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Old 25-09-2018, 12:28 PM
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MARS and SATURN (5x Powermate!!)

Improvements in technique and post-processing being made. Its taken a long, frustrating time to get here but its been worth it..

(10" Sky-Watcher Newt/NEQ6/ZWO 174MM/ZWO EFW/ZWO LRGB filters/5x POWERMATE... Application Used: Firecapture)
(Processed: RegiStax/PS/AstroImage/AUTOSTAKKART 3.0)
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Old 25-09-2018, 07:32 PM
foc (Ross)
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A very vibrant Saturn and a nicely detailed Mars with some feel of depth of image
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Old 25-09-2018, 08:42 PM
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Jupiter and Ganymede

This one took little longer to process. Still honing my skills. Using a 5x Powermate using this setup does create oversampling but I still can get some detail out
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Old 25-09-2018, 11:56 PM
Saturnine (Jeff)
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Very nice images, I like the colour depth, to my eyes, not overly saturated and plenty of detail captured on Mars and Saturn.
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Old 26-09-2018, 06:20 AM
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I do struggle with making the images more crisper, particularly Jupiter. I've seen some amazing images taken of Jupiter and aspire to do the same.

Looking at my images, would anyone do anything differently??

Is it just my post-processing or is it the equipment. I realize larger apertures help enormously but wonder if anyone can have a go with the flies attached to see if a better image is produced with different/better post-processing techniques??
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Old 26-09-2018, 01:35 PM
Mickoid (Michael)
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I did a quick reprocess of your tif files using Registax wavelets and Photoshop to align and colour correct. Although I have not brought out any more detail in your shots, I think the result has a more natural appearance. The secret is not to over do it in Registax, your main problem here regarding detail is most probably your video grab was too long, unless you use WinJupos, stacking a conventional video grab of more than 70 seconds of Jupiter will blur the surface detail due to planet rotation speed. I tried including your Luminance data but it made it worse as I suspect this may have been your longest video capture and the planet had moved considerably, blurring the image. I shoot at 50fps so I get around 3500 frames to play with in 70 seconds, that's usually enough for Pipp to choose the best 20 percent or so frames to stack. Planetary photography really comes down to how good the seeing is at the time of capture, so keep shooting, you're doing well.
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Old 26-09-2018, 02:45 PM
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Interesting.. I am aware of how quick Jupiter rotates so try to keep capture time low. For this shot i took 60 secs at around 100FPS for each filter. However, now that i think about, the total shot duration would be 4 mins, for total time taken for all filters. I thought this would be fine.

Are you saying the total shot, for all filters, should be within 70 secs? That would be around 17 secs for each filter.

I'll try WinJups - I've only just start playing around with it so still getting used to it
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Old 26-09-2018, 06:47 PM
Mickoid (Michael)
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I've only ever processed OSC data when playing with WinJupos, so I'm presuming things would be different with a mono camera. I would think it would take into account each filter's data and calculate for the combined filters 4 min duration. Maybe you would have to enter the start and finish time for each filter's duration and WinJupos does the rest. I'm sure someone out there will have a better understanding of the procedure than me and explain it to you.
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Old 26-09-2018, 08:55 PM
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Well, I had another stab at it. I used PIPP, Autostakkert, RegiStax, Winjupos, and PS that has the Astro Image plugin (A couple of hours work).

I think I need to work more on my capturing technique, however I might be dealing with oversampling issues I'm never going to overcome with my current setup. I might try with a lesser Powermate, say x2, and see if that helps. I'll get a smaller image but may get sharper results.

I have a few more images taken the same night of other planets I want to try and apply the same technique I've just used for this image. Who knows, I might see an improvement
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Old 27-09-2018, 08:37 PM
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Mars

MARS reprocessed. Looks better i think. WinJupos is great for combining LRGB
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Old 29-09-2018, 12:48 PM
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Reprocessed Saturn

This time I tried Winjupos but for some reason De-rotating RGB didn't quite go as well; it introduced a lot of noise and subtle artifacts. So for this image i left out Winjupos and went to use RegiStax/PS/AUTOSTAKKART/AstaImage
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Old 29-09-2018, 01:43 PM
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Planets All

Last Picture Post i Swear


All Planets shot the same night last week with a 5 x Powermate on a 10" Skywatcher Newt at F24 (6,000 FL).
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Old 06-10-2018, 05:52 PM
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What I have learnt...

Capturing the best quality image is hard and is the most important aspect about the whole process. I learnt this the hard way, I thought post-processing will fix everything, it won’t. Get the best image you can before thinking about post-processing.

Your setup must be close to perfect:

Good Seeing - Pick a day with good seeing. No wind, no clouds. Even if the scene seems calm, the atmosphere could still appear turbulent.
Polar alignment - Not as crucial as deep sky imaging but still important
Collimation - This is extremely important. Even if your mirrors are misaligned slightly, it will affect your image. You may capture a reasonable image with collimation out, but you'll find it difficult to focus a sharp image.
Temperature control - Cool your mirror. Air turbulence in front of the mirrors due to heat dissipating from them will affect your image.
Focus - Focus the best you can, but without attending to the last two points, good focus will be hard to achieve.

Secure the optical train.

The equipment I used for these pictures were:

· 10" Skywatcher Newt - Cheap telescope
· NEQ6 Pro - Really good mount - I upgraded mine with the belt mod
· ZWO 174MM B/W Camera - One of the best planetary cameras. It’s a few years old now, so there are better ones, but I see no reason upgrade yet.
· ZWO LRGB Filters - I got the latest version, ver 2, I think. They're reasonably cheap and worth it. They're bandwidth coverage isn't perfect, but I still get good results with them. Post processing can correct some of the issues they generate.
· ZWO Electric Filter Wheel - Perfect for filters above. Small and works well.
· 5x Powermate by Teleview - Expensive but is built very well.

My optical train looks like this:

Filter Wheel, 5x Powermate, ZWO camera. I have a low-profile focuser which helps a lot with this setup.

Software use for capturing: Firecapture!! Firecapture is an awesome application and the best part, it’s free. It works with a range of cameras and electric filter wheels. The application offers a lot. I haven’t explored it all yet but some of the features I discovered are:
· You can programme your capture sequence.
· Adjust ROI (Region of Interest)
· Adjust Exposure
· Adjust Gain
· Adjusting the above two affects your FPS – the more FPS increases the luck of capturing good frames for stacking later. However, this all depends on how well your equipment is calibrated. If calibrated well, you can get away with lower FPS.
· Centre images – centres the image despite the image jumping all over the screen.
· Capture length
· Set capture frames
· Live histogram
Each planet will require its own Firecapture setup; what each filter settings being different. Filter/camera setup will differ for you to what I use.

This is all I have right now… May continue later..
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Old 09-10-2018, 08:08 PM
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Amazing photos!
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Old 20-10-2018, 03:32 PM
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Very nice, what I would love to be able to do
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Old 30-10-2018, 12:24 PM
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It just takes practice and a lot of patience
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Old 30-10-2018, 02:28 PM
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Thanks for posting your data cyberblitz.

I couldn't resist having a go myself, just to see how my post processing stacks up to others (and also to help me determine whether I need to improve more in capture or processing).

Mine ended up somewhere between the two.

I like your second attempt even more. I've lost the blues in the clouds I think, that you and Michael managed to retain better than I.

I used PS and Registax.

Curious though - I notice that the GRS is missing from the limb in yours. Is that because Winjupos rotated it out of view? It seems to be there in RBG, but not in the L channels.

Anyway, thanks for posting. Very informative! :-)

-Markus
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Old 02-11-2018, 12:30 PM
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I believe WinJupos did do something to the GRS. With this series, WinJupos wasn't really needed; the videos would need to be longer to gain any benefit. My next attempt will involve longer captures but I'll probably need to wait until next year now. The weather in Brisbane has been unfavorable for weeks now, and i think Ive missed the last opportunity to capture Jupiter for the season.
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Old 18-11-2018, 11:40 AM
TareqPhoto (Tareq)
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I really can't wait to buy ASI174mm first then later in future i buy kind of larger dob such as 16" or 18", i was thinking about 14" but i feel i want to jump for larger in no time, so i don't know what a 16" or 18" can give me for planets paired with ASI174mm.
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Old 06-12-2018, 09:20 PM
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Fantastic!
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