Venus false colour - my best yet.

[Doc]

Simply stunning the best Venus photo I have ever seen.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Stunning image!

[orion25]

Brilliant image, Craig! That's a real looker

Reggie

[CraigT82]

Thanks all.  Very kind comments and much appreciated. 

 

[Pete Presland]

Brilliant image, the Fullerscope and the APM Barlow are certainly deliver the the data on Venus. Excellent processing skills as well, are you still using IMPPG, then CS2?

[Tommohawk]

Well Craig that's an amazing image - nice job!! 

[Rob]

Well that's certainly got the WOW factor. Nice work!

[Tommohawk]

BTW you got 90k UV frames - just wondering what exposure time youre using?

[CraigT82]

5 hours ago, Pete Presland said:

Brilliant image, the Fullerscope and the APM Barlow are certainly deliver the the data on Venus. Excellent processing skills as well, are you still using IMPPG, then CS2?

Thanks Pete. Yes I use imppg for sharpening almost exclusively. Even with colour data I spilt the channels first then sharpen each channel on imppg before recombining. I use photoshop CC for finishing 

[CraigT82]

12 minutes ago, Tommohawk said:

BTW you got 90k UV frames - just wondering what exposure time youre using?

 I captured 3x30k frame videos and each one took about 5 mins to collect. Gain is 75% and exposure is 9.5ms which gives me about 100fps with the histogram at 60%

I'm using a newt without ADC so not much glass at all in the imaging train means the UV image is relatively bright (when transparency is good).

[Tommohawk]

1 minute ago, CraigT82 said:

 I captured 3x30k frame videos and each one took about 5 mins to collect. Gain is 75% and exposure is 9.5ms which gives me about 100fps with the histogram at 60%

I'm using a newt without ADC so not much glass at all in the imaging train means the UV image is relatively bright (when transparency is good).

Brilliant -thanks for the info. I had a bash with  a UV filter yesterday but results weren't great, so just wondering about your setting. Looks like youre getting started earlier too which must make quite a difference.

BTW is your scope F7.5? And just wondering do you know what size the secondary is? You are getting a ridiculous amount of detail from 8.75" aperture, and maybe that's partly down to a smaller central obstruction?

[CraigT82]

54 minutes ago, Tommohawk said:

Brilliant -thanks for the info. I had a bash with  a UV filter yesterday but results weren't great, so just wondering about your setting. Looks like youre getting started earlier too which must make quite a difference.

BTW is your scope F7.5? And just wondering do you know what size the secondary is? You are getting a ridiculous amount of detail from 8.75" aperture, and maybe that's partly down to a smaller central obstruction?

To be honest I just think it was the conditions in those few days 6th to 10th April which allowed me to produce these results. All my UV captures since then have revealed much more subtle and less obvious cloud features. 

Yes the scope is f7.5 and the CO is about 19%. However for imaging the CO isn't too important I feel, as the loss of contrast that a large CO causes can be restored in post processing. Small COs are much more important for visual. 

[Tommohawk]

OK thanks for that - in any event your imaging/processing skills are certainly making the most out of the data!

My effort yesterday isn't worth posting. I was set up for DSOs so needed a quick change of cameras/filters and so didnt get started until gone 8pm, and by the time I had the UV sorted it was gone 8.30.

The UV image was a nightmare to focus, and it took me quite a while to rejig the settings in Firecapture to get the best out of it by which time I was imaging my neighbours clematis. I hadn't realised how comparatively dim the UV image would be and it just caught me out - added to which I forgot to use a sensible ROI so had a lousy frame rate.

I'll know better next time, though the weather looks back to normal so not sure when that'll be!

[Pete Presland]

1 hour ago, CraigT82 said:

Thanks Pete. Yes I use imppg for sharpening almost exclusively. Even with colour data I spilt the channels first then sharpen each channel on imppg before recombining. I use photoshop CC for finishing 

Are you using the convolution or the unsharp mask?

[steppenwolf]

Only just found this post - WOW!! That is a fantastic image  -well captured.

[CraigT82]

43 minutes ago, Tommohawk said:

OK thanks for that - in any event your imaging/processing skills are certainly making the most out of the data!

My effort yesterday isn't worth posting. I was set up for DSOs so needed a quick change of cameras/filters and so didnt get started until gone 8pm, and by the time I had the UV sorted it was gone 8.30.

The UV image was a nightmare to focus, and it took me quite a while to rejig the settings in Firecapture to get the best out of it by which time I was imaging my neighbours clematis. I hadn't realised how comparatively dim the UV image would be and it just caught me out - added to which I forgot to use a sensible ROI so had a lousy frame rate.

I'll know better next time, though the weather looks back to normal so not sure when that'll be!

Thanks! Yes focusing is really tough and worth spending time on. Waiting a few minutes for a period of steadiness to set focus often helps for me. Using the focus align feature in firecapture to keep the image steady on screen also helps. I've found I've got the best results just before sunset in the blue sky.

[CraigT82]

26 minutes ago, Pete Presland said:

Are you using the convolution or the unsharp mask?

I use just a touch of LR deconv and go quite heavy on the unsharp masking. I also then do further alternate iterations of noise reduction and unsharp masking in PS to enhance the contrast of the details on the disk. 

[CraigT82]

10 minutes ago, steppenwolf said:

Only just found this post - WOW!! That is a fantastic image  -well captured.

Thanks Steve, much appreciated. 

[Tommohawk]

I had another go today, and tried to get going earlier. I'd moved  my mount though so struggled to find Venus until I hit on the idea of finding the moon which was nearby and an easy daytime target and then switching. Had a windows of about 15 mins clear sky but the seeing was awful. Shooting over my rooftop so maybe turbulence.

Got a couple of runs in about 6.20 pm onward but again I struggled with UV. Main issue was I tried to set the histo same as R and G - about 75%. But the log shows the histo was 100%, both min and max were 255. something odd going on here - the UV  images are totally blown out.

I wondered if you had any thoughts on why that might be? 

 

[CraigT82]

9 minutes ago, Tommohawk said:

Got a couple of runs in about 6.20 pm onward but again I struggled with UV. Main issue was I tried to set the histo same as R and G - about 75%. But the log shows the histo was 100%, both min and max were 255. something odd going on here - the UV  images are totally blown out.

That's interesting. Can you post up the log file and perhaps sample of raw frame? Are you using firecapture? When you set it collecting on a new filter it might be bringing up some weird presets. 

[Tommohawk]

1 minute ago, CraigT82 said:

That's interesting. Can you post up the log file and perhaps sample of raw frame? Are you using firecapture? When you set it collecting on a new filter it might be bringing up some weird presets. 

Yes using firecapture - and have been caught out many times by presets!. But not this time - I checked carefully. Gain 80%, 10.55ms exposure. Gain was probably too much but I'm sure as I set up I checked it was 75% ish. 

Attached log files for B and one for R for comparison. the SER file is > 1GB. PIPP wont process it - no image found - AS!3 shows a super noisy mess. SER player renders it but its not pretty.

The session was rather fraught - there was intermittent clouds, and I was facing due west into a bright sun trying to see the laptop screen whilst shielding my eyes with  one hand. RA balance was too good so it kept seesawing through the backlash - hilarious when working to a tight ROI.

2020-04-27-1718_6-R-Ven.txt

2020-04-27-1720_6-B-Ven.txt

[MarsG76]

WOW, absolutely fantastic....

 

[CraigT82]

13 minutes ago, Tommohawk said:

Yes using firecapture - and have been caught out many times by presets!. But not this time - I checked carefully. Gain 80%, 10.55ms exposure. Gain was probably too much but I'm sure as I set up I checked it was 75% ish. 

Attached log files for B and one for R for comparison. the SER file is > 1GB. PIPP wont process it - no image found - AS!3 shows a super noisy mess. SER player renders it but its not pretty.

The session was rather fraught - there was intermittent clouds, and I was facing due west into a bright sun trying to see the laptop screen whilst shielding my eyes with  one hand. RA balance was too good so it kept seesawing through the backlash - hilarious when working to a tight ROI.

2020-04-27-1718_6-R-Ven.txt 829 B · 0 downloads

2020-04-27-1720_6-B-Ven.txt 829 B · 0 downloads

Something weird going on! The only difference in the logs I can see is the resolution and focal length?  I wonder if the SER file is somehow corrupt?

[Tommohawk]

33 minutes ago, CraigT82 said:

I wonder if the SER file is somehow corrupt?

I think that's unlikely - I've done quite a few now and mostly similar. The R and G are all fine. Maybe there was a protective film on the new filter which I've forgotten to remove??!! Kidding... I think.

I wondered about setting the hist to auto - that should at least ensure I get the right outcome. Never tried this in FC - not sure if its gain or exposure which is varied - or maybe both? The B gain is pretty high at 80% compared to 51% for R. Yesterday I did a couple of UV which did at least get the right histo value, so it can be done - need more time with it and unfortunately Venus maybe on the way out by the time the weather improves.

I'll try and find another target to try the UV filter on. Mars will be along in due course but I want to have the filter use nailed before that.

[John Nodding]

Blimey 👀!!! 👍🏻
 

Noddy