Jupiter - 25 Nov 2023

[geoflewis]

After capturing the aurora earier in the evening, later last night I headed out for another try at Jupiter and Uranus (that one got away due to cloud), unsure what the seeing would be like as East Anglia was still under the remnants of the Jetstream. Seeing was definitey a bit in and out, but lucky imaging did it's job grabbing the good frames. I ran 9x1m SERs for RGB and IR, but was already losing the sky to cloud as I started the CH4 captures, so that was cut short. Here are what I got from the session.

I was hoping to experiment with different capture settings for methane band (CH4), but clouds stopped me completing those tests, so that rather noisy image, is a mix of different capture settings.

 

Edited November 26, 2023 by geoflewis

[Kon]

Excellent details on the colour image; as I said in our messaging, one of your best this apparition despite the less clear sky. The IR is outstanding, so much more going on. Your methane is getting better and better. I feel you might be able to push it a bit more.

 

[geoflewis]

14 minutes ago, Kon said:

Excellent details on the colour image; as I said in our messaging, one of your best this apparition despite the less clear sky. The IR is outstanding, so much more going on. Your methane is getting better and better. I feel you might be able to push it a bit more.

 

Thanks Kostas,

Yes, I agree, these are some of my better images this year. I think I may have had better captures, but possibly over processed them. I've dialled back on the wavelets in Astrosurface quite a bit for the colour and IR here. The methane band was through cloud and a mixture of trial settings from 75ms, 66ms, 50ms all 1m SERs. Also much less data as fewer SERs, even though I used 60% of each SER. The images were very noisy, so there's lots of NR applied. Hopefully one of these nights I'll get a decent run with the CH4 filter.

[Space Cowboy]

That colour shot is as sweet as a nut! Geof you have nailed it! Thats the best Jupiter shot we've seen on here this year! Gorgeous colour balance and fine understated detail.

[Kon]

1 hour ago, geoflewis said:

Thanks Kostas,

Yes, I agree, these are some of my better images this year. I think I may have had better captures, but possibly over processed them. I've dialled back on the wavelets in Astrosurface quite a bit for the colour and IR here. The methane band was through cloud and a mixture of trial settings from 75ms, 66ms, 50ms all 1m SERs. Also much less data as fewer SERs, even though I used 60% of each SER. The images were very noisy, so there's lots of NR applied. Hopefully one of these nights I'll get a decent run with the CH4 filter.

I agree this is really nicely processed and agree with Stuart's comment.

The methane is still very interesting and I would like to see what more you can get. Christopher definitely has his settings right for methane although I haven't seen any numbers regarding acquisition. I have found with my limited experience and sub par results that Anu haze kills the methane signal and you need excellent transparency. I don't think you are far off of the weather plays ball.

[geoflewis]

1 hour ago, Space Cowboy said:

That colour shot is as sweet as a nut! Geof you have nailed it! Thats the best Jupiter shot we've seen on here this year! Gorgeous colour balance and fine understated detail.

Oh wow, thanks Stuart, that is high praise indeed, I'm truly humbled 😊. As I said to Kostas, I really held back on the processing this time, so that the image didn't get too sharp. I'm now wondering what some of my earlier data would look like if I reprocessed it....🤔

[geoflewis]

1 hour ago, Kon said:

I agree this is really nicely processed and agree with Stuart's comment.

The methane is still very interesting and I would like to see what more you can get. Christopher definitely has his settings right for methane although I haven't seen any numbers regarding acquisition. I have found with my limited experience and sub par results that Anu haze kills the methane signal and you need excellent transparency. I don't think you are far off of the weather plays ball.

Thanks Kostas, I'll keep trying. I think the 1m SERs reduced the smearing, but at those capture speeds I'm getting less than 1000 frames per SER, so probably I need to shoot many more SERs to increase total signal in the final stack.

Edited November 26, 2023 by geoflewis

[bosun21]

Great captures once again Geoff. The colour image is specially appealing. Just bought an IR pass filter so looking forward trying it out. Do I need to change the exposure setting for it? Thanks.

[geoflewis]

8 minutes ago, bosun21 said:

Great captures once again Geoff. The colour image is specially appealing. Just bought an IR pass filter so looking forward trying it out. Do I need to change the exposure setting for it? Thanks.

Thanks. I use the same capture setting for my IR742 pass, as I do for straight colour with the ASI462MC, so I'd start there. Good luck, I look forward to seeing what you get.

[yelsac]

That is a truly stunning colour image Geof, I can only dream of getting such an image. You must be very pleased 👍

The ir is very good to, love the fine detail

[geoflewis]

1 hour ago, yelsac said:

That is a truly stunning colour image Geof, I can only dream of getting such an image. You must be very pleased 👍

The ir is very good to, love the fine detail

Many thanks and yes, I am very pleased with it, but I keep wanting to play with it as I feel that it's come out a bit blue (cold). I also just saw Damian Peach's image from a similar timestamp and as always his is a smooth as silk, so I'm wondering whether I could hold back the processing on mine even more....🤔

[geoflewis]

18 hours ago, geoflewis said:

Many thanks and yes, I am very pleased with it, but I keep wanting to play with it as I feel that it's come out a bit blue (cold). I also just saw Damian Peach's image from a similar timestamp and as always his is a smooth as silk, so I'm wondering whether I could hold back the processing on mine even more....🤔

Ok, so after posting my reply to @yelsac above, then seeing Damian Peach's UK image from a very similar timestamp, I've had several discussions with Kostas @Kon about detail vs smoothness in Jupiter images. I've been going for detail, but have been concerned that maybe I've overdone it, so I've reprocessed my data about a dozen times over the last couple of days. I also felt that my original was too 'cold' (blue). I reduced the use of HF wavelets, swapping for some LF wavelets and also played with the colour K settings in Image Analyser reducing from the default 6550k to 6200k, to warm up the image a tad. Here is is my latest version set alongside my original.

As well as the warmer colour balance, I was trying to get a smoother transition in the cloud structures without losing too much detail, so what do you all think please?

Edited November 29, 2023 by geoflewis

[yelsac]

Thats a tough one Geof I love both images

I can see what you mean its softer than your original, I like the slightly warmer colour in the second but if I'm honest I prefer your original (probably says more about my sharpening methods 😉) I just find it more pleasing on the eye

[geoflewis]

17 minutes ago, yelsac said:

Thats a tough one Geof I love both images

I can see what you mean its softer than your original, I like the slightly warmer colour in the second but if I'm honest I prefer your original (probably says more about my sharpening methods 😉) I just find it more pleasing on the eye

Thanks, this is precisely why I asked for feedback. Different eyes often helps....

[Kon]

As we have already discussed, the smoother one is a 'more pleasing' to the eye but with loss of the final details. I am not sure if putting the two together with layers might do the trick?

Despite our lengthy discussion, I think original is the best, especially seeing them side by side here.

Edited November 29, 2023 by Kon

[geoflewis]

Thanks Kostas,

It's very interesting isn't it. I too prefer my original processing, apart maybe from preferring the warmer colours of today's version. I was chasing the smooth look and feel that I see in Damian Peach's images, but feel that I threw away some details in chasing that goal..... 🙄

[Kon]

4 minutes ago, geoflewis said:

Thanks Kostas,

It's very interesting isn't it. I too prefer my original processing, apart maybe from preferring the warmer colours of today's version. I was chasing the smooth look and feel that I see in Damian Peach's images, but feel that I threw away some details in chasing that goal..... 🙄

It's a different kind of smoothness which I am not sure how he achieves it. You saw my smooth reprocess last night but with severe loss of details. Layers kind of looked better but still soft.

Unless he uses some other software postprocess that I don't know.