Still struggling for a good night & Saturn.....

[Kokatha man]

The bush trip this week didn't turn out the way I'd hoped - Wednesday the seeing was really good but a thin cloud veil stuffed the transparency right up.....and Thursday didn't quite live up to expectations and tiredness had me pack in earlier than I anticipated.

I do have a couple of avi's that might yield something worthwhile, but the experiments with fps & exposure never gave me any real options - and it was the set combo of 7.5fps and moderate gain or 15fps & maximum gain that were the night's applications.

Really looking forwards to the big increase in aperture as well as a more sensitive colour cam to (hopefully!) really give me a decent boost in capabilities in a few months.....but in the interim the C11 & DBK will have to suffice: as was the case with Mars where I found variations of the Jupiter processing yielded benefits, I think Saturn has benefited somewhat from reprocessing the Feb 20th avi's taken at Towitta.

Because I was running consecutive 2min30sec avi's without a pause I was able to join the first 2 minutes of the 2nd avi to the first using VirtualDub before Ninox.....giving me the full 4.5 minutes I was skimping on at the time.....

A little heavy-handed in some respects but at least the image now reveals much more of the planet's signature colour-banding (look hard!!!) and think it a marked improvement on the images posted before.....but am waiting for a night like last year with the 6" achro during a Titan transit - if I can get something approaching the seeing then I'll be happy, present limitations notwithstanding!

[astroman001]

I think we are all waiting for that night of good seeing, but well done in the meantime.

regards

Peter

[AztecastroMcJ]

good effort

def some more banding detail visible

James

[omneferuss]

Nice one Daz.. I took the liberty.. (not gettin' out for to catch any of me own, loik).. hehe

For my taste I like it more muted, and I think a teeny bit more detail shows in the bands, even tho' the background becomes a bit grey'd..

Back in Windows95 days I had a nice lil' free app that would auto-demarcate object from b'gnd could be handy to remedy that.. but it's now lost in the poota graveyard somewhere

(I wonder if anyone knows of an extant version of something like that.. but not a PS plugin )

[Dielectric]

I think that's pretty swish given the conditions- I'm envious!

[Kokatha man]

:eek:Thanks all, and I like your repro with the muted colour but still displaying banding Russ.....and nothing but a screen jpeg to work with suggests when you get some "data" of your own you'll be flying!

This really was, as I said, a bit "heavy-handed" (had to point out my literary sense, and humour, to someone elsewhere tonight!) so i appreciate your comments.....I was just getting frustrated with the seeing conditions I keep on getting for Saturn au moment and dragged the avi out and hit the pedal to the metal to remind me that it (the banding) actually existed amongst all the junk in the image - their quality notwithstanding.....and also pushed the hue/sat to emphasize them.

I promise that the next time i post an image of Saturn the bands will be there in all their glory in a nicely processed image.....which may mean you could be waiting quite some time!!!

Will get onto the Kinky Kenko box tomorrow - the leviathan has landed and I can hardly move in my studio....!:D:)

[omneferuss]

[arad85]

Nice image considering. Increase in aperture & more sensitive cam - what you getting?

[Kokatha man]

Hi arad - nothing mind-shattering re the scope, but a 16" newt will give me twice+ the area of the C11's mirror.....and despite the much lower f ratio I'm anticipating some more flexibility in camera settings, particularly framerate.

With the DBK and C11 it's either 7.5fps and moderate gain or 15fps and gain max'd right out (1023) and my fiddling with exposures at 15fps to get the required histogram with lower gain seems to drop the framerate back to 7/8 fps - which is no better than the 7.5fps.....more aperture would seem to help with faster framerates below maximum gain settings imh (and ignorant!) o....!

Looking at a couple of colour cams even though I appreciate the mono advantages: but as well as laziness and convenience I have become a bit of a devotee/zealot with the osc cams and their possibilities when seeing is reasonable.....as I'd like to think my Joop and Mars images attest to.

So I'll be looking hard at the new Pt. Grey colour job with the icx618 sensor in them as well as a couple of others I've heard about on the grapevine that use this newer, much more sensitive ccd.....so hopefully with better cam and more aperture I'll be able to raise my own expectations - although seeing is allways going to have the last word!!!:D:eek:

[arad85]

Nice what you going to mount the newt on or are you going to push track it?

I know the feeling of low frame rates - when you're used to imaging Mars at 30-60 fps and then have to drop below 10 to do Saturn maxed out, it's a pain...

I look forward to your reports on the 16"....

[Kokatha man]

Yes, Mars to Saturn really does bring these things into sharp contrast, especially re framerates!

I have an old Astro Optical EQ mount (think they're all Oz manufacture but not certain) which has had EQ6 steppers and the processors for micro-stepping along with new RA & Dec worm drive and needle roller thrust bearing substitution etc, etc.....all I need to finish it is to make a jackscrew arrangement for fine polar arm adjustment.

They're built almost bomb-proof and can carry really heavy loads.....this one should be fine for planetary imaging (which is it's sole intention!)

The optics are actually one of those GSO 16" strut dobs, my investigations and readings of others experiences has the optics as quite good.....except as a strut construction collimation is very wishy-washy and needs constant attention (like several times a night even!!!:D

But I'm converting it into a solid tube OTA for mounting on the above EQ.....where the struts are will be a section of very heavy gauge aluminium tube I'm getting rolled: because the mirror sections of this scope have approx 19" internal diameter I can have this heavy section sliding a significant distance into each end section (primary and secondary) and accepting threaded setscrews to rigidly clamp the three sections into one stable tube.....it also gives the EQ saddle a very strong section to grab the tube.....and allows the whole unit to be easily broken down for trips out into the Oz bush (where I like to do a lot of my imaging!

[arad85]

Crikey - that's going to be some beast!!!! We want pictures.....

[Kokatha man]

Crikey - that's going to be some beast!!!! We want pictures.....

Will do so a.....when I move forwards a bit.

I bought the scope as a complete unit almost brand new for less than half-price.....very fortunate indeed imho - but at the moment I'm working on getting the mount fully functional and getting someone to roll the heavy gauge tube section for a reasonable price.

In fact, because it won't be cheap (roughly 4 feet of 19- inches diameter by 5mm) I may have to replenish the old moneybox before that gets ordered.....but I'm hoping it'll be ready for Jupiter around opposition.....and perhaps the new cam too.