Disheartened with planetary seeing at 53 degrees North.

[WicklowSkies76]

Hi - whinge incoming. I recently made a huge leap up from an Astromaster 70 refractor to a C11 SCT on an AZEQ6-GT mount as I wanted to focus on planetary imaging but any time I have gotten to use the C11 the seeing has been so dreadful I am wondering if it's a mistake at my latitude. I am more or less 53 degrees North and on the East Coast of Ireland, about 500m from the Irish Sea. The seeing even on the Moon when at high elevation is woeful. Was this just a bad night? I have a dewshield, I let the scope acclimatise to the outside temperature, the sky was clear and I am only looking over vegetation, no houses. I am Bortle 4, rural suburban transDo I just need to accept that at my location the seeing limits the usefulness of any equipment? I have been using a Neximage 5 and have only been able to produce images like those attached. I should be getting much better than that I would have thought. I'm sure I can get better processing skills and I could upgrade the camera from Neximage to an ASI 290 but will the seeing make that pointless?

Edited July 13, 2019 by WicklowSkies76
Forgot text.

[PeterCPC]

Have you checked the collimation of the scope?

Peter

[andrew s]

It will be a challenge so you need to optimise everything. As Peter proposed, collimation but also cool-down time and a ADC (atmospheric dispersion corrector) may help.

Regards Andrew 

[Cosmic Geoff]

An ADC is essential for serious results. 

If you keep trying, you will get  feel for the influence of the seeing at your location.  You could post some raw frames so we see what you have to contend with (see my recent images in the Planetary Imaging section).

AFAIK the Neximage 5 isn't that bad a camera - it used to cost as much or more than the popular ASI120MC - so I would hold off on an upgrade till you sort the basics. I am quite sure it is capable of much better than shown above.

There is a lot of black around your images above - if you narrow the frame down while shooting so that you get the planet and not too much else, you will increase the frame rate potentially capturing sharper detail, and waste less disc space.

[WicklowSkies76]

I haven't checked collimation. I will need to look into that. To be honest once I was able to get sharp focus on the moon with various eyepieces I assumed it was OK. Whatever about Jupiter and Saturn given their low elevation, it's the seeing/wobble on the Moon that has me worried. I mean that was more or less straight up compared to Jupiter and still shimmering like crazy. I am posting a link to two raw files. They are BIIIG so might take a minute to cache if you're viewing. The moon one should give an indication into the seeing. 

I think I will need to invest in ADC if I want to get good results.

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AuFbGvbjMa5pnIRzgNiicdVL2CY1Sg?e=B1AfPL 

All I can do is get back out there again and again and get a sense for the conditions. Hopefully that is as bad as it gets.

Edited July 13, 2019 by WicklowSkies76
Typo.

[PeterCPC]

17 minutes ago, WicklowSkies76 said:

I haven't checked collimation. I will need to look into that. To be honest once I was able to get sharp focus on the moon with various eyepieces I assumed it was OK. Whatever about Jupiter and Saturn given their low elevation, it's the seeing/wobble on the Moon that has me worried. I mean that was more or less straight up compared to Jupiter and still shimmering like crazy. I am posting a link to two raw files. They are BIIIG so might take a minute to cache if you're viewing. The moon one should give an indication into the seeing. 

I think I will need to invest in ADC if I want to get good results.

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AuFbGvbjMa5pnIRzgNiicdVL2CY1Sg?e=B1AfPL 

All I can do is get back out there again and again and get a sense for the conditions. Hopefully that is as bad as it gets.

I have had wobbling worse than that. It looks out of focus to me - you need to do a star collimation check. The wobbling is turbulence in the atmosphere and is quite normal. I have never used an ADC but do use a Baader IR cut filter which improves it no end. I assume that you run the avi through AS!3 and then Registax? As stated above you should select a region of interest to lose some of the background.

 

Peter

[WicklowSkies76]

Hi Peter yes I go AS3, pick a suitable 'force bayer' option and then that produces a PNG. Then I go into Registax. Then I go into Lightroom to see if I can make more detail pop. I'm new to it so I am in 'tinkering' mode. When the Moon video is uploaded (still uploading) I will let you know. That ought to give a better indication. Doesn't look too out of focus on the Moon video.

Attached is an example of the AS3 output.

Edited July 13, 2019 by WicklowSkies76

[PeterCPC]

2 minutes ago, WicklowSkies76 said:

Hi Peter yes I go AS3, pick a suitable 'force bayer' option and then that produces a PNG. Then I go into Registax. Then I go into Lightroom to see if I can make more detail pop. I'm new to it so I am in 'tinkering' mode. When the Moon video is uploaded (still uploading) I will let you know. That ought to give a better indication. Doesn't look too out of focus on the Moon video.

You can't go by the Moon results - for Jupiter you must ensure very accurate collimation. Also, I suggest that you get focus using a star near the target using a Bahtinov mask.

Peter

Edited July 13, 2019 by PeterCPC

[WicklowSkies76]

2 minutes ago, PeterCPC said:

You can't go by the Moon results - for Jupiter you must ensure very accurate collimation. Also, I suggest that you get focus using a star near the target using a Bahtinov mask.

Peter

Silly question. Do you get the focus with the Bahtinov with the Neximage and check the focus on screen? I assume so. I will definitely give that a try, thanks!

[PeterCPC]

24 minutes ago, WicklowSkies76 said:

Silly question. Do you get the focus with the Bahtinov with the Neximage and check the focus on screen? I assume so. I will definitely give that a try, thanks!

Yes

Peter

[Nigella Bryant]

Both Jupiter and Saturn look out of focus. That said these planet's are so low from 53degree latitudes we have to get really steady seeing. I've a 12inch Newtonian and not got good results so far again it's low from the southwest of England. My excuse anyway, lol. I did use an ADC which does help a bit. Here's my bad image from last month. Don't get disheartened planetary imaging is very challenging, take time to learn about your telescope, imaging taking, barlows/powermates, seeing conditions and also the processing the data. Entirely new learning curve to that of deep sky imaging. I'm still learning. Mar's will be better placed for imaging next year, so get your skills now and you'll be ready for Mar's next year. No experience is waisted.

Edited July 13, 2019 by Nigella Bryant

[Cosmic Geoff]

I downloaded your .avi file and tried to process it in Registax6.  I could not sharpen it up.  I wonder if the image was properly focused.

It appears that you used the full frame from the camera and the image scale is quite large. Did you use a Barlow lens?

I use only 320x240 pixels on planets (though with a smaller SCT) and I don't use a Barlow lens - the poor seeing here renders it pointless.  On the couple of occasions I tried a Barlow lens the level of detail achieved was the same as without it or worse. For Jupiter, my image files are typically 375Mb .ser files containing 5000 frames.

Yours was 650mb containing 500 frames - I'm not being critical, just pointing out the difference in technique.

[Stub Mandrel]

Some things I have learned:

Use a Barlow. x3 is not too much with a 1200mm scope.

It's definitely worth getting an ADC, set it using an eyepiece, also useful to get the planet well centred.

Use a proper planetary cam, even the cheapest will outperform a webcam because it will save RAW video.

Spend lots of time focusing. When you think you have it right, spend as much time again getting it even better.

Mono doesn't offer gains over one shot colour - you have to use Winjupos to derotate the RGB and it is hard to get decent results, especially if you have a moon or moon shadow moving faster than the rotation of the planet.

The 5000 frame 'quick capture' in Sharpcap is pretty much optimal for Jupiter.

Accept that with the planets so low down seeing, transparency and dispersion will all limit what you can achieve.

This is from my only session on Jupiter this year, with a 6" Newtonian, a 150PL.

 

[Jarvo]

See if you can tweak the gain and brightness settings in the capture software as the images look a bit dark. 

Im at nearly the same latitude 52 degrees and given up on Jupiter and Saturn for a couple of year but that’s mainly due to the observatory doors hampering the view. 

Jarvo 

[WicklowSkies76]

HI all - thanks for the very helpful replies. By implementing some of the great feedback I was able to produce something a little better on Saturn but it still does lack a bit of focus. I am very encouraged at the progress still without an ADC and as suggested, all the practice definitely does pay off.

Here's a processed image from a few nights ago with a low Saturn. The main differences here were that I used a much lower % sample of the frames for stacking (08%) and I spent more time with wavelet editing in Registax. It's far from perfect and still lacks focus, but it's a bit better and I am a lot more encouraged! I will keep practicing.

Edited July 16, 2019 by WicklowSkies76

[WicklowSkies76]

On 13/07/2019 at 21:37, Cosmic Geoff said:

I downloaded your .avi file and tried to process it in Registax6.  I could not sharpen it up.  I wonder if the image was properly focused.

It appears that you used the full frame from the camera and the image scale is quite large. Did you use a Barlow lens?

I use only 320x240 pixels on planets (though with a smaller SCT) and I don't use a Barlow lens - the poor seeing here renders it pointless.  On the couple of occasions I tried a Barlow lens the level of detail achieved was the same as without it or worse. For Jupiter, my image files are typically 375Mb .ser files containing 5000 frames.

Yours was 650mb containing 500 frames - I'm not being critical, just pointing out the difference in technique.

Thanks yes you're spot on. My focus is definitely out. To be honest getting a good level of focus when using the Neximage 5 camera is challenging due to the seeing. It could be collimation related. For the pic above I bumped down to 640x480 or thereabouts and no Barlow is needed then at 2800mm

On 13/07/2019 at 22:49, Stub Mandrel said:

Some things I have learned:

Use a Barlow. x3 is not too much with a 1200mm scope.

It's definitely worth getting an ADC, set it using an eyepiece, also useful to get the planet well centred.

Use a proper planetary cam, even the cheapest will outperform a webcam because it will save RAW video.

Spend lots of time focusing. When you think you have it right, spend as much time again getting it even better.

Mono doesn't offer gains over one shot colour - you have to use Winjupos to derotate the RGB and it is hard to get decent results, especially if you have a moon or moon shadow moving faster than the rotation of the planet.

The 5000 frame 'quick capture' in Sharpcap is pretty much optimal for Jupiter.

Accept that with the planets so low down seeing, transparency and dispersion will all limit what you can achieve.

This is from my only session on Jupiter this year, with a 6" Newtonian, a 150PL.

 

Nice result! Yes you're spot on I need to "sharpen" my focussing skills for sure. I will keep trying and check collimation.

On 14/07/2019 at 10:32, Jarvo said:

See if you can tweak the gain and brightness settings in the capture software as the images look a bit dark. 

Im at nearly the same latitude 52 degrees and given up on Jupiter and Saturn for a couple of year but that’s mainly due to the observatory doors hampering the view. 

Jarvo 

Yep I tried that and did have some more success. So much to learn but really enjoying the process!

 

Here's the fruits of my laboured progress so far. I think you can make out Cassini Division!