First attempt at planetary imaging

[StuartT]

Ok, so first clear (ish) night since learning all about planetary. Thanks to all you guys for being so helpful and patient.

Here is my first attempt. (Seeing was pretty poor, only 20 degrees elevation and intermittent thin cloud)

20cm SCT with 2x Barlow. ASI 2600MC. SharpCap and Autostakkert. No post-processing

Saturn.

800x600 capture area,
RGB 24,
sensor temp 23.4°C
gain 471
exposure 17ms
best 10% of 90sec of video frames

 

Jupiter

800x600 capture area
RGB 24
sensor temp -8°C
gain 362
exposure 10ms
best 10% of 2mins of video frames

Edited August 17, 2021 by StuartT

[Atreta]

Very nice,  it will look a lot better after post processing. Give it a try using registax 6. 

[CraigT82]

Nice work! Have you done any sharpening at all? The wavelets in registax work wonders 

[StuartT]

Thanks both. No, these are just how they came out of Autostakkert. I wasn’t aware of registax. I’ll check that out!

[StuartT]

Right. I tried stacking the Jupiter video in Registax (nice piece of software!) and then the post processing. I only got about 20 align points though. Couldn't persuade it to find any more! Also I wasn't really sure where to put all the wavelet sliders (or what they actually mean), so I just tried putting them all at 50%. This image is slightly better, but given the seeing, I'm not sure I'll get much. Still, it was great to be able to try all this out for the first time.

 

Edited August 17, 2021 by StuartT

[JSeaman]

I quickly threw the jpg through registax, I think you can push it a bit further (play with sharpen/denoise as well as the sliders)

 

[StuartT]

If anyone's bored enough to try with my original video, please feel free. I'm here to learn!

91 sec, 3.68GB

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bTGL4m2hzWLqVoZwdO5Vat3tK85gQA8t/view?usp=sharing

[The Lazy Astronomer]

Just FYI, AutoStakkert is a far better stacking program than Registax, so continue to stack with AS!3, then open the stacked image in Registax for wavelet sharpening. 

[StuartT]

13 minutes ago, The Lazy Astronomer said:

Just FYI, AutoStakkert is a far better stacking program than Registax, so continue to stack with AS!3, then open the stacked image in Registax for wavelet sharpening. 

ah. ok. thanks. I'll try that now.

EDIT: When doing the wavelets in Registax, do you take the standard image out of Autostakkert or the conv one 

Edited August 17, 2021 by StuartT

[Grotemobile]

I think the final picture has come out very well. At least U have got something to show for your efforts.  

[JSeaman]

Stacked in autostakkert and processed in registax (yes you use the output from AS), it's a good set of data

[StuartT]

48 minutes ago, JSeaman said:

Stacked in autostakkert and processed in registax (yes you use the output from AS), it's a good set of data

Oh boy! Thanks. I don’t suppose you could tell me the settings?

(My previous question was which of the two output files from AS you use? One has “_conv” after the filename)

Edited August 17, 2021 by StuartT

[JSeaman]

Settings were similar to those shown in the screenshot above, crack up the sliders high and sharpen as much as you can. If it gets pixelated then reduce noise

If you open registax then use as, does it not automatically open the file for you? I don't see a _conv file

[Peter_D]

Fantastic first results!

Other people might do it differently but  I generally just use the top 2 sliders and very rarely the third in Registax. I don't touch the bottom 3. I use the zoom feature to make sure I'm not adding artifacts from the wavelets.

[CraigT82]

I downloaded your AVI and had a go at processing, this is what I got out of it... It's a really nice result for your first attempt, well done!

 

What I did was:

1) Stacked in AS3.  I used the auto placement of alignment points function. It looked like this...

 

I then opened the image in Astrosurface and used the RGB align function, the auto white balance function and increased brightness/saturation slightly. Then I applied wavelet sharpening using both a low frequency and high frequency sliders. Exported as PNG.

 

[StuartT]

4 hours ago, JSeaman said:

Settings were similar to those shown in the screenshot above, crack up the sliders high and sharpen as much as you can. If it gets pixelated then reduce noise

If you open registax then use as, does it not automatically open the file for you? I don't see a _conv file

Thanks. 

What I am referring to is the fact that Autostakkert generates two image files. The second has the suffix _conv applied to it (see screenshot)

50 minutes ago, CraigT82 said:

I downloaded your AVI and had a go at processing, this is what I got out of it... It's a really nice result for your first attempt, well done!

What I did was:

1) Stacked in AS3.  I used the auto placement of alignment points function. It looked like this...

I then opened the image in Astrosurface and used the RGB align function, the auto white balance function and increased brightness/saturation slightly. Then I applied wavelet sharpening using both a low frequency and high frequency sliders. Exported as PNG.

 

Awesome! Thanks

Edited August 17, 2021 by StuartT

[CraigT82]

1 minute ago, StuartT said:

Thanks. 

What I am referring to is the fact that Autostakkert generates two image files. The second has the suffix _conv applied to it (see screenshot)

Awesome! Thanks

In AS3 if you leave the 'sharpened' box ticked it will output two images... one raw stack and one which has been sharpened a bit: the _conv file.

The conv files can be useful to quickly assess the quality of the stacks if you have lots of them to flick through. But usually the raw stack file is best to continue on the processing  

[StuartT]

22 hours ago, CraigT82 said:

I downloaded your AVI and had a go at processing, this is what I got out of it... It's a really nice result for your first attempt, well done!

 

What I did was:

1) Stacked in AS3.  I used the auto placement of alignment points function. It looked like this...

 

I then opened the image in Astrosurface and used the RGB align function, the auto white balance function and increased brightness/saturation slightly. Then I applied wavelet sharpening using both a low frequency and high frequency sliders. Exported as PNG.

 

Thanks for this Craig. Really helpful. I'm going to have another bash at this now. 

I see that Registax allows you to save a wavelet protocol so once you have your preferred set of settings you can save it out as a preset. Nice.

[StuartT]

Ok, so best 20% of frames stacked in AS!

Then wavelets in Registax

Then a touch of smart sharpen in Photoshop.

Thanks again everyone for the super helpful advice!

 

Edited August 18, 2021 by StuartT