Saturn March 13/14 decent seeing at last!

[Space Cowboy]

Finally some decent seeing! Taken just after 12am 3x Tal + extension= 5.5x (f27).

Quick process got some other avis to go through.

Auto Dob, spc900, craterlet, 1000 stack from 3600 (6 min avi) 1/33 shutter, 90% gain.

Having trouble with colour balance 3 versions here, first is normal settings in registax , 2nd is selecting create luminance from RGB and third is b&w.

[oldfruit]

Nice captures, some good detail showing too.

[rawhead]

Very nice

Still waiting for the 'elusive' seeing myself..

Cheers

[riklaunim]

Nice captures. What puzzles me is why all webcams tend to make Saturn yellow. Here is what I've got after auto color balance in Nebulosity and some levels to make it brighter:

[cgarry]

Nice images.

What puzzles me is why all webcams tend to make Saturn yellow.

What colour should it be out of interest?

Cheers,

Chris

[Space Cowboy]

Thanks for your comments guys!

Yes its driving me nuts Rik! Sometimes its custard yellow sometimes blue. Seems to be the auto white balance changing without any reason.

Here is another from the same avi but smaller stack of 500 and better colour balance.

[oldfruit]

That last one looks a lot better, more natural.

[riklaunim]

Nice images.

What colour should it be out of interest?

Cheers,

Chris

Saturn is yellow here and there, but most of the webcam images have much stronger yellow taint - covering all other colors. Usually the middle is yellowish, while everything closer to poles gets various green-blue colors. This is from MS Lifecam before and after fixing the color balance:

[cgarry]

Saturn is yellow here and there, but most of the webcam images have much stronger yellow taint - covering all other colors. Usually the middle is yellowish, while everything closer to poles gets various green-blue colors. This is from MS Lifecam before and after fixing the color balance:

Maybe it is my monitor, but your blue image looks completely wrong to me and the yellow one looks best. Through the EP Saturn looks to be a bright yellow to me. I shall have to note down the colours next time I observe it.

Cheers,

Chris

[riklaunim]

http://i54.tinypic.com/2vlntp1.jpg this one should be better.

[cgarry]

I just looked at your images on a different laptop and my main laoptop (Lenovo ThinkPad) does seem to really exaggerate the blue in images.

But still, when I look at Saturn through an EP I see bright yellows and no real obvious blues so to my eyes I still think the uncorrected image is more accurate than the corrected one (even the last one), it is just a bit dim.

I am guessing there is no correct answer to this as all Saturn imaging seems to involve an amount of artistic licence, especially when the colours differ wildly on different displays.

Cheers,

Chris

[Space Cowboy]

I like this one...stretched the histogram some more. What did the trick for colour balance was checking "create luminance from RGB" in colour mixer (registax) then using auto RGB balance rather than the other way around.

[riklaunim]

For OSC webcams there also will be a problem with atmospheric aberration - so Saturn may get blue line at the top, and red/brown/yellow at the bottom. Cassini images usually use light yellow colors (link) but in our case it's nearly impossible to get such high dynamic range to represent Saturn features in yellow/brown tints/shades... (in Australia they can try). Altering the colors a bit helps to show bands more clearly. That's my theory

[neil phillips]

Nice one Stuart now were talking, aside from colour which can be tweaked, for a webcam with low frame rate thats a fine result, the best phillips shot in the uk ive seen, if you could do this at 30 fps with a DBK or better still a mono at 30 fps /1/30th secs im sure you would be flying. bet you want a imaging source now. As you said licking lips. bet your happy after your last post. this is miles better. and dont think you can expect much more from a webcam. time to save pennys Stuart

[Space Cowboy]

Cheers Neil!

This is the kind of image I had in mind when getting the auto Dob. Yes I was buzzing after processing this for the first time. Its the first time I've been able to see the cassini during live capture so I knew things were looking good. Seeing could be a lot better though I would say it was no more than 6-7/10. Alt was under 30 degrees and over the house plus tracking was terrible again constantly losing altitude (need to re-tighten alt axis) so Saturn was constantly drifting which can't help image quality.

Neil I reckon there is more to come from the webcam with better seeing, alt above 30 and away from house and good tracking. If all those boxes are ticked I'm excited at what will be produced.

[Space Cowboy]

Getting a bit carried away, here is another from same avi but with 2000 stack, tweaked for saturation and sharpness in image analyser.

[4lefts]

All really nice pics - I like the b&w especially. really like the ones in pots 12 and 6. so this is just the webcam and the auto dob?

edit - ignore that - just saw that you already said in the op.

[Looking Up]

Super images! The stretched one is superb!

[RogerTheDodger]

Cracking images there, very well done

[Clayton]

Great result Stuart. Love the stretched one as well with rrgb before colour balance

[AztecastroMcJ]

Yeh great images there Stuart

nice scale n size and like processes aswell, prefer the yellow green colours myself for Saturn, as that is how it looks when viewing in EP

James

[Space Cowboy]

Thanks for all your comments guys really appreciate it!

Here is yet another version. This time I've combined 2 avis creating a 11 min capture with over 7500 frames stacking 2000. As there is no detail on the disk rotational blur is not an issue.....trying to get more definition in the rings...not sure if it's any better maybe too smooth.

[oldfruit]

Looks good to me.

[King]

Some nice Saturns there. Makes me want to go grab one of those x3s...