Mars Nov 9th 12" LX200

[Magnum]

Mars at 23:24UTC on Nov 9th. seeing was pretty poor tonight, Jupiter was rather featureless and not worth even capturing but had a quick go on Mars before packing up as its considerably higher in the sky. Used a lower focal length than I normally do as I forgot I had removed a spacer last time I imaged as was on Jupiter in CH4. So this is at around f15 instead of my preferable f21, so had to upscale by 200% before posting.

Surprisingly it came out better than I expected, probably as this camera can capture so fast at 320x240 I ended up with a massive 77,500 frames in 4 mins then stacked the best 25%.

Pole is at about 1 o'clock but very low contrast in IR.

Single 4 min capture @ 350 fps.

Stacked best 25% of 77,500 frames.

Scope: Meade 12" LX200GPS @ f15

Camera: QHY5III462C

Filter: Astronomik IR742

Shutter speed: 3ms

Gain: 250

Location: Kent, UK

Lee

 

Edited November 14, 2022 by Magnum

[neil phillips]

2 hours ago, Magnum said:

Mars at 23:24UTC on Nov 9th. seeing was pretty poor tonight, Jupiter was rather featureless and not worth even capturing but had a quick go on Mars before packing up as its considerably higher in the sky. Used a lower focal length than I normally do as I forgot I had removed a spacer last time I imaged as was on Jupiter in CH4. So this is at around f15 instead of my preferable f21, so had to upscale by 200% before posting.

Surprisingly it came out better than I expected, probably as this camera can capture so fast at 320x240 I ended up with a massive 77,500 frames in 4 mins then stacked the best 25%.

Pole is at about 1 o'clock but very low contrast in IR.

Single 4 min capture @ 350 fps.

Stacked best 25% of 77,500 frames.

Scope: Meade 12" LX200GPS @ f15

Camera: QHY5III462C

Filter: Astronomik IR742

Shutter speed: 3ms

Gain: 250

Location: Kent, UK

Lee

When i read Kons report i didn't bother. You still got some good detail out. Can see you had to push the processing a bit. No doubt a consequence of the seeing. 

[Kon]

Some nice details coming through the IR filter. I take it the colour was suffering from the jet stream?

How was your CH4 on Jupiter? I just ordered a cheap set to try. I might have to borrow your brains on how to go with imaging and processing with the methane filter.

[geoflewis]

Some good detail coming through the IR, Lee

[Magnum]

1 hour ago, Kon said:

Some nice details coming through the IR filter. I take it the colour was suffering from the jet stream?

How was your CH4 on Jupiter? I just ordered a cheap set to try. I might have to borrow your brains on how to go with imaging and processing with the methane filter.

thanks, yes the colour one was much softer, so I didn't bother to process it.

My CH4 filter was is only 10 or 12nm wide and was bundled with my QHY462C camera along with an IR850 and IR block, was a very good deal at £250 for the camera and 3 filters.  It works but have never got much real detail to show with it but that could be because it's so hard to get perfect focus in Methane band. Christopher GO uses the same camera but he has a wider 18nm Chroma filter.

Lee

[Magnum]

6 hours ago, neil phillips said:

When i read Kons report i didn't bother. You still got some good detail out. Can see you had to push the processing a bit. No doubt a consequence of the seeing. 

Yes probably pushed it too far, that what happens when I process too late at night LOL

Lee

[Kon]

1 hour ago, Magnum said:

thanks, yes the colour one was much softer, so I didn't bother to process it.

My CH4 filter was is only 10 or 12nm wide and was bundled with my QHY462C camera along with an IR850 and IR block, was a very good deal at £250 for the camera and 3 filters.  It works but have never got much real detail to show with it but that could be because it's so hard to get perfect focus in Methane band. Christopher GO uses the same camera but he has a wider 18nm Chroma filter.

Lee

Thanks Geoff. I will send you a private message later today to ask a few questions on capture settings and processing methane data, if that's ok.

[geoflewis]

25 minutes ago, Kon said:

Thanks Geoff. I will send you a private message later today to ask a few questions on capture settings and processing methane data, if that's ok.

I'll look out for that, but I can't help you with methane band imagin as I've never done that. I did just get a methane filter with the ASI462MC, but like you I have no idea where to start with it.....🤷‍♂️

[Magnum]

7 minutes ago, geoflewis said:

I'll look out for that, but I can't help you with methane band imagin as I've never done that. I did just get a methane filter with the ASI462MC, but like you I have no idea where to start with it.....🤷‍♂️

I can answer regarding settings for methane band. it's same as normal capture but is a very dark filter so need longer shutter speed and higher gain, also helps to use Lower F ratio to get brighter image and that wavelength responds better to lower f ratios anyway. if using 290 mono then you will need to bin 2x2, but the 462C is much more sensitive in that wavelength so doesn't need binning.

with the 12" scope I have to use about 100ms shutter speed with gain quite high about 475, using gain this high causes a quite a bit of colour noise and hot pixels to show so they recommend taking a dark frame for stacking. Chris go with his C14 says he does 12fps with similar gain.

Lee

Edited November 10, 2022 by Magnum

[geoflewis]

7 minutes ago, Magnum said:

I can answer regarding settings for methane band. it's same as normal capture but is a very dark filter so need longer shutter speed and higher gain, also helps to use Lowe F ratio to get brighter image. if using 290 mono then you will need to bin 2x2, but the 462C is much more sensitive in that wavelength so doesn't need binning.

with the 12" scope I have to use about 100ms shutter speed with gain quite high about 475, using gain this high causes a quite a bit of colour noise and hot pixels to show so they recommend taking a dark frame for stacking. Chris go with his C14 says he does 12fps with similar gain.

Lee

Thanks Lee, this is very helpful. I did take a look with the CH4 filter and the ASI462, but all I got was a screen full of what looked like a noise, albeit Jupiter shaped, i.e. a speckled mess. I think was at 8ms, with the gain pushed all the way, so quickly gave up. Also, how do I set the RGB histograms for capture, is it the same as with colour, i.e. try to get them all equal, or doesn't it matter?

Edited November 10, 2022 by geoflewis

[Kon]

12 minutes ago, geoflewis said:

I'll look out for that, but I can't help you with methane band imagin as I've never done that. I did just get a methane filter with the ASI462MC, but like you I have no idea where to start with it.....🤷‍♂️

Mine is in the post so it is waiting time 😀.

6 minutes ago, Magnum said:

I can answer regarding settings for methane band. it's same as normal capture but is a very dark filter so need longer shutter speed and higher gain, also helps to use Lower F ratio to get brighter image and that wavelength responds better to lower f ratios anyway. if using 290 mono then you will need to bin 2x2, but the 462C is much more sensitive in that wavelength so doesn't need binning.

with the 12" scope I have to use about 100ms shutter speed with gain quite high about 475, using gain this high causes a quite a bit of colour noise and hot pixels to show so they recommend taking a dark frame for stacking. Chris go with his C14 says he does 12fps with similar gain.

Lee

Thanks Lee. I did not want to hijack your post on the filter. Like Geof, I also have the 462mc. So we are talking very low fps, close to what i am getting for Neptune (30fps) so it will be even lower. Thanks for the tip on the dark frame. How do you go by focusing, I assume it is a fairly dark image and you rely on the GRS showing as white?

[geoflewis]

13 minutes ago, Magnum said:

using gain this high causes a quite a bit of colour noise and hot pixels to show so they recommend taking a dark frame for stacking

How do you take a dark frame with this camera? I've never done any calibration frames for lunar or planetary, so really have no idea.....

[Kon]

8 minutes ago, geoflewis said:

Thanks Lee, this is very helpful. I did take a look with the CH4 filter and the ASI462, but all I got was a screen full of what looked like a noise, albeit Jupiter shaped, i.e. a speckled mess. I think was at 8ms, with the gain pushed all the way, so quickly gave up. Also, how do I set the RGB histograms for capture, is it the same as with colour, i.e. try to get them all equal, or doesn't it matter?

Lee do you also aim for a histogram of 70-90%?

[Magnum]

10 minutes ago, Kon said:

Lee do you also aim for a histogram of 70-90%?

well in visible light yes, but in methane I only go to 40% and the histogram jumps around a lot more.

[Magnum]

8 hours ago, geoflewis said:

Thanks Lee, this is very helpful. I did take a look with the CH4 filter and the ASI462, but all I got was a screen full of what looked like a noise, albeit Jupiter shaped, i.e. a speckled mess. I think was at 8ms, with the gain pushed all the way, so quickly gave up. Also, how do I set the RGB histograms for capture, is it the same as with colour, i.e. try to get them all equal, or doesn't it matter?

You need to use around 100ms in methane as its a narrowband fikter

[Magnum]

8 hours ago, geoflewis said:

How do you take a dark frame with this camera? I've never done any calibration frames for lunar or planetary, so really have no idea.....

Take 5 still frames then use them in registax or AS3 when you stack the avi,

[geoflewis]

2 minutes ago, Magnum said:

You need to use around 100ms in methane as its a narrowband fikter

1 minute ago, Magnum said:

Take 5 still frames then use them in registax or AS3 when you stack the avi,

Thanks Lee, I'll give CH4 imaging a bit more thought; it sounds pretty tricky to me.....🤔

 

[Magnum]

8 hours ago, Kon said:

Mine is in the post so it is waiting time 😀.

Thanks Lee. I did not want to hijack your post on the filter. Like Geof, I also have the 462mc. So we are talking very low fps, close to what i am getting for Neptune (30fps) so it will be even lower. Thanks for the tip on the dark frame. How do you go by focusing, I assume it is a fairly dark image and you rely on the GRS showing as white?

Slower than that actually. With the 462c which is the most sensitive camera for methane band it needs 100ms so thats 10fps and a gain of 400-500. Its easy enough to see the bands to get rough focus but not sure i got it spot on, here is a still from the capture to show how it looked with histogram around 40%

[Magnum]

ive replaced the image with a less sharpened version as it looked awful when I just revisited it LOL

[Space Cowboy]

Nice level of detail Lee.