First go with Registax

[Sierra Golf Mike]

Ok so here it is, my first output from Registax which I know is rubbish, it seems very pixelated. It was taked with an SPC880 flashed to SPC900, not sure if I had settings right or not, scope was the Skymax 102 so I could not see much of the moon on the screen. Should I be expecting better? If so how do I go about it? Any help would be most appreciated.

Thanks

Big crater.bmp

[Sierra Golf Mike]

Ok so here it is, my first output from Registax which I know is rubbish, it seems very pixelated. It was taked with an SPC880 flashed to SPC900, not sure if I had settings right or not, scope was the Skymax 102 so I could not see much of the moon on the screen. Should I be expecting better? If so how do I go about it? Any help would be most appreciated.

Thanks

[smerral]

Hi Steve,

Not bad for a first attempt. Exactly what capture software are you using? And do you know what settings you had? i.e gain, exposure, number of frames captured. Sometimes these settings are on auto but need to be adjusted manually.

Brian

[Sierra Golf Mike]

Brian,

I was using wxAstroCapture and the only thing I changed was the capture rate, down to 15FPS. Everything else was left as it was. Thing is I don't know what the quality of the capture should be like although I was impressed. It's a start though, "things can only get better" as they say. Any words of wisdom welcome.

Thanks

[Bizibilder]

I suspect you may have been imaging with the "resolution" set low ie only using some of the available camera pixels. You should have a control that sets 160x120 or 320x240 or 640x420 or similar. Set it to 640x420 and try that - you will then be at maximum resolution and should get rid of those pixels.

[smerral]

Also the frame rate would be better at 10 fps. Make sure nothing is set to auto - uncheck any boxes: you need to be able to experiment with GAIN and EXPOSURE. Leave all the other settings around the middle value for now. I generally set the gain around 50% and then adjust the exposure so the image looks about right.

[Sierra Golf Mike]

Bizibilder,

The only option I can see is when connecting the camera and I chose 640 x 480(YUY2) the only other 640 x 480 option is (I420). I cannot see any other options for resolution.

Brian,

I had picked 10FPS but on of the Auto buttons was selected. The gain was down at 11%, Brightness at 50% and Gamma at 67% with shutter speed at 1/25th. When I choose a camera I ger a message saying Auto-selected long exposure control port !None!, please check port settings. Any ideas.

[Sierra Golf Mike]

I have just found an option under Settings-Video Capture, bottom row where it says Container file format - AVI, In-frame Timestamp - Off, performance Level - Low. Should I change performance level to Mid or High?

[smerral]

I would drop the gamma and up the gain somewhat to say 40-50. This means you may have to drop exposure to 1/50.

Don't worry about the warning - it's for long exposure webcamming - unless you have a modded webcam it doesn't apply. Also leave those other settings as they are.

[Sierra Golf Mike]

Looks like I'm fighting a losing battle, when I was looking at getting into webcam imaging I thought from the answers I got that I did not need a motor drive. I obviously in my niaivety either misuderstood the advice or did not ask the right questions. Without a motor drive I am not getting enough frames to put in Registax hence to poor image. Next question then, am I wasting my time buying motors for my EQ3-2 mount to enable me to do webcam imaging of the moon? Or do I have to get a Synscan Goto mount?

[The Bat]

Sitting back from my screen a bit, it's quite a nice picture. I don't quite understand where the pixelation comes from. I would agree with above, more gain and adjust exposure to suit. I am not familiar with your camera or software to suggest much else.

It certainly has potential.

Rachel

[Jupiterholic]

The pixellation is a result of too few frames taken from your avi. As we were talking about in the other thread, the more frames you have, the less noise you end up with. You can achieve more frames in a few different ways... You could set registax to select all frames over a very low quality (e.g 40%) but then your final image will be worse quality, blurry. Or you could record your orginal capture with more fps, but as someone else said, data compresses with more fps. But I think 10fps is too few. I always do 20fps for the moon and planets and its always worked well for me. The aim is to get a few hundred frames of 85% quality or over for the moon, 1,000 for planets.

Tracking is absolutely essential. There's no other way. How you track is immaterial, how accurately you track however, isnt. You don't need an expensive GOTO mount, anything that'll keep your target in one place for a few minutes is all you'd ever need for the moon and planets, though you'll inevitably get a little bit of drift, just as long as it doesn't drift out of your field of view within a minute you'll be ok. Deep sky is a whole different ball game and can require very long tracking times, hours sometimes.

Also the higher your magnification, the more accurately you'll need to be polar aligned. I'd suggest getting a polar scope if you don't already have one (and if your mount has a fitting for one).

The above really is the only way to do this webcam lark. But you already have the basics sorted and know what to do. You'll crack it once you can track objects and you'll achieve great results very quickly and soon become as addicted as the rest of us

[Sierra Golf Mike]

Jupiterholic,

Many thanks for your words of wisdom, as I mentioned I never thought tracking was a necessity, alas no. I must profess to being more than a tad downhearted as I don't know when I'll be able to procure some motors. In the meantime, I'll have a go with manual tracking and won't expect too much. At least if nothing else, I can get some practice with the software. Onwards and upwards as they say.

Cheers

[smerral]

For the moon I reckon you can track without motors - just use the slow motions - as Jupiterholic says you only need to keep the image in view for a minute or so, especially if you up the frame rate.

[Sierra Golf Mike]

Thanks Smerral, I'll give it a go and see what happens.

[nightfisher]

thats not such a bad result for a first go, much better than my 1st image, you will be ok with manual tracking, just keep it gentle and try for a bit of polar alignment