Mars: Gimp or Registax?

[Nik271]

Hi all,

I'm new to planetary imaging and I been trying to get a decent image of Mars by reprocessing data from a brief spell of clear weather from a week ago (23 August).

I recorded 3 mins of Mars with Skymax 180 at 5400mm and a Canon 250d in 4k crop mode. I know this is not ideal but without tracking on my EQ5 I found that a big sensor is easier to keep the planet in view for longer and manually follow it with the slo-mo controls. I collected approx 5000 frames of which I stacked the best 5% using Pipp and AS3!

This is my best image of Mars so far but I feel it can be better (both the data and the processing). 

My concrete question for this image is this: I seem to get better results sharpening with GIMP rather than with the Registax wavelets. I'm attaching the stacked tif file and the two (sharpened + contrast boosted) jpeg files after Gimp and Registax.

Marsunedited.tif

This is with Gimp:

 

and with Registax:

The wavelets in Registax seem to produce a visible 'halo' around the edge of the planet and more 'grain' in the image.  I'm puzzled since people always recommend Registax for sharpening.

There could be several explanations:

1. My data is too poor for the wavelets to do their magic (pushing FL to 5400mm was perhaps too much for the camera sensor and the seeing conditions).

2. I don't know how to use the wavelets properly.

3. Mars is special as it has very low contrast and needs delicate sharpening.

I suspect it is perhaps both 1 and 2 but maybe people with more experience can comment if Mars needs more subtle editing especially when sharpening.

Thank you for your attention!

Nikolay

[happy-kat]

This is the website help I found useful on registax sharpening

http://www.sunspot51.com/Registax6/Registax6.htm

[vlaiv]

Don't try to push it too hard if it won't let you:

This is:

Registax RGB align

Registax wavelet sharpen (just a bit)

Gimp scale down + Brightness + Contrast adjustments.

 

[Nik271]

14 minutes ago, vlaiv said:

Don't try to push it too hard if it won't let you:

This is:

Registax RGB align

Registax wavelet sharpen (just a bit)

Gimp scale down + Brightness + Contrast adjustments.

 

Thanks, this looks cleaner indeed! I didn't do the RGB align.

I guess my image scale was too high, so next time I will try with 1.5x Barlow instead of 2x

The forecast for Saturday morning looks promising, fingers crossed...

Nikolay

[happy-kat]

I would start the registax process from scratch there may be some tips on that link you haven't tried yet.