Small scope planetary fun ...

[vlaiv]

Well, it's only Jupiter for now since that is all I managed to process tonight. I also took a recording of Saturn and Moon as well - will process and post results tommorow.

This was taken with 4" Maksutov (SW Mak102) on AZGti mount and ASI178mcc camera. No barlow was used - at native F/13. Stacked in AS!3 and wavelets in Registax 6. Final touch up in Gimp 2.10

Above is just "preliminary" processing since I did not use either darks nor flats, but I did take them. I'll do another round of stacking to see if there is any difference (although SNR is very good as is).

5 minute recording at ~126fps (6ms subs) for total of ~38000 subs taken, stacked best 80% (seeing was rather good and I could not tell the difference in top quality sub vs one at 20% from the end - most of seeing was in form of shimmer rather than blurring).

Surprised to see that much planetary detail with only 4" scope.

[Sunshine]

wow! that is quite a bit of detail, perfectly focussed, beautifully colour balanced, i need to get my planet images closer to this.

[CraigT82]

Superb detail from a 100mm scope! How would darks and flats improve the image?

[vlaiv]

7 hours ago, Sunshine said:

wow! that is quite a bit of detail, perfectly focussed, beautifully colour balanced, i need to get my planet images closer to this.

Thanks!

I'm actually not quite satisfied with colour balance - it was just a simple - hit "auto white balance" in Registax and it did pretty good job versus data from camera, but I've got my own idea of how to get "true" color. Unfortunately, I have not yet found a way to do it in existing software and need to do some measurements first - with a colour chart and such (do color conversion to linear sRGB then apply gamma and so on ...).

3 hours ago, CraigT82 said:

Superb detail from a 100mm scope! How would darks and flats improve the image?

Thank you. No idea if it will make any difference.

I usually like to remove the bias (as darks are really only bias at those speeds) and correct for pixel response non uniformity with flats (apparently CMOS sensors get some of that), but here SNR is so good and planet wobbled so much on sensor that it is properly dithered - I'm inclined to believe that there will be absolutely no difference

1 hour ago, KevS said:

Very nice capture, considering the aperture of the scope. Must have had really good atmospherics.

Thanks.

Conditions were rather good, here are short animated gif of ten consecutive subs (randomly taken from original recording) and result of stack prior to processing:

It is quite still - or rather there is no much blurring only shimmering - I guess small aperture played a part there as it cuts thru smaller piece of atmosphere - less than size of seeing cell.

[vlaiv]

Here we have another one - tiny little Saturn , but looks very nice also:

Same equipment, same conditions, 20ms subs this time and yes, same processing workflow (but darks applied this time - not sure if it makes any difference or not).

[Chrb1985]

Wow this is just amazing buddy! this is really good work!

[Jarvo]

Getting some excellent results from that Mak. 

[andrew s]

Very impressive @vlaiv theory into practice.

Regards Andrew 

[Alien 13]

Very good images, sometimes think the smaller Maks get overlooked as being good scopes in their own right rather than just filling up a manufacturers range..

Alan

[vlaiv]

2 minutes ago, Alien 13 said:

Very good images, sometimes think the smaller Maks get overlooked as being good scopes in their own right rather than just filling up a manufacturers range..

Alan

Indeed.

One of my goals when getting this scope is to actually see how good "all-rounder" type scope this is. I intend to submit it to:

- planetary/lunar visual - so far excellent

- imaging planetary / lunar - this part shows planetary performance and I think it passes with flying colors here as well - lunar is being processed as we speak (again, a bit of surprise there as well, or maybe not surprising after seeing this)

- EEVA / imaging platform - this will be demanding

and of course DSO visual - probably weakest point since it is lacking widest views.

[Alien 13]

5 minutes ago, vlaiv said:

Indeed.

One of my goals when getting this scope is to actually see how good "all-rounder" type scope this is. I intend to submit it to:

- planetary/lunar visual - so far excellent

- imaging planetary / lunar - this part shows planetary performance and I think it passes with flying colors here as well - lunar is being processed as we speak (again, a bit of surprise there as well, or maybe not surprising after seeing this)

- EEVA / imaging platform - this will be demanding

and of course DSO visual - probably weakest point since it is lacking widest views.

Look forward to the results, I love my Mak because its so camera friendly, can hang a very heavy DSLR off it with no issues and no back focus problems..

Alan