Planetary Imaging with my new ZWO ASI 120MM-Can I use my OPTOLONG L'PRO Filter? Should I?

[wesdon1]

Hi all.

         I am a beginner Planetary Imager, with only limited experience imaging Jupiter with my Canon EOS Rebel T1i DSLR unmodified Camera mounted to F5 newtonian Reflector. My question is - can I, or even SHOULD I, use my new Optolong L'PRO Filter to do Planetary imaging? Basically my main questions are as follows...

 

# Is the Optolong L'PRO Filter any good for Planetary imaging with ZWO ASI 120MM ? Or ANY Planetary imaging, for that matter?

# Am I acquiring too much video data on Planets? i.e. Is there a general limit/best volume of video data/video frames for later stacking and processing, for good final Planetary images? ( I acquired around 1GB of video data on Jupiter )

# And, finally, any advice you can give me for getting the best out of my new Optolong L'PRO Filter for DSO with predominantly my DSLR Camera? ( I am aware the tiny sensor on the 120MM isn't much good for DSO. Or so I believe? )

Thank You in advance for any advice you can kindly give me!

Wes, Liverpool UK.

[ONIKKINEN]

L-Pro for planetary will not be useful, in fact it will hurt quite a bit since it blocks much of the light you need, so definitely dont use it for planetary. Since you have a mono camera to do planetary with you will need 4 filters to get a colour image out in the end, a luminance filter which is basically just blocking UV and IR wavelengths, a red filter, a green filter, and a blue filter. Not sure what the best way to work with this is since i do planetary with an OSC camera that takes all the colours at the same time, but if i have understood it correctly you would be shooting these filters back to back and then derotating them in Winjupos to match eachother as Jupiter (assuming you want to image Jupiter) rotates quite fast and you will definitely have some discrepancy between the last filter to the first one. You could also just shoot luminance and get a mono image out in the end, much simpler but up to you if you like mono images or not.

As for data size, that seems very small, like a single short clip. Tens or hundreds of gigabytes per night are easy to come by with planetary and single video clips are often 10+ GB. You should be shooting in RAW 8 with the file format set to .SER so that there is no data compression, also use ROI to limit the frame size to be just barely larger than the planet to limit the file sizes in the end. Still they will be several gigabytes per recording. Here it largely depends on if yours is USB3 or USB2 as framerates will dictate how large a single video file is across a period of time. The 120MM-S is USB3 i believe, and the mini version just named 120MM is USB2 and will have much lower framerates, so also smaller files.

As for if the L-Pro is useful for DSO, i would say depends on the target and how much light pollution you have. For galaxies, little effect, maybe a tiny little bit better. For emission targets it will isolate the emission lines a little bit better and block some unwanted light. The L-Pro blocks high pressure sodium type lamps (old yellow ones), but does almost nothing to newer LED type lamps that radiate across the spectrum (so there is no emission line to block). So if you have a lot of the old yellow ones around, it will block some light pollution but not as much of the target = SNR increases, if you have LED lights around, it will block the LED lights as much as the target = SNR does not increase but you will have less signal as some was blocked. If i were in a bortle 6 zone or better i probably would not bother with the L-Pro with galaxies, but would maybe use it for emission nebulae or primarily blue reflection nebulae (pleiades for example, maybe the Iris too).

[wesdon1]

20 minutes ago, ONIKKINEN said:

L-Pro for planetary will not be useful, in fact it will hurt quite a bit since it blocks much of the light you need, so definitely dont use it for planetary. Since you have a mono camera to do planetary with you will need 4 filters to get a colour image out in the end, a luminance filter which is basically just blocking UV and IR wavelengths, a red filter, a green filter, and a blue filter. Not sure what the best way to work with this is since i do planetary with an OSC camera that takes all the colours at the same time, but if i have understood it correctly you would be shooting these filters back to back and then derotating them in Winjupos to match eachother as Jupiter (assuming you want to image Jupiter) rotates quite fast and you will definitely have some discrepancy between the last filter to the first one. You could also just shoot luminance and get a mono image out in the end, much simpler but up to you if you like mono images or not.

As for data size, that seems very small, like a single short clip. Tens or hundreds of gigabytes per night are easy to come by with planetary and single video clips are often 10+ GB. You should be shooting in RAW 8 with the file format set to .SER so that there is no data compression, also use ROI to limit the frame size to be just barely larger than the planet to limit the file sizes in the end. Still they will be several gigabytes per recording. Here it largely depends on if yours is USB3 or USB2 as framerates will dictate how large a single video file is across a period of time. The 120MM-S is USB3 i believe, and the mini version just named 120MM is USB2 and will have much lower framerates, so also smaller files.

As for if the L-Pro is useful for DSO, i would say depends on the target and how much light pollution you have. For galaxies, little effect, maybe a tiny little bit better. For emission targets it will isolate the emission lines a little bit better and block some unwanted light. The L-Pro blocks high pressure sodium type lamps (old yellow ones), but does almost nothing to newer LED type lamps that radiate across the spectrum (so there is no emission line to block). So if you have a lot of the old yellow ones around, it will block some light pollution but not as much of the target = SNR increases, if you have LED lights around, it will block the LED lights as much as the target = SNR does not increase but you will have less signal as some was blocked. If i were in a bortle 6 zone or better i probably would not bother with the L-Pro with galaxies, but would maybe use it for emission nebulae or primarily blue reflection nebulae (pleiades for example, maybe the Iris too).

Hi ONIKKINEN! Thank You so much for such a detailed and helpful message! I will re-read your message several times to make sure I remember ever last detail! I am extremely grateful! 

I wouldn't mind just doing black and white Planetary to begin with the 120MM, just to "find my feet" with the new camera etc. It makes total sense what you said about the L'PRO not being much use for planetary, because as you rightly say, it will block out light that I need for a good final image after post processing. The reason I asked this question was just to make sure I wasn't missing something, because I am a beginner imager. 

My goodness I thought my planetary video files were too big!? LOL. I thought I only needed a few minutes of video/frames! I'm sooo glad I asked now because you have helped me avoid a lot of problems with not gathering enough video data!

Should I use WINJUPOS alongside PIPP and REGISTAX for processing Jupiter? Or another way to ask the question - What order should I use the various planetary processing software? Should I use PIPP, then Autostakkert, then Registax, in that order?  Where in that sequence of processing should I use WINJUPOS, because although I know of JUPOS, I have never ever used it?

My 120MM is USB2. So slower frame rate, unfortunately.  

As for DSO's and my local light pollution, I live in a Bortle 7/8, and i'm surrounded by a mixture of old yellow sodium lights, and white light ( I assume LED? ) streetlights. As for what DSO's I am thinking of imaging, I am sooo early in my imaging experiences that I will stick to M42/M45 etc, basically the Constellation of Orion. Is that a wise choice, would you say?

Thank You so much for your advice and guidance, people like myself would be lost without the kind help of more experienced imagers like yourself, ONIKKINEN.

[ONIKKINEN]

3 hours ago, wesdon1 said:

Hi ONIKKINEN! Thank You so much for such a detailed and helpful message! I will re-read your message several times to make sure I remember ever last detail! I am extremely grateful! 

I wouldn't mind just doing black and white Planetary to begin with the 120MM, just to "find my feet" with the new camera etc. It makes total sense what you said about the L'PRO not being much use for planetary, because as you rightly say, it will block out light that I need for a good final image after post processing. The reason I asked this question was just to make sure I wasn't missing something, because I am a beginner imager. 

My goodness I thought my planetary video files were too big!? LOL. I thought I only needed a few minutes of video/frames! I'm sooo glad I asked now because you have helped me avoid a lot of problems with not gathering enough video data!

Should I use WINJUPOS alongside PIPP and REGISTAX for processing Jupiter? Or another way to ask the question - What order should I use the various planetary processing software? Should I use PIPP, then Autostakkert, then Registax, in that order?  Where in that sequence of processing should I use WINJUPOS, because although I know of JUPOS, I have never ever used it?

My 120MM is USB2. So slower frame rate, unfortunately.  

As for DSO's and my local light pollution, I live in a Bortle 7/8, and i'm surrounded by a mixture of old yellow sodium lights, and white light ( I assume LED? ) streetlights. As for what DSO's I am thinking of imaging, I am sooo early in my imaging experiences that I will stick to M42/M45 etc, basically the Constellation of Orion. Is that a wise choice, would you say?

Thank You so much for your advice and guidance, people like myself would be lost without the kind help of more experienced imagers like yourself, ONIKKINEN.

If you take just one filter then Winjupos derotation will be optional with sensible recording lengths. Its just that if you take 4x 3min recordings it will be necessary as Jupiter will have moved on (3 minutes is a good length for Jupiter). since you have a USB2 camera the framerates will likely be under 100, so you will have smaller files, but still gigabytes per 3 min.

Stacking for planetary/lunar/solar is best done with Autostakkert!3 and then processing in Registax6 with wavelet sharpening. Registax6 stacking cant keep up with AS!3, so not recommended for stacking. PIPP preprocessing is not always necessary, like when the recording wasnt jumpy and the target was centered all the time, up to you whether you want to do that or not, i usually dont bother.

Orion and Pleiades wll both likely benefit from thr L-Pro under your skies (Orion definitely will) so keep it in. If you try a galaxy like M31/M33 its not so clear whether there is a benefit as they are broad spectrum targets kind of like the white LEDs.

[wesdon1]

7 minutes ago, ONIKKINEN said:

If you take just one filter then Winjupos derotation will be optional with sensible recording lengths. Its just that if you take 4x 3min recordings it will be necessary as Jupiter will have moved on (3 minutes is a good length for Jupiter). since you have a USB2 camera the framerates will likely be under 100, so you will have smaller files, but still gigabytes per 3 min.

Stacking for planetary/lunar/solar is best done with Autostakkert!3 and then processing in Registax6 with wavelet sharpening. Registax6 stacking cant keep up with AS!3, so not recommended for stacking. PIPP preprocessing is not always necessary, like when the recording wasnt jumpy and the target was centered all the time, up to you whether you want to do that or not, i usually dont bother.

Orion and Pleiades wll both likely benefit from thr L-Pro under your skies (Orion definitely will) so keep it in. If you try a galaxy like M31/M33 its not so clear whether there is a benefit as they are broad spectrum targets kind of like the white LEDs.

Thanks Onikinnen! I shall use your advice! I will try out different post processing, and see what gets best results. Thanks again Onikinnen! All I need now is for the damn clouds to go away! LOL!

Wes.

[rickwayne]

I would recommend that you start simple -- there's plenty to learn. A few hundred frames is plenty to start with, so I'd advocate (1) just going monochrome as you suggest, (2) limiting each "take" to less than 3 minutes, and (3) don't bother with derotation yet. 3 minutes is about the max for Jupiter without derotation, you can go longer on Mars (and maybe Saturn if you're not trying for too much detail).

Having tried a couple of packages I'm pretty happy with FireCapture for recording and AS! for processing; I'm definitely not there yet with RS wavelets yet, so I just use Smart Sharpen in Photoshop. No bell-ringers yet, but at least the images are recognizably those of those particular planets! (See my Astrobin for my first wavering steps into planetary work.)

[wesdon1]

On 08/12/2022 at 00:19, rickwayne said:

I would recommend that you start simple -- there's plenty to learn. A few hundred frames is plenty to start with, so I'd advocate (1) just going monochrome as you suggest, (2) limiting each "take" to less than 3 minutes, and (3) don't bother with derotation yet. 3 minutes is about the max for Jupiter without derotation, you can go longer on Mars (and maybe Saturn if you're not trying for too much detail).

Having tried a couple of packages I'm pretty happy with FireCapture for recording and AS! for processing; I'm definitely not there yet with RS wavelets yet, so I just use Smart Sharpen in Photoshop. No bell-ringers yet, but at least the images are recognizably those of those particular planets! (See my Astrobin for my first wavering steps into planetary work.)

Hi Rick! What a great message! Thanks! I was actually pondering how long to do my planetary subs of Jupiter, whether my 20-30 minute long video subs were just too long to avoid Jupiter's relatively fast rotation, and all the extra complications that trying to de-rotate the data/images would cause me. So your advice and guidance is most welcome and very much appreciated! I will indeed have a look at your Astrobin collections and see how you fared in your early astro-imaging career! It's always reassuring to see you're not the only person who struggled with learning everything early on! I was making the comment to my friend yesterday, that Astrophotography has been like going back to college to study for my A-Levels again!!?? LOL There's just sooo much to learn! 

Thanks again Rick! I'll update the thread as I progress! 

Wes.