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Help me up my planetary imaging game


imakebeer

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Sorry, this is a long one, but please bear with me, i'd really appreciate some guidance.

There are two questions here:

  1. First, please help me up my planetary imaging game. What is it you guys are doing that I'm not to get (what appear to me to be) large hi-res images of Jupiter & Mars?
  2. Second, am I expecting too much from a 5x Barlow?

I did my first serious planetary images in October 2022, starting with a SW Capricorn 900mm/70mm frac on a wobbly EQ1 mount. I used a Nikon D5500 or Canon 450D 
 with an Svbony eyepiece protection adapter and 25mm eyepiece.
 
I used BYN/BYE plus PIPP, AS3! and Registax.

Considering the basic equipment I was pleased with the images I achieved, e.g.

Jupiter_2022_10_12.jpg.2866377886947367516ecd9ebfcf406c.jpg

Now I've upgraded though I'm struggling to make any further improvement:

  • SW 150PDS - not the weapon of choice for planetary maybe, but should still be an improvement I think.
  • HEQ5 - tracking at last, and not wobbly like the EQ1!

But I found I couldn't obtain focus on the PDS with the previous camera setup, i.e. Canon 450D, eyepiece projection adapter and 25mm eyepiece (not enough inward focus travel), but I could with a 2x Barlow. Instead I tried with the kit SW 1.25" 2x Barlow - I could focus but i think maybe this Barlow isn't great optically, it seems to have lots of CA. I noted that the images were pretty much the same size in terms of pixels across the diameter of the planet as previously with the 25mm eyepiece.

I tried again with a different camera - this time an Altair GPCAM3 224C USB3, combined with the same 2x Barlow, but didn't notice any great leap forward in images quality.

I wondered if the trick is to magnify the image more, i.e. spread the image out over more pixels on the sensor to resove more detail? Looking at the "Which Barlow?" section of "Planetary Imaging Tutorials" he recommends (I think based on longer discussions on Cloudy Nights) you want a focal ratio about 5 (or 6 or 7) x pixel size in microns, therefore.....

So with the GPCAM3 (3.75um) I want a FR around 18.75-26.25. The 150PDS is f/5 so a 4x or 5x Barlow seems about right - I went ahead and got an Svbony 5x Barlow (along with a 2x and 3x).

I tried again last night with the 150PDS, Svbony 5x Barlow, GPCAM3 and Sharpcap. I did 3 x 3mins on Jupiter between about 30-70% histogram, and similar again on Mars (about 10-20k frames).

When I processes the resulting AVIs in AS3! I was surprised to find the images weren't much bigger than I'd done previously, and the quality was no better than I've achieved before with much more modest equipment. Cropping out the black space of the imported AVI in AS3! both Jupiter and Mars are still well under 150 x 150 pixels.

20_24_48_P8_ap79.jpg.b4f34d51f09809108b258bf74feb33fd.jpg

So am I expecting too much from a 5x Barlow? Should I not expect it to give me an image roughly twice the size of a 2x Barlow (albeit dimmer perhaps)? (Test vids on some trees a few hundred metres away at least confirmed it gives this kind of gain at short range at least!)

Am I missing something about the image capturing/post-processing? I'd swear others are posting bigger / hi-res / more pixel images. How do you get this extra level of detail? Surely not everyone is using a 500mm+ light bucket to image planets?

Is it the equipment, be it the scope, mount, camera, Barlows etc? Is it capture, i.e. do I need many more frames? Am I driving the software wrongly, Sharpcap, AS3!, Registax? Is there something more I need to do in GIMP for example?

Thanks if you've read this far - I'd really appreciate some guidance.

Cheers! 👍🔭🙏

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Could be the seeing. It seemed bad last night (29th) and my images with C8, ASI462MC, were below par and generally no better than yours.

Looks like you have enough frames.  I generally find no benefit beyond 5000 frames (=20 secs).   There seems to be some colour fringing in your image. 

You don't mention an ADC. It is worth using, especially if the planets are low in the sky. 

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To put it bluntly, if you’re looking for big planetary images you need to use a big scope. The bigger the scope the bigger the resulting image. 
 

The 150p and 5x barlow with 224c will give you a Jupiter image which should be about 190 pixels across the equator, is that roughly what you’re getting? 

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Thanks for the input @Cosmic Geoff 👍

Forgetting about image quality for a moment (seeing, CA, focus etc), do you have any thoughts about image size?

With your setup for example, do you get the same in Autostakkert where the actual disc of Jupiter is only 150 pixels across or so?

I'd have thought magnifying the image would spread it out over many more pixels on the sensor (at the cost of brightness), but maybe I've misunderstood.

Otherwise what are the tricks other folks use to get larger images? (Or am I imagining it and they don't???)

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2 minutes ago, CraigT82 said:

The 150p and 5x barlow with 224c will give you a Jupiter image which should be about 190 pixels across the equator, is that roughly what you’re getting? 

About that - a bit less, but thereabouts. I crop the video in AS3! to 150 x 150, the disc of Jupiter is a bit smaller, probably about 125 I'd say (can check again though to be more precise).

Out of interest, how do you find up with those figures? I take it there's a way to calculate these things???

I get that bigger images need a bigger scope. What I can't fathom is why they're barely any different in size of the planet's disc between a 70mm frac and the 150PDS???

Am I incorrect to imagine that different strength Barlows will result in different image sizes, i.e. the physical diameter of the blob of light that hits the sensor in the camera?

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The biggest issue with planetary is always going to be the seeing. I thought that it looked clear last night but was not happy with the results. I found getting a good focus almost impossible and it shows in the results.

I used my C8 with a 2.5 barlow and ASI224. Will try again if we get another clear night.

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Your DSLR image of Jupiter is actually rather good.

Native scope 900mm FL Vs 750mm FL isn't exactly a great difference hence the sizes are similar. But yes a Barlow should multiply that focal length.

For a bigger difference you need longer focal length native from the scope, tracking becomes more important though.

Barlow's do magnify, but they also increase the focal length, slow down the light path and "dim" the image. Luckily some of the planets are fairly bright so this isn't too much of a concern. I have a 5x Barlow myself, but have never used it as the seeing never allowed me to get a decent image from it, a 2 or 3x is a better option. Not all Barlow's are created equal either, many serious people use a Televue powermate as it doesn't exhibit as much loss of quality a standard Barlow does. I've found a Meade telenegative also decent as a standard Barlow. I believe the Celestron Xcel LX Barlow's are also good but I haven't got one.

Technically once an image is in a rasterised format (pixels) you can make it whatever size you want and the software will interpolate any neighbouring pixels in a best guess manner so making it larger will end up blurring the image, but if the data isn't within the original pixels you won't get any more details out of it than keeping it at it's original size. Taking more frames and stacking them is what you also need to do.

Edited by Elp
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37 minutes ago, Elp said:

Native scope 900mm FL Vs 750mm FL isn't exactly a great difference hence the sizes are similar. But yes a Barlow should multiply that focal length.

For a bigger difference you need longer focal length native from the scope, tracking becomes more important though.

Yeah, the SW150PL (1200mm f/8) was on my original shortlist, and probably much better suited to planetary out of the box. One of the reasons I went for the 150PDS (apart from the dual speed focuser which is awesome BTW!👍👍👍💪💪💪) is I figured I can add a Barlow to increase FL for planets much easier than I can reduce it for deep sky.

I know there are more pricey Barlows out there, which one would hope also means proportionately better - the reason I got the Svbony ones is they are affordable and allow me to experiment to get a better idea of what will work.

There are a lot of equipment variables to play with too - different combnations of cameras (including an ASI120 I didn't mention!), Barlows and potentially two OTAs.

47 minutes ago, Elp said:

Technically once an image is in a rasterised format (pixels) you can make it whatever size you want and the software will interpolate any neighbouring pixels in a best guess manner so making it larger will end up blurring the image, but if the data isn't within the original pixels you won't get any more details out of it than keeping it at it's original size. Taking more frames and stacking them is what you also need to do.

There's a check box in Registax, something like show original image size - when I do that it get's bigger but very blurry and pixellated so difficult to see if wavelet settings are better or worse.

There's also a setting in AS3!, near the stacking button,I think it's called drizzle (1.5, 2 and 3x I think). That seems to also output a bigger image but I've yet to make it output something better (not helped by the fact I haven't figured out yet what it actually means!)

On the number of frames question, @Cosmic Geoff says no benefit beyond 5000 frames (though I'm not sure how that can be only 20s worth - maybe 20s playback, not 20s to capture???). But @Elp you say take more frames - so more than 10-20k frames then? For Jupiter though I thought you run into problems over 3 mins capturing time due to the speed at which it rotates???

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4 hours ago, imakebeer said:

I wondered if the trick is to magnify the image more, i.e. spread the image out over more pixels on the sensor to resove more detail? Looking at the "Which Barlow?" section of "Planetary Imaging Tutorials" he recommends (I think based on longer discussions on Cloudy Nights) you want a focal ratio about 5 (or 6 or 7) x pixel size in microns, therefore.....

So with the GPCAM3 (3.75um) I want a FR around 18.75-26.25. The 150PDS is f/5 so a 4x or 5x Barlow seems about right - I went ahead and got an Svbony 5x Barlow (along with a 2x and 3x).

I tried again last night with the 150PDS, Svbony 5x Barlow, GPCAM3 and Sharpcap. I did 3 x 3mins on Jupiter between about 30-70% histogram, and similar again on Mars (about 10-20k frames).

Hi Beermaker,

maybe it is good to read a bit more about the limitations of planetary imaging. There are some threads that discuss it in parts in this forum, but I have written two articles about it in a Dutch forum (they should translate properly when opened in Chrome).

In short: the optimal focal ratio is around 3.7 x [pixel size], but that is not including the effect of seeing. Seeing ignored, for your GPCAM3 it will be 3.75 x 3.7 = f/13.9. So although under perfect conditions a 3x Barlow should be more than enough, you will not achieve optimal sampling due to seeing. Seeing negatively affects the optimal focal ratio. Your scope is diffraction limited (in green light) at a seeing of about 0.7". If the best seeing (expressed in arc-seconds) is worse than that, the factor 3.7 no longer gives the optimum focal ratio, and should be divided through roughly 1.6 x [seeing] ^ 0.74. So suppose your best seeing was about 1.5", the optimal focal ratio would be 3.75 x 3.7 / (1.6 x 1.5^0.74) = f/6.4! Not that I recommend doing this, as there is always a chance that the best seeing was better than the limit for your scope. It is merely to show that a 5x Barlow is not producing any better image, while it comes at a cost: longer exposure-times (= more smearing) and/or higher gain (= more noise).

If you want a larger image, then it is best to image the planet at a maximum focal-ratio of 3.7 x [pixel size], stack the result and then resize it using your favourite photo-processing software.

A good example is this post (again in Dutch, but again Chrome translates): https://www.starry-night.nl/forums/topic/mars-op-26-december-2022/

It shows Mars imaged with two cameras (ZWO ASI174MM and ASI290MM) in the same night, the former camera having pixels twice the size of the latter. Both were recorded at f/20. The larger-pixel camera does, however, show the same detail as the smaller-pixel camera, simply because the latter was oversampling by a factor of 2 (seeing not included).

HTH

Nicolàs

 

Edited by inFINNity Deck
typo
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8 minutes ago, imakebeer said:

On the number of frames question, @Cosmic Geoff says no benefit beyond 5000 frames (though I'm not sure how that can be only 20s worth - maybe 20s playback, not 20s to capture???).

My setup actually does record 5000 frames in 18 to 20 secs , ( ~275fps) with the ROI of 320x240 PX.  USB3 ports.

CPC800 at f10 with ASI462MC, exposure 0.75ms (Mars)  1.65ms (Jupiter).

320x240 is a little tight for Jupiter so it took 40 secs for a larger 544x548 px ROI, and a .ser file four times the size as for Mars

At '3.7x pixel size' it seems I am operating close to the optimum focal ratio.  Indeed I found a 1.8x Barlow did not seem to improve things any.

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35 minutes ago, Cosmic Geoff said:

320x240 is a little tight for Jupiter

Interesting - in Sharpcap I had it set to 320 x 240 for Jupiter (and Mars obvs, which is smaller) and it was plenty big enough, even with my 5x Barlow in. I'd say the window (240px high) was about 4-5 Jupiters high if you see what I mean. It was certainly bigger than 2-3 Jupiters high for example. Which puts my Jupiter around maybe 60px across???

Which surprises me a bit. But then I suppose you're using an 8" scope, at f/10 (not sure if you're using a Barlow or not, perhaps not). So should the image from a 6"/150mm f/5 (f/25 with a 5x Barlow, no?) really be that small???

In part it's confusing because, since I'm still new, I suppose I don't really know what to expect. Annoyed I didn't think at the time to go grab the 2x & 3x Barlows from the box (just indoors, no more than 2-3m away!) and see what happened. And of course it's peeing down this evening! 😖

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I regularly use Stellarium to check what I should expect to see both visually and with the camera. Stellarium says that with your 150PDS, 224C and x5 Barlow Jupiter should be around 200 pixels in diameter.

In your original post you mentioned that you were using the eyepiece projection method with your DSLR and you didn't say otherwise when talking about the 224C. Are you using eyepiece projection with that too?

If so then that may be the cause of your problems. Both the smaller than expected image size and the poorer than expected quality. I use the prime focus method (no eyepiece) which I believe is what most people do. I recently tried the eyepiece projection method to try to get more magnification and it was nowhere near as good.

I've imaged Jupiter with my 150PDS and an IMX585 camera with x2.25 Barlow. That gives me the right F number, F5 x 2.25 = F11.25 4 x 2.9µm, and Jupiter has a diameter of about 120 pixels.

You can change the resolution during post processing and the AutoStakkert Drizzle feature does this, increasing the resolution by x1.5 or x3.0 I believe. The Drizzle function should be using multiple frames in a stack to increase the resolution and so you will get more data than from just a single frame (increasing the resolution of a single frame will not help as there is no more data). I used the x3.0 Drizzle with my last image of Jupiter (below).

Jupiter_6.thumb.png.e02cd28c440f3b61fd6d9b893481b354.png

In this image Jupiter is about 360 pixels in diameter (3 x 120) and I'd say its about the same quality as your second image.

Here is the same image after some post processing.

Jupiter_6_Affinity.thumb.png.d68e613a6d42ba90bd33ca08693b1ba6.png

Makes quite a difference I think.

 

 

Edited by PeterC65
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Here is what my simple post processing regime did to your second image.

20_24_48_P8_ap79.jpg.b4f34d51f09809108b258bf74feb33fd_Affinity.png.943cf12eeb35d5ce4537c406164dc945.png

I trebled the resolution (without drizzle as this is just one frame), use the Topaz DeNoise filter (which is amazing) and adjusted the luminance and colour a little. I expect it would look much better if you Drizzled in AutoStakkert, then did the post processing.

 

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1 hour ago, PeterC65 said:

I regularly use Stellarium to check what I should expect to see both visually and with the camera. Stellarium says that with your 150PDS, 224C and x5 Barlow Jupiter should be around 200 pixels in diameter.

Thanks Peter - I think when I've searched in the past I saw you've done some imaging with the 130 or 150PDS (or both). This is interesting because I'm certain I'm not getting anywhere near 200px 🤔 I only have Stellarium on my mobile, but its the paid version so I'll check if it does this.

1 hour ago, PeterC65 said:

In your original post you mentioned that you were using the eyepiece projection method with your DSLR and you didn't say otherwise when talking about the 224C. Are you using eyepiece projection with that too?

OK - in the original setup with the SW Capricorn frac I used an eyepiece + eyepiece projection adapter + DSLR.

In the new setup with the 150PDS I'm not (at least I don't think I am, if I've understood the terminology) - the 1.25" adapter goes on the focuser, then the Barlow (5x in last night's case), then the 224C. I think this is prime focus, no? Or have I misunderstood? Should I be doing something different?

(I did eyepiece projection with the frac because the image was better. I wonder if this is simply down to the fact that the kit SW 2x Barlow is rubbish? But the magnification with the 25mm eyepiece vs. 2x Barlow seemed about the same to me)

1 hour ago, PeterC65 said:

You can change the resolution during post processing and the AutoStakkert Drizzle feature does this, increasing the resolution by x1.5 or x3.0 I believe. The Drizzle function should be using multiple frames in a stack to increase the resolution and so you will get more data than from just a single frame (increasing the resolution of a single frame will not help as there is no more data). I used the x3.0 Drizzle with my last image of Jupiter (below).

Ah, OK, thanks - it makes sense what it's doing now and why it takes longer to process. I'm gonna go back through last night's captures again and double check what image size I got etc, plus have another go with drizzle on vs. off etc etc etc.

Also it crossed my mind if there's something I needed to change in Sharpcap as I've only used BYN/BYE up to now, but maybe not. I would add that the 224C kept crashing, but I wonder if it was just protecting itself when I set both the gain and exposure high/long while I was trying to acquire the target and focus etc.

I also found all the images from the 224C were very green - not a disaster as I could fix it later in post by tweaking the histogram, but odd that it should happen I thought. I'm interested to also try the ZWO ASI120MCS I have - on paper it should be inferior and better suited to guiding, but in practice who knows!

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The AVI files are 320 x 240 as expected - that's what I had set in Sharpcap.

The stacked images output from AS3!, and also the sharpened ones from Registax are 144 x 144 - again, expected as that's how I cropped them in AS3!.

But the actual disc of Jupiter is only about 83px in diameter.

@PeterC65 - I can input the gear into my Stellarium mobile app, and as you say it simulates the FOV (I guess I could also use the similar tool linked on the FLO website!). I wasn't clear if I should input the maximum sensor size (1280 x 960) or what I actually captured (320 x 240). Also I assume your estimated Jupiter being about 200px diameter is just based on eyeballing the size relative to the frame size - at least the app doesn't tell me "Jupiter is x-pixels big".

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36 minutes ago, imakebeer said:

The AVI files are 320 x 240 as expected - that's what I had set in Sharpcap.

The stacked images output from AS3!, and also the sharpened ones from Registax are 144 x 144 - again, expected as that's how I cropped them in AS3!.

But the actual disc of Jupiter is only about 83px in diameter.

@PeterC65 - I can input the gear into my Stellarium mobile app, and as you say it simulates the FOV (I guess I could also use the similar tool linked on the FLO website!). I wasn't clear if I should input the maximum sensor size (1280 x 960) or what I actually captured (320 x 240). Also I assume your estimated Jupiter being about 200px diameter is just based on eyeballing the size relative to the frame size - at least the app doesn't tell me "Jupiter is x-pixels big".

You don’t have binning enabled in sharpcap do you? That would produce a much smaller image in terms of how many pixels Jupiter occupies.

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7 minutes ago, CraigT82 said:

You don’t have binning enabled in sharpcap do you? That would produce a much smaller image in terms of how many pixels Jupiter occupies.

Good point, but no - it's set to 1x1 which I think is correct (I read up recently roughly what binning is, so hopefully I've got that right)

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Thanks again for the tips @PeterC65 👍 I've gone through AS3! again now I know what drizzle is doing - there was a moon (I think) just on the edge of the image so I've uncropped it slightly and done it with drizzle = 3, sharpened again in Registax and stretched the histogram round the moon to brighten it a little.

I'm still mystified why the initial image of Jupiter is so small, so few pixels. I'd like to solve this.

I'm not sure the drizzled image is much different to just enlarging it in GIMP of MS Paint, it's still fuzzy, but maybe the seeing last night really was just rubbish. Maybe here in the UK we just need to budget for an ADC??? But I will keep trying, and experiment with different Barlows and maybe try the ASI120 just to see.

20_24_48_P8_ap79_Drizzle30.jpg.2a171f589855c4d89d3ae42c3f34ee85.jpg

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2 minutes ago, CraigT82 said:

If you can post up your capture text logs form your various sessions it might give us a clue if there something wrong somewhere 

Thanks for the offer, much appreciated 👍🙏 These are the 3 Jupiter logs from Sharpcap (Mars wasn't much different). Mainly I was just playing around with gain and exposure to vary the histogram between about 40-60% (or maybe 30-70%).

20_28_58.CameraSettings.txt

20_33_06.CameraSettings.txt

20_24_48.CameraSettings.txt

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Couldn't resist also sharing this Mars image - was too ashamed of the poor quality to share them before but just gone through the post-processing again and was rather pleased and surprised when this popped out from Registax. Still not amazing but probably my best Mars image yet, much better than my previous orange/brown blobs! 😊

20_49_37_P8_ap19_Drizzle30.jpg.3a7d7a9518441e1c641e7771691c3003.jpg

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14 hours ago, imakebeer said:

Thanks Peter - I think when I've searched in the past I saw you've done some imaging with the 130 or 150PDS (or both). This is interesting because I'm certain I'm not getting anywhere near 200px 🤔 I only have Stellarium on my mobile, but its the paid version so I'll check if it does this.

The PC and mobile / tablet versions of Stellarium diverged some time back and the PC version is much better (I have both and find I always use SkySafari on the tablet). The PC version of Stellarium is free and I use it as my main source of target data and expected field of view for both visual and EEVA. I checked Stellarium against what I actually captured for Jupiter and what Stellarium is predicting is correct, so you really should be seeing 200 pixels.

14 hours ago, imakebeer said:

In the new setup with the 150PDS I'm not (at least I don't think I am, if I've understood the terminology) - the 1.25" adapter goes on the focuser, then the Barlow (5x in last night's case), then the 224C. I think this is prime focus, no? Or have I misunderstood? Should I be doing something different?

Yes you are using the prime focus method. The magnification you get from a Barlow varies quite a bit depending on the distance between the Barlow lens and the camera sensor. That is the other possible reason why you're getting a different image size to the one you expect (the x5 Barlow may in fact be operating at something less).

I've been struggling with this myself. It seems to be pretty much impossible to work out what the magnification should be. There is a formula, magnification = 1 + ( back focus / Barlow focal length ), but the back focus (distance between the Barlow lens and the camera eyepiece) can be difficult to work out and the Barlow focal length is never published. So I'm planning to measure the actual magnification of my two Barlow lenses with an eyepiece, Binoviewer and the camera.

14 hours ago, imakebeer said:

Also it crossed my mind if there's something I needed to change in Sharpcap as I've only used BYN/BYE up to now, but maybe not. I would add that the 224C kept crashing, but I wonder if it was just protecting itself when I set both the gain and exposure high/long while I was trying to acquire the target and focus etc.

I use SharpCap but don't know what you mean by BYN/BYE?

I've not seen either of my cameras crash in SharpCap (neither are ZWO), but there is a lot of technology involved so it does throw wobbles occasionally that require a restart.

14 hours ago, imakebeer said:

I also found all the images from the 224C were very green - not a disaster as I could fix it later in post by tweaking the histogram, but odd that it should happen I thought. I'm interested to also try the ZWO ASI120MCS I have - on paper it should be inferior and better suited to guiding, but in practice who knows!

Most cameras have a Bayer matrix that is RGGB so you get twice as much green as you do red and blue. This is very noticeable when you use the camera in daylight. Most cameras also respond to IR more than the eye and this can affect the colour rendition. I find that the auto white balance (a camera specific feature I think) helps improve the colour rendition in daylight and also for the Moon.

 

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14 hours ago, imakebeer said:

@PeterC65 - I can input the gear into my Stellarium mobile app, and as you say it simulates the FOV (I guess I could also use the similar tool linked on the FLO website!). I wasn't clear if I should input the maximum sensor size (1280 x 960) or what I actually captured (320 x 240). Also I assume your estimated Jupiter being about 200px diameter is just based on eyeballing the size relative to the frame size - at least the app doesn't tell me "Jupiter is x-pixels big".

With the PC version of Stellarium you input the sensor size in pixels and mm. I estimated the size of Jupiter by eyeballing it but the PC version of Stellarium draws a 250 x 250 px box in the center of the field of view making it quite easy to estimate the size of the planet (in the case of your setup Jupiter filled 80% of this box).

 

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13 hours ago, imakebeer said:

Thanks again for the tips @PeterC65 👍 I've gone through AS3! again now I know what drizzle is doing - there was a moon (I think) just on the edge of the image so I've uncropped it slightly and done it with drizzle = 3, sharpened again in Registax and stretched the histogram round the moon to brighten it a little.

I'm still mystified why the initial image of Jupiter is so small, so few pixels. I'd like to solve this.

I'm not sure the drizzled image is much different to just enlarging it in GIMP of MS Paint, it's still fuzzy, but maybe the seeing last night really was just rubbish. Maybe here in the UK we just need to budget for an ADC??? But I will keep trying, and experiment with different Barlows and maybe try the ASI120 just to see.

20_24_48_P8_ap79_Drizzle30.jpg.2a171f589855c4d89d3ae42c3f34ee85.jpg

Drizzle should be better than enlarging a single frame in a viewer or post processing tool as it uses multiple frames from the stack to interpolate between pixels and thereby uses the data buried within those multiple frames. It is a method that was developed to improve Hubble images apparently. I've been using the AutoStakkert x3.0 drizzle on all of my planetary images to get something bigger to process.

After much research, my tools of choice for post processing are Affinity Photo and Topaz DeNoise AI.

Affinity Photo is better than GIMP I think in that it is much more intuitive (important given how complex these tools are) and it is compatible with PhotoShop plugins. It was on offer at £36 for a perpetual licence when I bough it recently. PhotoShop is just way too expensive I think (£20 per month on subscription only).

Topax DeNoise AI is a stand alone tool that reduces noise and sharpens detail in any photo. It has only a few settings making it easy to use and the results are very impressive. Topaz offer other tools but the DeNoise tool seems to be the best. It cost me £45 for a perpetual licence when I bought it recently and they offer free trial licences. I'm still refining my post processing method but am currently thinking that DeNoise may do a better job than RegiStax wavelets (yet to be tested).

I don't have an ADC so can't comment on their usage or effectiveness.

 

 

Edited by PeterC65
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