mono to colour?

[shamba504424]

Hello

I am thinking of getting the ZWO ASI 174mm mono camera and my question is simply if I take an avi file using this will I be able to process using Registax and add colour to the stacked image using the tools within Registax?

Thanks in advance 

Tony

[billyharris72]

Hi Tony:

Colour is easy enough to do, but you will need to shoot through red, green and blue filters, process each image separately and then combine them into an RGB (colour) image in Photoshop, GIMP or similar. ZWO producesfilters and filter wheels at a reasonable price - you should be able to track them down on the First Light Optics site or similar.

Billy.

[shamba504424]

Hi Billy

Thank you so much for your reply,will take a look

Cheers

Tony

[LightBucket]

You can only take single images through coloured filters for still images, the OP wants to do colour AVI, so not sure how that is achieved with a mono camera, easiest option buy a colour camera....

[LightBucket]

1 hour ago, shamba504424 said:

Hello

I am thinking of getting the ZWO ASI 174mm mono camera and my question is simply if I take an avi file using this will I be able to process using Registax and add colour to the stacked image using the tools within Registax?

Thanks in advance 

Tony

Simple answer is no....

[billyharris72]

2 minutes ago, LightBucket said:

You can only take single images through coloured filters for still images, the OP wants to do colour AVI, so not sure how that is achieved with a mono camera, easiest option buy a colour camera.... 

No, it's not too bad. Trick is to shoot an avi or ser file for each, using a different filter for each. Then stack, sharpen etc. Align them in Photoshop or similar (Registax will almost certainly do this too, just have not worked out how) and then combine. That's the way most of the heavily published planetary imagers tend to work, and the approach as significant benefits (better management of seeing, CA and atmospheric dispersion, ability to use IR filters etc). Pretty much a prerequisite for recording detail on Uranus or Neptune.

The difficulty, such as it is, is with planets with quick rotational periods, especially Jupiter. Without detotating the image (with WinJupos) you need to keep the overall exposure length short (about 3 min max). While that's easy enough with one shot colour it can be trickier with a filter wheel. You can grab less time for each channel as mono will allow faster framerates, but you probably will need to refocus between each filter (and if you don't you'll be losing some of the benefits of a mono camera).

The usual way around that is to use an auto focuser, record the correct focus position for each filter and then set the whole thing up to do its stuff automatically. Can give great results, but starting to get complicated and expensive.

In that sense, the easiest option probably is to buy a colour camera. But the best results will come by going the mono route.

(P.S. if it were me, I'd go for one shot colour, especially if starting out).

Billy.

[Owmuchonomy]

2 hours ago, shamba504424 said:

Hello

I am thinking of getting the ZWO ASI 174mm mono camera and my question is simply if I take an avi file using this will I be able to process using Registax and add colour to the stacked image using the tools within Registax?

Thanks in advance 

Tony

If you mean can you false colour your final stacked image then yes that is quite possible.  It is exactly what I do for all my solar images.  I don't use Registax but rather use AS!2 followed by final processing in Photoshop.  I just convert the the final mono image to a 'RGB' file, add a mono layer and use the 'Tint' function to provide the false colour.  Examples on my Flickr page using the link in my signature.