupiter? Presumably "optimal" will depend on focal length (just over 2000mm in my case)? And how many frames should I be asking the Pipp software to select out? I'm guessing that will depend on seeing conditions, but is there a sensible minimum number of frames to be worth stacking? And what have I done to give the planet a raggedy edge?

 

Any pointers or suggestions gratefully received!

About sequence length, a lot of people use 90 seconds as a starting point. However the higher the resolution the lower the capture time. This is the equation that I got from another forum:

Tc = res / (pi * D/P)

where
Tc  - maximum capture time (minutes)
res - desired "resolution" in arcsec
D   - planet diameter in arcsec
P   - rotation period of planet (minutes)

If you put your camera and scope combination in here:

http://astronomy.tools/calculators/field_of_view/

That will give you your resolution.

This site will give you Jupiter's current angular size:

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/wp-content/observing-tools/jupiter_moons/jupiter.html#

Jupiter's rotation speed is 590 minutes.

I would advise not using PIPP to select out frames, just order them by quality. Choose how many frames to stack in Autostakkert where you can actually view the frames and see where the quality starts to deteriorate.

Stack as many frames as you can and that will increase your signal to noise ratio, your images will be less grainy after sharpening.

I will say that I tend to favor getting as many frames as possible over the rotation issue. I took a 2 minute avi at 0.15" resolution and it turned out pretty well. I have a USB 2.0 camera though, if you have a high speed USB 3.0 camera you may want to do things differently. This is an interesting read:

http://www.planetary-astronomy-and-imaging.com/en/maximum-video-time-jupiter/

The raggedy edge of the planet is probably caused by oversharpening or it might be a stacking artifact. The only way to tell is to experiment with stacking and processing.

[Neil Mack]

8 hours ago, cuivenion said:

About sequence length, a lot of people use 90 seconds as a starting point. However the higher the resolution the lower the capture time. This is the equation that I got from another forum:

Tc = res / (pi * D/P)

where
Tc  - maximum capture time (minutes)
res - desired "resolution" in arcsec
D   - planet diameter in arcsec
P   - rotation period of planet (minutes)

If you put your camera and scope combination in here:

<snip>

Tremendous posting.

It will be repay me to get to grips with the software, and evolve an orderly workflow. At the moment I'm like a chimp at the controls of the USS Enterprise, jabbing at sliders and invoking controls just to see whether the result looks more or less like a "proper" image.

Thanks for your help.