More God of War

[PembrokeSteve]

Hi,

Below are a few images that I took on the evening of 27 September, conditions were not perfect, with the usual annoying breeze and fast cloud coming in from the west.
Images taken using my Intes MK67 Maksutov and ZWOASI178MC camera. All images were shot as RGB24 and AVI output format.
Then processed through Autostakkert, and then tweaked using a combination of GIMP and Affinity Photo.

I am little disappointed because I could not fully carry out some of the advice that I was given, in my last Mars image post. 
I am basically trying to get a faster FPS rate without sacrificing resolution (ie) which is what happens when you start binning at BIN2.
With my ZWOASI178MC camera and SharpCap 3.2, there does not seem to be a way in which one can "reduce" ROI size, when working within
a large resolution capture area of say 1920 x 1200. (or so far, I have not figured out how to do it) When imaging with the ZWO178MC and SharpCap,
one is unable to use the mouse to draw a smaller ROI box and the adjustment numbers which are displayed alongside the ROI box, only seem to effect "Pan" and "Tilt",
and have no reducing effect on the ROI box.
I am now thinking of imaging at colour space RAW 8 (to give me "8 BIT" capture) and also switching my output format from AVI to "SER".
Does anyone else do this?  Will it result in me obtaining a faster FPS rate, to give me better images?
Very grateful for any feedback on this.  Probably a lot of us out there who are not using the best settings on our cameras to get the best images !

Regards,
Steve

 

 

[Nik271]

Lovely image! I prefer the smaller one.

I still image with a DSLR so planetary cameras are not in my expertise. One thing I've read is that it's better to acquire more images  at the price of lower bitrate/compression because stacking compensates for that.  But I'm not an expert, perhaps other can give a more informed opinion.

[dweller25]

The middle shot is excellent 👍

[Pete Presland]

Excellent set of images.

[morimarty]

Hi Steve first of all well done on your mars image especially the top one. Can I recommend that you try using Firecapture as your prefered capture software. It as a custom Roi section so you can put in any size you like. It also as default planetary capture settings which should also help. The Asi 178mc is a 14bit camera but there will be nothing gained using it at 16bit in fact it will just slow your FPS down so run it at 8bit with a Roi of 640x480 and go from there. the Gui looks daunting at first but it really is user friendly once you get use to it. Also there are lots of tutorials on YT HTH.

[PembrokeSteve]

39 minutes ago, morimarty said:

Hi Steve first of all well done on your mars image especially the top one. Can I recommend that you try using Firecapture as your prefered capture software. It as a custom Roi section so you can put in any size you like. It also as default planetary capture settings which should also help. The Asi 178mc is a 14bit camera but there will be nothing gained using it at 16bit in fact it will just slow your FPS down so run it at 8bit with a Roi of 640x480 and go from there. the Gui looks daunting at first but it really is user friendly once you get use to it. Also there are lots of tutorials on YT HTH.

Hi, Martyn,

Many thanks for your advice. I have now downloaded Firecapture, (it looks really good) and will now get familiar with it ready for my next Mars imaging session.  Hope you get some good clear weather soon in Derby.

Regards,
Steve

[Yawning Angel]

Lovely images, Steve! Well captured

For the ROI settings -  with the asi178 (mine is the mono version) in Sharpcap, it looks something like this

Default:

and I captured my Mars images with the ROI set like this, or even 640x480:

giving:

You should get abouy 100fps at 800 x 600, although this will depend on how fast your storage is. I stick to SER files, as I fell out with AVI a while back, but can't recall why. It's likely some odd bit of software preferred SER 🤷‍♂️

[PembrokeSteve]

On 07/10/2020 at 11:29, Yawning Angel said:

Lovely images, Steve! Well captured

For the ROI settings -  with the asi178 (mine is the mono version) in Sharpcap, it looks something like this

Default:

and I captured my Mars images with the ROI set like this, or even 640x480:

giving:

You should get abouy 100fps at 800 x 600, although this will depend on how fast your storage is. I stick to SER files, as I fell out with AVI a while back, but can't recall why. It's likely some odd bit of software preferred SER 🤷‍♂️

 

Hi, Alex,

Many thanks for taking the time to provide me with your excellent ROI advice. I will try out the 800x600 capture area this evening (hopefully!)... clouds appearing everywhere at the moment !

All the Best,

Steve