Is my data from Jupiter good enough?

[Archonom]

Hello there,

 

I consider myself a bloody beginner in both stargazing and planet imaging.

Last night, I was able to try out my new ADC for the first time. As I hoped, I managed to shoot better pictures (also with more details). The seeing at my default is bad, so I am not expecting any wonders, but like the images I get, actually.

 

Thanks to the ADC,  my stacked data is better then ever (but of course not good enough since the seeing is bad..) , but  I don't think that the final image I get after editing/sharpening with Registax is the best one possible.

 

I therefore would like to know if others would manage to get more out of my stacked images. I hope that some of you would take a minute and check if you can produce better results. And if the answer is yes, I would like to learn from you how you do it.

 

Attached are 4 TIF files (the result of stacks with approx. 20 000 frames, best 5% of them). After sharpening them with Registax, I received the 4 PNG images.

 

My equipment:

• Newton 8'' 200/1000 f5
• EQ6
• Premium Barlow 3x 
• Images taken with 3000mm focal length = f/15
• ASI ZWO 290 MMC
• Firecapture, Binning, Images taken with "Debayer" checked
• Stacked with AS!3

My site:

• Inside a small city in Germany
• Seeing is bad (my personal rating)

Jup_232315_lapl4_ap15.tif

Jup_232138_lapl4_ap15.tif

Jup_231953_lapl4_ap15.tif

Jup_231746_lapl4_ap15.tif

[MarsG76]

I had a play with your TIFs and to be honest I couldn't process them to get any better than you did. I recommend to double check you collimation and focus, but most importantly, your seeing and transparency need to be optimal to get the fine details.

 

[Archonom]

@MarsG76 Thanks a lot for taking the time and the advise! I appreciate it.

 

Collimation: Good point, fixed it before taking the images yesterday. Focus: I am also under the impression that I never hit the focus, but I wonder why. I have a 1:10 drawtube, and when focusing manually, I always think that I hit the right spot. When using a bahtinov mask, I think that my results are not any better. Do you have any advise for me how to reach the best focus when the bahtinov mask doesn't help?

[Stub Mandrel]

I don't think you are far off, I had a go with Astra Image and Photoshop. This is resampled 200%.

 

[symmetal]

I couldn't do any more to your images than you have already done.

You stated the images were taken with Debayer 'checked'. Under debayer 'options' did you also tick the box to disable debayer while recording so that you only preview with debayer on. Debayering takes processor time and it's best to allocate as much resources as possible to image capture. The default debayer method is also 'Nearest Neighbour' which is the fastest but gives the lowest quality. Recording in RAW (not debayered) and allowing Autostakkert to do the debayering is the better option as time isn't an issue and it can use optimum debayer processing.

You don't mention what your exposure was. The faster the exposure the more chance of 'freezing' the 'seeing'. With an ASI224MC I leave it at 'unity' gain and can manage 5mS exposure duration with a bright image . I find the stacking with so many frames does a very good job at removing the camera noise so you can go a bit higher gain with little loss. I always record a range of videos at various exposure and gain settings anyway to cover all bases.

Finally you could increase the 'brightness' setting on the camera a bit as your background is clipped to zero. It's best to see a little bit of space on the histogram to the left of the 'background' peak. It also helps with colour balancing your final image as you can easily make the background a neutral dark grey. Also a clipped edge to the planet could interfere with the 'sharpening' process like deconvolution leading to odd edge artifacts.

For focusing I always point to a nearby bright star with the bahtinov mask. As a quick check you can view jupiter with a bahtinov mask and put the gain and exposure to max settings and you can make out the three jupiters each side of the main clipped image and the middle jupiter of the three should be equidistant between the other two when focused. ? It agrees with the focus settings using a star.

Alan

[MarsG76]

10 hours ago, Archonom said:

@MarsG76 Thanks a lot for taking the time and the advise! I appreciate it.

 

Collimation: Good point, fixed it before taking the images yesterday. Focus: I am also under the impression that I never hit the focus, but I wonder why. I have a 1:10 drawtube, and when focusing manually, I always think that I hit the right spot. When using a bahtinov mask, I think that my results are not any better. Do you have any advise for me how to reach the best focus when the bahtinov mask doesn't help?

Using a Bahnitov mask on planets won't be perfect... when I focus, I move the gamma to 50%, this greatly exaggerates the contrast making fine details easier and focus on in live mode...

Dont forget to restore gamma to 100% before capturing.

[Archonom]

Wow, didn't think of this. I will try out soon, thanks!