Jupiter 6th and 7th November

[Tommohawk]

Hi all. Have had a break from all imaging this year for various reasons, but with Jupiter looking so inviting I thought it had to be worth a go.

I've abandoned my 250 project scope (camera mounted at primary focus on spider) because the helical focus was too awkward and I decide any advantage gained by the smaller central obstruction is lost if the mirror isnt top grade. So - back to the trusty SW P200 and first proper comparative go with the Omegon 385MC.

First night was a bit hazy and cloudy and then got worse. Only got one run. Second night was clear briefly but I didnt get focussed quite spot on. I got a second run once focussed nicely, but only about 90 second before dense cloud spoiled it.

Not the best images but pretty good for a 200P and I think comparable to when I did mono planetary with this scope some years back. Captured with Firecapture - huge thanks to Torsten Edelmann for enabling Touptek/Omegon cameras on FC! The final shot is possibly the best - about 27,000 frames put through PIPP (best 50%) then AS3! (best 16%) then PS. Gain about 3000, 4ms exposure. I think - deleted the log files when tidying up... oooops. 

I used a novel sharpening method which I found somewhere on a PS tutorial - by loading the same image in 4 duplicate layers, converting each layer to "overlay" type, and adding a highpass layer to each layer, its possible to apply sharpening which can be tweaked subsequently per layer. I thought it worked quite well - the original unsharpened images really weren't  great. 

thanks for looking!

[Space Cowboy]

Looks like you have good data there but they are very noisy.  Have you tried frequently domain filter in Image analyser? 

To be honest I think you would achieve better results using wavelet sharpening in Registax or Astrosurface where noise is more easily controlled.

Edited November 7, 2023 by Space Cowboy

[Tommohawk]

Thanks for that.

TBH the original images aren't noisy - it's really only artefacts from the aggressive sharpening. I wish  I'd kept the original images for comparison but they  weren't great so I deleted them.

I did try Registax - thats what I have used mostly in the past - and the results were no better. I'm not familiar with image analyser - is that a product name? Not used Astrosurface either ... found it easily and will check it out next time I have some fresh pics.

[Space Cowboy]

32 minutes ago, Tommohawk said:

Thanks for that.

TBH the original images aren't noisy - it's really only artefacts from the aggressive sharpening. I wish  I'd kept the original images for comparison but they  weren't great so I deleted them.

I did try Registax - thats what I have used mostly in the past - and the results were no better. I'm not familiar with image analyser - is that a product name? Not used Astrosurface either ... found it easily and will check it out next time I have some fresh pics.

Image Analyser is a free image editing program :

http://meesoft.com/Analyzer/index.htm

One of its best tools is frequency domain filter which removes noise without blurring or smearing.

Hope you don't mind but I've put one of your images throught IA and removed some noise with FDF. Also auto adjusted white balance and removed colour noise.  Gives you an idea of what can be done In IA.

 

[Tommohawk]

Hi and thanks for that - definitely an improvement!

I'll have a play with it when I get a minute - I see theres a PS plug in. Is that what youre using or the standalone version?

[Space Cowboy]

6 hours ago, Tommohawk said:

Hi and thanks for that - definitely an improvement!

I'll have a play with it when I get a minute - I see theres a PS plug in. Is that what youre using or the standalone version?

I use IA without any plugins.

[Tommohawk]

👍

[geoflewis]

Some good detail in those images Tom, but as others have commented they are noisy / oversharpened. As @Space Cowboy demonstrated, I too am finding Image Analyser frequency domain and colour noise filters) in conjunction with Astrosurface are useful tools and easier to control for final processing than Registax.

[Pete Presland]

Some really good detail there, Image analyser really has done an excellent job removing the noise

[Pete Presland]

On 07/11/2023 at 19:49, Space Cowboy said:

Image Analyser is a free image editing program :

http://meesoft.com/Analyzer/index.htm

One of its best tools is frequency domain filter which removes noise without blurring or smearing.

Hope you don't mind but I've put one of your images throught IA and removed some noise with FDF. Also auto adjusted white balance and removed colour noise.  Gives you an idea of what can be done In IA.

 

Any tips regarding the settings for frequency domain filter you used Stuart?

[Tommohawk]

Very useful follow on comments - thanks Pete / Geof / Stuart. 

What strikes me in particular is that Image Analyzer has managed to significantly improve an image which has been already processed. Make me wonder what it might achieve with the original image. I had another look in my recycle bin and found one of the SER files so I'll have another go, and download IA. 

As I mentioned the original images were sub-standard due to poor seeing/short runs, so I'm not expecting too much. 

Meantime if Stuart would be be kind enough to share tips re the settings that would be great!