Saturn & Dione 27/8th March...

[Kokatha man]

Hi all - we went out into the Mallee to preclude the possibility that our near-seaside home site might be invaded by clouds coming in off the gulf or the nearby Willunga Escarpment.....Sunday night (28th here, UT=27th) had quite reasonable seeing although there was constant misting cloud coming through and affecting the histogram during capture - most probably from the unusually wet Summer this normally very dry area has...but I could not detect the clouds/fog with the naked eye!

I have just heard that the Fire Bans we normally have are being ended a month or more earlier all over the place due to this very wet Summer...out in the Mallee there are ephemeral lakes everywhere at present!

Managed 3 rgb runs as well as one iR-rgb and a red & iR742nM capture that are all worth processing from that night before the jitters took over and seeing went down - this is the first cab off the rank just Reggie'd and dropped straight into an rgb combine in AstraImage.....I want to repro this properly as well as process the other ones to see if I can improve significantly on this effort I'm posting...

Monday also had a couple of reasonable captures, and I haven't even looked at them yet - I'm still hopefull that the C11 will grab better ones this opposition whatever I might still get out of this last imaging trip.....my big EQ mount is now moving forwards again, but I have taken a big plunge by ordering a diffraction limited f4 16" scope instead of completing the original GSO 16" conversion...optimistically I will have it within 3 months or even sooner, but in the meantime the C11 is still working hard!

[Spikey]

Absolutely brilliant image !

[Space Cowboy]

Loving the colour balance and luminance on that one!

[johnh]

Very smooth result, very nice colour not overdone.

John.

[neil phillips]

Vibrant storm detail there Darryl. A nice one.

[Kokatha man]

Thank you Spikey, Stuart, John and Neil.....I've done a little additional tweak to this process which might be a slight improvement - but I'll repro it completely today along with the others from that night (another is at least on a par with this one, and then there's the next night...and last night thank goodness I couldn't stay up - but around 2am the sky at home looked rock-steady..!!!:))

Btw John, your's and some other fellow AA'ers imaging and other appraisals have influenced my decision to not finish the 16" GSO when my mount is finally operational (which is getting closer now) and last night I ordered the VX16 with 1/10pv from John at Orion Optics - spoke to him on the phone also mentioning some of your eforts this apparition and he said you used to live about 4k's down the road from him.

The VX16 is under 160cm and weighs in at 29Kgms so I think it'll suit my nomadic habits:rolleyes: and be a doddle for the mount's capability.

[King]

Excellent result! Is there some secret to getting moons to show without grossly over-exposing the planet or is it just down to that super-powered magnification?

[msinclairinork]

WOW! Brilliant result!!

So much detail in those cloud betlts and storm!

Well done!

Thanks for sharing,

Michael

[Kokatha man]

Thanks King and Michael.....this is what I'd term a "proper" processing, taking the time to do the data justice instead of just plonking the ramped up Registax files into AstraImage etc..!

K, many folks don't touch the moons when they process an avi which is why you often see an image where the author notes the appearance of so & so moons - but you often have to look darn hard a lot of the time to see them, and different screen resolutions and calibrations etc can play havoc anyways...

My take is that if a moon is present which you'll often note during capture in the live feed, then it is perfectly kosher to accord it some of the same processing methods that are used to present the planet at its best....."shift>elliptical marquee" allows you to encircle the moons (best done at magnification and even tilting the screen to enhance contrast/clarity when doing said) and then you can adjust the levels etc of these objects - as allways a light hand is the mantra.....and I've found the "C of G" alignment method in Registax where these moons are inside the alignment box seems to overcome any misalignment of their images, which can be a problem.....

[neil phillips]

Your going to be a monster Orion man, welcome to the club. ( Though im more like shreks kid ) i bet that cost a packet. Someones been influenced by a certain mr JH. Congrats on what will likely be a huge jump in performance. Cant wait to see what you do with this

[Kokatha man]

Neil, I had the alternative option of purchasing a C14 here in Oz for $7k.....I really think, as good as the C14 is, that there is no debate re going up 210%+ with the VX16 versus the 65% increase in light grasp of the C14.....all this for just over $6k landed here for the VX16..!

I believe the C11 is really singing now when seeing permits, but given that even maintaining similar image scales for capture I could be looking at 50+ fps with the red and 30+ with blue - and possibly a little less gain and grain to boot in all channels.....it suggests with (as allways) good seeing that I'll be theoreticaly capable of upping the ante quite considerably: with this current image as an example, I'd love to be using (say) 3000 frames per channel out of Registax instead of the 1000/1100 presently - that would really send the current images into hyperdrive..!

But proof is allways in the eating of the pudding - so when it arrives I'll find out what it's capable of if the seeing is good, and Saturn is still able to be imaged well (which it should...)

John's and other folk's ownership of Orion Optics instruments have certainly influenced my decision.....along with the "no-brainer" logic re other options and prices above.....and this is the last upgrade I'll likely contemplate unless my fortunes take some quite unexpected change....!

[johnh]

The improvement in the crepe ring I did not actually notice, also did not notice you got the Encke div and the storm plume in the South. I was so busy thinking about colour and yours is very natural although perhaps a bit washed out compared with first rendering. P Haese image in superb seeing in IIS is amazing.

C14's are expensive and about 1/6 wvfront but for a bit less money you get bigger OO mirror better enhanced coatings with 1/10wvft. I was thinking of a VX20 when we sell the house in UK put on a titan or similar mount but you can take aperture too far but imagine how many frames that would give, but with 1000 frames with the C11 you can take only so far then you want to move forward with this great expensive hobby - enter VX16.

John.

[Kokatha man]

Definitely the VX16 represents much better value imho John, even though the C14 is still a good planetary scope (certainly providing more flexibility than the C11 - but all Celestrons SCT's do have great capabilities).....I agree re the slightly paler appearance of the last image over the first, but I do like to aim for a slightly more naturalistic representation if possible, more akin to an ep view where I've never seen vivid hues: Haese likes to really hit the hue & saturation in all his images, and it's not quite my own cup of tea - but I guess that is where there's room for a lot of different interpretations.....

[neil phillips]

To true Darryl, About intepretations. Sometimes people add the saturation, because of a lack of detail, and extra colour can add more detail. Its one reason im also guilty as charged ( will ask the prosecution to take into account 34 degrrees elevation lol ) But i assure you if the data was better, im kind of with you and John on the balanced is better approach. As is always mentioned over processing often stems from poor to medium data doesnt it. Thats cheaper than i thought for the Monster OO. But totally out of my league. How i wish it wasnt. But im excited just thinking what your going to be doing, when all this comes together. You must be excited. I wouldnt be able to sleep. If i ever win the lotto. im coming out there too. Good luck, on this venture. Happy days Darryl

[sandspider]

That image is amazing, fantastic job! You are really inspiring a newbie.

[Kokatha man]

Thank you SS - Neil, the only reason I can do this is because my old man left me a bit of an inheritance last year (shared among 5 siblings!) and if I fritter money away on things that I have a propensity to rather than go for what I should I'll never really get the opportunity to have a first-rate instrument..!

I abandoned the GSO unit (I'll revert it to the truss dob mode and sell it) because as a solid tube, even though it could be broken down into 3 parts for transporting it not only weighed in at 45+Kgms, but you can just imagine what a 6 feet plus goliath might do in a slight breeze.....and tht's not even beginning to contemplate the optical differences compard to the OO.

On processing/colour rendering et al here's another take where I've tried to move towards an ep view.....I go into this in a bit more detail in a similar thread to this SGL one on CN.....Emil Kraikamp's CN image of Saturn that I refer to in my own thread there can also be viewed (he's MvZ)

As I say there, if I had started with this objective in mind I think it might have been a bit more successfull and easier also.....but I'll re-tackle it once I finish all the images I still have from these 2 nights..!

[Kokatha man]

.....and just to throw something else into the ring, here's an iR-RGB from about 20 minutes earlier than the one above.....I know that plenty of folks render these particular types of channel combos in the slightly unusual colours they first present themselves as when an iR742nM image is ovelaid as a luminousity channel in p/shop onto a normal RGB, but since working out how to blend the iR as a rendering that approximates a normal RGB's appearance, I figure there is no reason not to do so....!

The iR742nM most definitely enhances the RGB as it is at least as comparable in detail with the later RGB shown above imho.....but the seeing was not quite up to that of the later image during capture, although they were all pretty reasonable and all 4 channels were completed in just over 5 minutes.....

[johnh]

I like those two reprocesses very much and the colours are very sympathetic to eyepiece views. Storm head really looks fine, I never get very good IR742 but find gamma on IR works well, I go for 2mins IR at 9fps 75Histo, banding is certainly better contrasted in IR. I do love Emil K's work it really is fantastic!

John.

[AztecastroMcJ]

great collection of well processed Saturns there KM

colour n detail is superb:)

thx for posting

cheers James

[Kokatha man]

Thanks John and James - I tend to agree somewhat re iR742nM images John, there is certainly detail picked up in them that isn't registered in the normal rgb captures, but it is usually somewhat "heavy" in its appearance imho.....

But after some success with a couple of iR-rgb runs in pretty good seeing where (in this case) at least as good a detail has been recorded as that from a "normal" rgb taken later in clearly better conditions - and it can be processed so as not to have those frequently-presented strange green/magenta caste/renderings - I think I'll take the time to make a few of these runs a regular capture set in my imaging sessions!

It is a bit more demanding juggling channel capture times, but might well be worth the extra bit of effort...