Doing something wrong or expectations too high? (planetary)

[Girders]

I'm not going down the imaging "rabbit hole" - I know my limits - but having dipped my toes in I'd hoped to be able to produce something better than I'm getting.  I'm really not expecting stunning images like i see on here, but I've seen images using similar kit that are just on such a different level to what I can achieve it's hard not to feel disappointed and frustrated.   So here's my story - any thoughts, comments and suggestions vey welcome.  Even if it's "That's probably as good as you'll get" or "Just keep trying".

Fed up with the frustration of trying to use a smartphone adapter (exposure being my particular problem) I'd had my eye on an ASI120 MC-S for a while and the summer sale tipped me over.  My scope is a Skywatcher Mak 127 which I use on a 1st gen Virtuoso Mount (which I know is alt-az).  I set it up that it tracks well enough to keep planets in view on the camera but am not currently using the wi-fi adaptor for go-to (although I do have one).  I haven't been hooking the camera up to the laptop (taking it outside makes me nervous!) so instead I've been using the Android ASICAP app and connecting the camera to my Pixel 3 phone.  I do struggle to get a sharp focus - it's just so hard to even tell with a grainy on screen image.

Using this I'm getting over 2 mins of film in 640 x 480 at 50+ frames per second with exposures set between 5ms and 10ms and gain set to between 60 and 100 (max setting is 100).  I'm a Mac User (and don't do Bootcamp) so I'm limited with software options.  I'd hoped the ASI Studio software would include the ability to do planetary "lucky imaging" but it doesn't seem to (unless I'm missing something).  So I'm using SIRIL, (1) converting the video to FITS images, (2) no preprocessing as I'm not using Darks, Flats etc, (3) Registering using "Full Planetary Disk" (setting a reference frame but to be honest there's not much difference between them) (4) Stacking using "no normalisation" (as it throws up an error) and setting Quality to anything between the top 1% to 50% (I think the images below were 5% or 10%).  These were taken 10-11pm last night with clear skies and the planets around 14 degrees alt (I lose it behind trees as it gets higher).  Resulting stacked image from SIRIL then processed in GIMP to try to sharpen and reduce saturation.

I just feel they are very soft and lacking detail - I'd like my "white" bands to be whiter, and the definition much sharper.  I've no idea if the GRS should have been visible on any of the nights I've imaged but I've certainly not been able to pick it out.  I think this is only the 3rd clear night I've had with the camera, so I appreciate I might just need to keep trying lots of different things but if there are firm suggestions as to where I'm going wrong or the weak link I'd really appreciate hearing them (especially from any SIRIL users).

Video I used for Jupiter can be viewed here (around 250MB) and here are my images of Jupiter and Saturn.

Thanks for reading.

 

Edited August 24, 2021 by Girders
Typo

[AstroMuni]

On 24/08/2021 at 09:03, Girders said:

So I'm using SIRIL, (1) converting the video to FITS images, (2) no preprocessing as I'm not using Darks, Flats etc, (3) Registering using "Full Planetary Disk" (setting a reference frame but to be honest there's not much difference between them) (4) Stacking using "no normalisation" (as it throws up an error) and setting Quality to anything between the top 1% to 50% (I think the images below were 5% or 10%).  These were taken 10-11pm last night with clear skies and the planets around 14 degrees alt (I lose it behind trees as it gets higher).  Resulting stacked image from SIRIL then processed in GIMP to try to sharpen and reduce saturation.

Siril is not that good with planetary stacking. You could try PIPP and AutoStakkert or Registax. EDIT: Just read again that you are using the Mac so maybe a challenge getting these to work. I use Linux and PIPP & AutoStakkert work under Wine.

Edited August 26, 2021 by AstroMuni

[Girders]

8 minutes ago, AstroMuni said:

EDIT: Just read again that you are using the Mac so maybe a challenge getting these to work. I use Linux and PIPP & Stakkert work under Wine.

Thanks. MacBook is running Catalina or poss Big Sur and I read Wine doesn’t play nice with the most recent OSs?

[Nik271]

I had a look at the video file and it seems that the focus is off and/or the seeing is poor.

Focusing for planetary work is critical and to nail the exact focus you need in this order: 

1. Good seeing 

2. Big screen where you can zoom in the image to see exactly at which point it is sharpest.

3. Good focuser with slow movement. Some people install top quaility focusers on their Maks but they tend to cost a fortune. You can try the low tech clothes peg clipped to the focusing knob to give you more precise control.

I have imaged planets with the Skymax 127 and a DSLR and it can produce quite good images. So keep trying! 

[Nik271]

PS. You mention that the planets were only at 14 degrees altitude, that makes it harder to get good seeing and focus. 

I have noticed great improvement in the quality of my views compared to last year when Jupiter barely reached 16 degrees and this year when its well above 20 near midnight. 

[Girders]

34 minutes ago, Nik271 said:

I had a look at the video file and it seems that the focus is off and/or the seeing is poor.

Focusing for planetary work is critical and to nail the exact focus you need in this order: 

1. Good seeing 

2. Big screen where you can zoom in the image to see exactly at which point it is sharpest.

3. Good focuser with slow movement. Some people install top quaility focusers on their Maks but they tend to cost a fortune. You can try the low tech clothes peg clipped to the focusing knob to give you more precise control.

I have imaged planets with the Skymax 127 and a DSLR and it can produce quite good images. So keep trying! 

Thanks for looking at the video. Seeing was relatively good here last night. Think I may need to run a longer cable and start hooking up directly to the laptop for a bigger screen.

I do use a helical focuser (£59 well spent as I don’t get on well with the focusing knob at all) for fine focusing but at the high magnification even that shakes everything around so much, but hopefully the bigger screen may help.

Will keep my fingers crossed for some more clear nights before too long.

Thanks

Edited August 24, 2021 by Girders
Typo

[Girders]

16 minutes ago, Nik271 said:

PS. You mention that the planets were only at 14 degrees altitude, that makes it harder to get good seeing and focus. 

I have noticed great improvement in the quality of my views compared to last year when Jupiter barely reached 16 degrees and this year when its well above 20 near midnight. 

Thanks again. Will give that a go too. Just means having to relocate within the garden in the dark and re-align.

 

[Girders]

Thanks for the comments.  Had a very frustrating evening fighting with the wifi adapter and synscan app, and then a horrible half hour trying to find Jupiter with the camera before realising the camera had crashed and wasn't displaying.  As a result I didn't have it hooked up to the laptop so couldn't hugely improve my focusing, but I did stick it out until Jupiter was as high as it gets.   Still not great, as was rushed before it disappeared behind trees  but it was clear even from the one short video I got that waiting for the alt to be 20 degrees rather than 15 makes a big difference - and that was even with a slight haze.  Will work on the focus and all the settings when I get some more clear skies, but I'm more confident now that I will (eventually) be able to get something I'll be happy with.  Although it may take me til Jupiter hits 35 degrees this time next year!

This pic from a 45s video around 50fps exposure set to 5 or 6ms. Think this was best 5% stacked (using Siril still).  Sharpened and exposure/saturation in GIMP.

[happy-kat]

There's noticeability more in your Jupiter above then the first image.

[Girders]

1 hour ago, happy-kat said:

There's noticeability more in your Jupiter above then the first image.

Thanks.  Must admit it's a steeper learning curve than I was expecting (and I knew it would be pretty tough).  Big lessons so far are (1) Altitude matters more than I realised (2) If I don't get my set up and finder alignment perfect then I'm going to waste most of my session scrambling to get things in the camera FOV. 

At the rate of clear nights with good seeing I get in Glasgow I should have something acceptable by around 2027. 😀

 

 

[adyj1]

1 hour ago, Girders said:

Thanks.  Must admit it's a steeper learning curve than I was expecting (and I knew it would be pretty tough).  Big lessons so far are (1) Altitude matters more than I realised (2) If I don't get my set up and finder alignment perfect then I'm going to waste most of my session scrambling to get things in the camera FOV. 

At the rate of clear nights with good seeing I get in Glasgow I should have something acceptable by around 2027. 😀

 

 

Surely that's a typo? Got to be 2037 😉

But seriously, although the learning curve has a chuffing great hump at the beginning you have made really good progress. What seems like endless unconnected problems slowly get resolved as you learn more, and an understanding of your particular process clicks into place. When you transition from 'hump' to steady 'curve' you will start to feel a sense of accomplishment as your results slowly improve. (Of course the learning curve never actually flattens out 😁)

Advice from more experienced astronomers who have been through what you're experiencing and have come out the other side is invaluable, so keep asking questions here. If you are thinking about making changes perhaps ask in advance of investing time and money (and potentially wasted clear nights). 

It will all fall into place eventually (and well before 2027), so stick with it!

Ady

 

[CraigT82]

On 24/08/2021 at 09:03, Girders said:

Resulting stacked image from SIRIL then processed in GIMP to try to sharpen and reduce saturation.

Hi, I just noticed this line in your first post, did you do any wavelet sharpening in siril? I've never used it so not sure if it can do that. 

Wavelet sharpening is a key part of processing planetary images... actually the most important part after stacking I'd say. 

I'm not aware of any Mac apps that can do wavelet sharpening, Perhaps there are some but I only know of Registax and Astrosurface which are both Windows only (or Linux under wine for registax).

For what it's worth I bought a used Lenovo Thinkpad off gumtree for £100. It has a 250Gb SSD and two USB3 ports. I do all my astro imaging with it, capture and processing, been going strong for about 4 years now. 

[powerlord]

I use  a mac. Yeh registrax is a must. You've got either wine, or better maintained, crossover as one option. But tbh you're far better getting vmware. especially since the player is now also, free:

https://www.vmware.com/uk/products/fusion.html

You can then setup a real windows VM to run on your mac and stick registrax, SK3, DSS etc all on there. 100% compatible.

Get your windows 10 from microsoft,

https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows10ISO

download windows pro ISO. tell vmware to create a new windows 10 vm and point it at the ISO - job done.

and then you can usually get yourself a key for a fiver to register cheapily on ebay or amazon from sellers selling excess OEM keys.

e.g:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2380057.m570.l1311&_nkw=windows+10+pro+key&_sacat=0

You will then have one of the most reliable windows PCs! and be able to use your mac at the same time, share files between them, etc.

If youre not sure, and want to try without trying to get keys, etc you can download a ready to run vmware from microsoft here, but it will only work till december:

https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/downloads/virtual-machines/

I will just check you have not got a new M1 mac. If you have (I have 2 of em in the mac family in the hoose), its a bit more complicated - and tbh for now you are probably better sticking with wine unless you know what you are doing.

 

Also - just looked at video and it's an mp4 - don't use compressed codecs. save as uncompressed video. You've started by losing loads of the data you captured by saving as mp4.

And try firecapture on mac (get the beta version). It's free and compatible and far more feature risk than asicap. Also, if you want to then use autostakker or whatever its called, you will need an AVI format, and it can save in those.

Edited August 26, 2021 by powerlord

[happy-kat]

Startools has features that could be used on a planetary image, Deconvolution module and the Sharp module.

Edit: I might set myself a challenge of processing a moon image stack output in StarTools.

Edited August 26, 2021 by happy-kat

[Girders]

Thanks for all the brilliant advice and pep talk. Really appreciated.

MacBook is last gen Intel (bought so boot camp for Windows would always be an option).  Will have a think and likely do that given that the PC software seems to be at a totally different level.

[powerlord]

no reason to use bootcamp these days unless gaming - even then only for cutting edge games. both vmware and parallels run as good as nearly native speed AND no rebooting AND can see mac data,  run VMs off USB SSDs  easily. On top of that you have all the flexibilites of VMs - I stopped using bootcamp probably 5 or 6 years ago.👍

stu

[AstroMuni]

On 25/08/2021 at 01:22, Girders said:

Think this was best 5% stacked (using Siril still).

Which of the rejection methods did you use?

Also found this link that may help with running Firecapture on the Mac. https://solarchatforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=25027

[AstroMuni]

5 hours ago, CraigT82 said:

did you do any wavelet sharpening in siril? I've never used it so not sure if it can do that. 

Yes, there is A Trous wavelet transform tool.

@Girders If you havent already done so, you might wish to look at the Docs for SIRIL https://free-astro.org/download/siril-doc-0.9.11-en.pdf. There is a section on Planetary processing that should help.

[Girders]

3 hours ago, AstroMuni said:

Which of the rejection methods did you use?

Also found this link that may help with running Firecapture on the Mac. https://solarchatforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=25027

Tried any setting it would let me use 🙂 

3 hours ago, AstroMuni said:

Yes, there is A Trous wavelet transform tool.

@Girders If you havent already done so, you might wish to look at the Docs for SIRIL https://free-astro.org/download/siril-doc-0.9.11-en.pdf. There is a section on Planetary processing that should help.

Oh - a whole new set of levels and buttons to play with 🙂   I hadn't realised Siril had this feature but have had a look now.  Will have a read and a go using that.  And thanks for the Siril docs link - I've been using that and reading the sections on Registering and Stacking with relevance for Planetary but hadn't spotted the specific Planetary guide later in the "manual".   A *lot* in there for me to think about.

Going to try and get out again tonight and have another go and then spend the weekend trying to make the most of what I capture and look into options of running some of the windows software on my MacBook.

Thanks for everyone's comments - really appreciate you taking the time.

[Girders]

Thanks again for all the suggestions.  I'm still using Siril (although more effectively) as I've not found time to investigate running Widows on my Macbook.  But I did set up much more accurately for better tracking and had the laptop outside for the bigger screen to assist focusing.  And  I waited till Jupiter was a good bit higher in the sky.  There was thin cloud, and I've only had a quick play with one set of video captured from tonight (and possibly not the best set) but I'm absolutely delighted with the improvement since last week.   This clip was around 9000 frames total - stacking best 10% or so of those.  I'll not be happy tl I get a decent shot with the GRS on the side facing us, but fluked a transit (shadow transit?) of Io this evening.  Very optimistic now that with lots more practice - and some clear skies - I'll be able to achieve the kind of images I was hoping for.  Thanks everyone.

Edited August 29, 2021 by Girders
To make clear image stacked from video