Embarrassing Jupiters webcam clinic

[JCJC]

@chiltonstar , what number/type of toucam are you using? The 900 (+others) are USB1.1 only, you may be better off using 5 fps, 10 max to get the best 'uncompressed' output.

(J's dad)

[yeti monster]

I'm not embarrassed, I'm happy to be learning.....

My first attempt, last week, I found to be fascinating and ground breaking:

After what seems like an age, I took advantage of a break in the clouds tonight. I'm using my 1995 TAL-1, which I have had to move the primary up the OTA by more than an inch to be able to get the webcam to focus unbarlowed.

I'm having to track manually, which tends toward an awful lot of dropped frames, vibration and takes a fair bit of concentration to try to keep the image in position.

My unbarlowed image is very small:

With my TAL 2x barlow under the webcam tracking became even more of a parlour game, but practice seems to be paying off:

As I learn more about registax and gain more practice, I expect to start producing some altogether more worthwhile images and once I've bought a tracking mount, the sky, so they say, is the limit.......

[Space Cowboy]

Glad you are having fun Yeti Monster! I have nothing but respect for those souls using manual tracking...there are some quite remarkable images done this way. You might find the Avi cropping program "Castrator" (link in this thread) useful for fixing your drifting image ready for aligning and stacking in Registax. Your last image looks very promising just lacking a large quantity of frames I suspect (how many did you stack). Maybe needs less gain or a faster shutter speed too.

[chiltonstar]

TVM for this info - looks like the way to go....... I note that the webcam is Win XP only - is it possible to run it under Win 7 (my new "serious" laptop) or do I need to use an XP simulator for Win 7?

Chris

[Space Cowboy]

TVM for this info - looks like the way to go....... I note that the webcam is Win XP only - is it possible to run it under Win 7 (my new "serious" laptop) or do I need to use an XP simulator for Win 7?

Chris

I believe you need xp mode for flashing the cam to spc900 and then you can download the windows 7 driver from philips website. I know these variants are discussed on the spc880 thread I gave you.

[Telescope40]

Hi Peeps. I'm back. Managed a image run. Few issues. Will try to explain.

LX90 10 in scope. SPC900 webcam Sharpcam image software. No ir/uv filter as yet.

Can now see image of Jupe and a little banding. Image run obtained. Settings used on Sharpcam as below. Has anyone an idea on which settings I have incorrectly set up.

Properties settings box set up as below -

Full auto mode - disabled

Frame rate 30 fps

auto exposure - off

shutter speed (slider type) 40% approx ???

gain (slider) 80% approx

auto white balance - off

"outdoor" radio button selected

red slider 60%

blue slider 20%

brightness 70%

contrast 60%

gamma 20%

saturation 40%

black and white, backlight compensation and mirror radio buttons are all OFF.

Dunno if any of this makes any sense at all to anyone.

Ran my frames thru registax. Just fumbled about TBH. Now have a file on my desktop -non of my programs will open it. is in format R5P file(.R5p) wotever that is. Was going to try and add to this post for an opinion but I cant even do that.

Feel like Stan or Ollie at the moment. Dim !!!

Any assistance mooch appreciated.

John

[Space Cowboy]

Frame rate should be 10 fps (30 fps will be compressed) make sure your using the 640x480 resolution. Auto white balance should be ON. Brightness 50 %, Gamma 0. Saturation about 70%. Shutter speed either 1, 2 or 3. (1/25, 1/33 or 1/50).

Not sure whats happened with Registax I can't see that file format you've used. Make sure you read the registax tutorials on page 1 of this thread.

[Telescope40]

Hi Stuart. Thanks for the reply on the settings. Will give it another whirl if the clouds break. I now have a UV/IR filter as well so with the new settings I should improve any image run.

I,ve managed to use registax now and have an image on the settings in the last post. no filter. At least I can see some banding which is a start.

Appreciate your time on this. Any comments on the image ???

Looking at the result I may actually improve.

John

[neilm]

I'm probably being a complete numpty...

In anticipation of my web cam arriving next week I thought I'd follow the tutorial and have a bit of a play with some still shots,okay so there not Jupiter, http://stargazerslounge.com/imaging-lunar/114714-more-last-night.html , these are essentially all the same image.

So, first thing to do is the "initial alignment" and "make the box a little larger than the planet", this is where I fall down. Looking in the left hand navigator there's five pre-set sizes, 32 through to 512, which for these images will not fit around the main subject. I've tried various options to try and set the size manually but no luck!

All help and advice gratefully accepted.

Cheers

Neil

[yeti monster]

Still playing (when the weather allows), I took this image with my 10" SNT Dob and double 2x Barlow stack, which really tried my tracking skills:

Once funding allows, I think a LARGE motorised mount is going on the 'need to have' list...........

[chiltonstar]

...."simple software" flash has failed miserably! After pasting in the binary file to binary\8116 and starting the program, it refuses to recognise that there's a webcam attached. Oh well, I'm a spectroscopist not a computer expert....

Chris

[yeti monster]

^^^ which is exactly why I chose to buy one of the 'pre flashed' cams from Top House. I'm a glorified roughneck, I can hit things with a hammer...........

[JCJC]

...."simple software" flash has failed miserably! After pasting in the binary file to binary\8116 and starting the program, it refuses to recognise that there's a webcam attached. Oh well, I'm a spectroscopist not a computer expert....

Chris

Just a thought, with the webcam plugged in and a capture programme running. In WcRmac go to the 'webcam', 'DS interface' menu. You should get an alert with the webcam name '1 Philips SPC900 PC camera' click to highlight and click connect.

I am assuming you have flashed from 880 to 900 already.

I could be barking up the wrong tree......but

(J's dad)

[Space Cowboy]

Hi Stuart. Thanks for the reply on the settings. Will give it another whirl if the clouds break. I now have a UV/IR filter as well so with the new settings I should improve any image run.

I,ve managed to use registax now and have an image on the settings in the last post. no filter. At least I can see some banding which is a start.

Appreciate your time on this. Any comments on the image ???

Looking at the result I may actually improve.

John

Well done getting an image John! Looks like it needs more Wavelet processing to bring more detail out.

[Space Cowboy]

I'm probably being a complete numpty...

In anticipation of my web cam arriving next week I thought I'd follow the tutorial and have a bit of a play with some still shots,okay so there not Jupiter, http://stargazerslounge.com/imaging-lunar/114714-more-last-night.html , these are essentially all the same image.

So, first thing to do is the "initial alignment" and "make the box a little larger than the planet", this is where I fall down. Looking in the left hand navigator there's five pre-set sizes, 32 through to 512, which for these images will not fit around the main subject. I've tried various options to try and set the size manually but no luck!

All help and advice gratefully accepted.

Cheers

Neil

Those are nice images Neil! Don't worry about fitting the alignment box over the whole image. Just select a distinctive area...when I'm doing Jupiter I would select the GRS....with the moon it would be one crater. As long as Registax can lock on to a feature on the image your box can be quite small (this also speeds up processing if your comp is not lightning fast)

[Space Cowboy]

Still playing (when the weather allows), I took this image with my 10" SNT Dob and double 2x Barlow stack, which really tried my tracking skills:

Once funding allows, I think a LARGE motorised mount is going on the 'need to have' list...........

Top marks for tracking with a stacked barlow!

Looks like your image needs more wavelets on registax? Would bring a lot more detail out...kinda looks like an image that has been stacked but not sharpened?

[neilm]

Stuart,

Thanks, I can now move on to the next section of the tutorial now!

Cheers

Neil

[Telescope40]

Hi Stuart. Heres my second attempt. I think improving best describes it. Think the focus was a bit off. Jupe was still over some houses and was a tad windy. Didnt help at all.

Wavelet processing. I've seen the tab in Registax but thats all. Go on, give me a clue ha ha

Actually found a you tube video from one of the guys on here ( TheNinjagecko ) which helped quite a bit.

My image seems better than the first rather "browned off" one.

Still chuffed overall tho. Try with my 2x barlow next. Have really appreciated the help.

John

[Space Cowboy]

Glad that helped you Neil.

Looking good John though I still think you need to use more wavelets to sharpen the image....try moving them all across to 30 or 40.

Keep at it!

[Telescope40]

Hi. Re run image thru registax. Use of wavelets. Think i can just see a mark which was a moon shadow transit at the time - approx 4 oclock on the disc. I think.

Heres to my next run.

John

[Space Cowboy]

Hmmm...could be a focusing issue there John. Expected more detail to come out of that. I always start with overexposed settings and then use Jupiters moons to focus on. If you can see pin sharp moons then everything else should be spot on.

[chiltonstar]

Many thanks for the advice re the Pilips camera - next job to do when I've got some time, the wife's out and the sky isn't clear!

I did have another try with the Toucam - got it to run at max resolution this time. Unfortunately, Joop wasn't particularly showy and the sky was covered with clouds racing across as high speed, so I've had to stack bits and pieces from a number of successive avi's, so it's a bit noisy:-

Chris

[Space Cowboy]

That would be an excellent image with more frames stacked...lots of detail there!

[skybadger]

I have two pics - one with l;ow ghain and a ringing feature whic=h won;t go away and another which is currently my limit of ability - what do I do to improve this ?

Telescope is a Vixen vc200l using a 2.5x powermate at prime focus to a Toucam 740 giving effective f/30.

Settings are in the file names

jup 2010 oct16 2142 150secs 5fps realigned.tif

jup 2010 oct16 2222 33shutter lowgain 150secs10fps.tif

[Space Cowboy]

Not a great deal wrong with your first image. I would say you need more frames as 150 secs at 5fps is only 750 frames. Ideally you need twice that many even if it means going up to 4 mins. What were the seeing conditions like (was Jupiter waxing and waning?)as this can make or break an image. The 2nd image with large onion rings is a classic case of gain being too low.

If Jupiter is lower than 30 degrees and over a roof top then getting a crisp clear image is going to be difficult. I know sometimes when I've got Jupiter on the laptop screen it's been jumping around like crazy with the turbulence and then another night it's very steady.