More Jupiter hits

[SalehRam]

Hi all

Had the itch to do another GRS transit images, so I ended up doing this on 3rd of April.

Came out with a set of images, but unfortunately it seems that my focus was messed up for the first part of the session... Still got some details though.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/RH4sQK3KyG821zVYA

Please let me know your thoughts and feedback!

Tech stuff:

• Scope: Celestron Omni XLT 102 (4", f/9.8)
• Camera: ZWO ASI224MC + 2x barlow + IR/UV cut + Fringe-killer filters
• Captured with SharpCap, processed with PIPP, Autostakkert, Registax6
• Moons enhance + some color fixes (or mess ups ) with GIMP
• Took that from the window of my home with out proper alignment and with a lot of manual RA/DEC fixing
• Gain was 50, exposure was 250ms.

[Startinez]

Wow, I love it and it's very encouraging as you have kit with similar capabilities to what I have. They're individual frames made into a sequence or was there stacking involved before animating?

[SalehRam]

5 minutes ago, Startinez said:

Wow, I love it and it's very encouraging as you have kit with similar capabilities to what I have. They're individual frames made into a sequence or was there stacking involved before animating?

Sry forgot to mention the capture details...

I used SharpCap, captured 1 minute video each 5 minutes. Each gave me between 240 to 300 frames, I then processed them in PIPP and reordered the frames using its default quality algorithm.

Took that into AutoStakkert and stacked it, and took the best 50% into Registax.

I ended up with 7 individual images that are in that Google Drive link, then using GIMP I made the GIF out of the 7 images.

I am however not satisfied with the quality of the GIF and will redo that using a video editor so I can hopefully preserve the quality of the images, and will either make a little MP4 or maybe if I can a better quality GIF.

 

Also I actually just found out that the settings on SharpCap for my camera were somehow changed, as I was comparing those images to a previous attempt I had on the GRS with better results on the previous time...

So will do it again while keeping an eye on the settings and do more exposure/less gain and more pain in manual correction and see how it goes!

[Startinez]

Thanks for the information. Good to know that I should still be able to get some good quality planetary imaging without a tracker as I won't be getting that until later in the year.

 

How often did you make RA/DEC adjustments? Try to keep the moons in frame and then let it scroll across for the 1 minute, then adjust?

[SalehRam]

2 minutes ago, Startinez said:

Thanks for the information. Good to know that I should still be able to get some good quality planetary imaging without a tracker as I won't be getting that until later in the year.

 

How often did you make RA/DEC adjustments? Try to keep the moons in frame and then let it scroll across for the 1 minute, then adjust?

I actually had motors on my mount, they helped a bit but I still had to do a lot of RA/DEC fixes because I was nowhere near a proper north pole alignment... Before I got the motors I used to take images with completely manual tracking... It was doable for me without the motors however I needed to keep both my hands on the slow-mo knobs and very slowly/constantly move them. Used to get a lot of shaking but I could still get good stuff... and once I got to how fast and strong I should move them, things became much better..

It would be much easier with wide field though, I used 2x barlow here, but for no barlow you will get all the moons in the image and can still track the planet and manage to keep it in the middle of the view...

This one here is from the same session with all 4 large moons (3rd April), I took it just before I end that night with only the camera and no barlow with the same process as above as well...

So I know you can do images with completely manual tracking because that's how I started actually and I'm still doing manual corrections all the time with the setup that I have..

Here are some of the raw videos that shows how bad my alignment is and how much correction I do:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1cptcY0sHoHz31O2kkTDN_Mg91JwCK8Ne

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1RgJ0XepDJwB4qeGOeeTo1tuzE7YP8Hi_

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1p9T8xlOSzUva5CyBd88enVHDDoZQ-lll

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1gIAmWiABl3kFY0-B-Rs9ycbH8i5fQrwP

The first video from the 22-March session and it was with 3x barlow

In the last 3 videos, I used 2x barlow and was trying to keep Jupiter at the lower left corner to hopefully get the third moon into the view however it was too far out and I could not just do it

 

[SalehRam]

Actually I just realized this is in observing section... Can it be moved to planetary imaging section?... Sry I did not notice I'm in the wrong place until just now

[Pete Presland]

Very nicely captured, some decnt detail visible there.