Tips for Better Planetary Imaging.

[WilliamAstro]

This post has been edited due to several errors of information, so I am happy to change this topic over to sharing tips of better planetary imaging instead.

Edited August 15, 2022 by WilliamAstro

[Blueboy]

Very helpful, thank you!

I have a Celestron CR150-HD, is it necessary to use some kind of software to view Saturn or Jupiter?

Thanks!

Blue

PS. Still waiting for my Nikon D5600 to arrive from eBay. But it seems to be looping between Pennsylvania and Texas, it's on it's 3rd trip back Texas. USPS at their best.

Edited August 13, 2022 by Blueboy

[WilliamAstro]

If your using a software to image planets I recommend using FireCapture, if it's for visual purposes I would use SharpCap so it won't be a clutter then.

Also I suggest you use a 2x Barlow for better magnification, then that could double the focal length. So in conclusion your telescope is 150mm, and if you times it by 2 you will get 300mm focal length magnification instead.

[Andy ES]

19 hours ago, WilliamAstro said:

Feel free to ask questions and thank you all!

William, thanks for the tips. What settings would you normally use in firecapture for Jupiter and Saturn?

i.e what gain and exposure would you tend to start with?

Thanks

[WilliamAstro]

53 minutes ago, Andy ES said:

William, thanks for the tips. What settings would you normally use in firecapture for Jupiter and Saturn?

i.e what gain and exposure would you tend to start with?

Thanks

My settings from my telescope are:

Jupiter - Exposure: 10, Gain: 70

Saturn - Exposure: 57.57, Gain: 70

[Freddie]

4 hours ago, WilliamAstro said:

If your using a software to image planets I recommend using FireCapture, if it's for visual purposes I would use SharpCap so it won't be a clutter then.

Also I suggest you use a 2x Barlow for better magnification, then that could double the focal length. So in conclusion your telescope is 150mm, and if you times it by 2 you will get 300mm focal length magnification instead.

I agree FC is good for imaging but you don't need any software for visual as there is no camera to control!

I think you are a bit confused, 150 is the aperture of the scope not the FL which I believe is 1200. 

[WilliamAstro]

Just now, Freddie said:

I agree FC is good for imaging but you don't need any software for visual as there is no camera to control!

I think you are a bit confused, 150 is the aperture of the scope not the FL which I believe is 1200. 

I mean for visual use you can just spectate Jupiter through the scope through the software without recording anything.

And also in that case of the FL then that'd be 2400. 

[Freddie]

2 hours ago, Andy ES said:

William, thanks for the tips. What settings would you normally use in firecapture for Jupiter and Saturn?

i.e what gain and exposure would you tend to start with?

Thanks

You can't use the same settings as you have a completely different scope and camera.

The general rule of thumb would be to keep the exposure as low as possible to keep the frame rate up and use the lowest possible gain to achieve a decent histogram. Those particular settings however will be specific to given scope/cam set-up.

[WilliamAstro]

1 minute ago, Freddie said:

You can't use the same settings as you have a completely different scope and camera.

The general rule of thumb would be to keep the exposure as low as possible to keep the frame rate up and use the lowest possible gain to achieve a decent histogram. Those particular settings however will be specific to given scope/cam set-up.

I was told that using a low gain can result in an onion skin artefact, like this

[Freddie]

Andy has a CPC925 so even with that size scope, to keep exposure low and hence frame rate up the gain is still going to be reasonably high.

[Blueboy]

3 hours ago, Freddie said:

which I believe is 1200. 

Yes

[Ibbo!]

And plenty of practice.

[CraigT82]

12 hours ago, WilliamAstro said:

I was told that using a low gain can result in an onion skin artefact, like this

This is because using low gain/longer exposures yields individual sub frames with a good SNR and little shot noise, which results in a stacked image with a low bit depth. When you try to use wavelets on that low bit depth image you get artefacts like that.  
 

Wavelet sharpening works best on 16 bit images and we get 16 bit images by stacking lots of 8 bit images that contain noise. The stacking software uses random noise in each individual sub to calculate the additional levels through averaging to create the 16 bit stacked image, but if the individual subs are very low noise then this isn’t done properly and the final image will remain a low bit depth.