My first proper try at imaging (Jupiter)

[Hypernova]

A quick shot of Jupiter using the Morgans SPC900 and Skyliner 200p Dob.

500 frames at 10fps and stacked in registax, wavelets also done in registax. I had a hard time keeping the image centred on the chip due to the nudging of the dob.

I had to limit the length due to clouds so this is the best I can do for tonight at least. The alignment point was lost several times during alignment so I had to manually re-align. The image ended up at the right hand side for some reason and I don't know how to resize/crop it.

Any help or suggestions would be helpful, I can upload the avi if anyone wants to have a play around with it.

[brantuk]

Nice shot Tom - sorry I can't offer advice as we had our same first tries this week - will be posting soon as we've worked out how to process it

[wayne weedon]

We can all learn together!

Here's mine from a few moments ago.

[themos]

To help you with planets that wonder about, use AviRaw to convert the .avi into .bmp files and then ninox/ppmcentre to centre and crop the frames so that registax has less work to do. Well done, it's a great first go.

[jgs001]

Very good first go. Nicely done. Were you using single align point, or centre of gravity align ?

[Hypernova]

To help you with planets that wonder about, use AviRaw to convert the .avi into .bmp files and then ninox/ppmcentre to centre and crop the frames so that registax has less work to do. Well done, it's a great first go.

Can you please describe the process please? I have downloaded AviRaw and I don't how to use Ninox.

[themos]

ninox - a tool for processing planetary images

has all you need to get started.

[beamish]

Personally ,if that's your first you're onto a winner !

here's mine R'n'Ready with the new toy-quite pleased given the boiling skies

[Hypernova]

I am having trouble getting my head round ninox. I have installed it to the system32 directory as suggested by the command line I was told to enter by the readme.

It is probably because it's command prompt based, I don't know where to from here

[beamish]

Leave ninox alone for the time being

[Hypernova]

Will do

Any other solutions for centring and cropping frames?

[beamish]

Reg V 5 will do that ? If this is your 1st attempt at w/cam imaging, without sounding condescending, work on the fundamentals 1st. Reg will do it and there's some good primers on the board. It does take some practice. Ninox? some use it but not many .

Your image shows a lot of promise but.... it won't make you a Pete L overnight

Certainly faar better than most people's 1st effort , mine certainly

You can always crop & resize in PS elements if you don't have PS CSx

[themos]

From memory: To use ninox, you need to open a command window, have you ever done that before? You know, the famous "C:\" prompt!

[Space Cowboy]

Great effort with a Dob Tom!!

Here is your image cropped and resized 150% in registax (in the final tab)

[beamish]

From memory: To use ninox, you need to open a command window, have you ever done that before? You know, the famous "C:\" prompt!

I have but not for Ninox-that scares the living s**t out of me TBH

[themos]

Well, I'm a unix geek so I love command line interfaces.

[Clayton]

You can always use "Castrator" Webcam Astrophotography by Emil Kraaikamp - Castrator

I have only used it a couple of times but will continue to do so if I ever get another shot at Jupiter

[Space Cowboy]

What a brilliant program Castrator is! I'd seen it mentioned before on here but did not realise what it did. Cheers Clayton definitely the cure for image drift.

[beamish]

You can always use "Castrator" Webcam Astrophotography by Emil Kraaikamp - Castrator

I have only used it a couple of times but will continue to do so if I ever get another shot at Jupiter

Well it certainly looks like it'd be helpful-just D/loaded it & tried but inspite of following the pretty simple instructions , all I get is a black square that I can vary in size ????

I presume I'm s'pposed t' see the avi in the square ?

Running XP Pro SP3

[astromerlin]

Try PCFE which is a front end for Ninox, download here

Files Library - IceInSpace

You just choose your directory and press a button and it does it all for you.

[Hypernova]

Thank you everyone for your comments, I am quite pleased with the result considering the seeing last night

Here is the 2nd version, after aligning the frames in castrator, thank you for the link Clayton.

[Hypernova]

And a third version with slight revisions of the saturation and hue. I don't think i'll bother with adjusting the wavelets too much. I think they are at the limit already without it starting to look unnatural.

[beamish]

Try PCFE which is a front end for Ninox, download here

Files Library - IceInSpace

You just choose your directory and press a button and it does it all for you.

Tried that too none of it makes sense ! I can't see myself converting .ser files to tifs then to bmps then back into regv5.

I think I'll just eat RAM but thanks for trying guys.

I do like that 2nd & third effort H,

try googling " The Imagers Cookbook" for ideas . Look fwd to more !

[cottongt]

Thats a really nice image, well done!