I can't get a decent planetary image with my Toucam webcam. The image is too bright and when I decrease the brightness using the webcam software, it is then too dark and there is no detail on the disc at all. It is either a bright disc or dark disc. Anyone know how to fix this?
I am not sure what options you have but the first one to try reducing would be the gain. Leave the brightness as it is. Also change exposure if it is there.
This software was easy to use and it is definitely the gain adjustment that is the best to change. The other thing is to set all the automatic settings to manual and slightly adjust until you get what you want.
Exposure settings seem to change in steps rather that linear so set this first to approx what you want.
Brightness I leave as default but you can always experiment
A barlow will always make the image darker than without one, so more gain with a barlow.
There is other free software out there but I have not used with the Toucam. Firecapture is one I've heard about.
The moon is good to experiment on with the Toucam to have a play with settings perhaps.
You'll kick yourself eventually. But you can get good detail of jupiter with a toucam. Keep the dark disc captures, stills will look like they are now: ie crap. Its wavelets that you need to pull out detail. I hope you have kept your captures, your cam and capture software dont matter, they can get the job done. The real problem with astro imaging is the expectations. What you see from the camera is rarely anything like what you get after processing.
Put your capture through registax, maybe via pipp to center planet. And wavelets is where the magic happens, until then its garbage images.
I'm nowhere near the level of others here, but by way of contrast, here is a before / after of Jupiter as captured via my 5D SLR (attached). It's the 'use linked wavelets' button that brings out the detail.
You'll kick yourself eventually. But you can get good detail of jupiter with a toucam. Keep the dark disc captures, stills will look like they are now: ie crap. Its wavelets that you need to pull out detail. I hope you have kept your captures, your cam and capture software dont matter, they can get the job done. The real problem with astro imaging is the expectations. What you see from the camera is rarely anything like what you get after processing.
Put your capture through registax, maybe via pipp to center planet. And wavelets is where the magic happens, until then its garbage images.
I've done the registax processing also and it doesn't matter how much I adjust the various parameters it still looks the same.
There should be a noticeable difference when you engage the wavelets. If it still looks the same, they're not working. Trust me you'll jump out of your seat when they first kick in! :-)
There should be a noticeable difference when you engage the wavelets. If it still looks the same, they're not working. Trust me you'll jump out of your seat when they first kick in! :-)
Wavelets work when processing images of the moon but don't make any difference to a planetary disc. It is like the planet is overexposed as it is just a bright disc with no surface detail at all.
Ah, that could be it. Camera auto modes will tend to overexpose because it averages the light over the frame and exposes for that. When most of the frame is dark, it overexposes the light bit. If the highlights are blown out there are no details for the wavelets to enhance.
If you have manual control, maybe try backing it off a bit. The photo I posted below is nothing special, but shows the difference between a raw image frame and the finished picture. I'd say about 10% of the difference is stacking, 90% is wavelets.
If you don't have manual control, there may be other modes that could help, like 'spotlight' mode.
If you unclick 'full automatic control' at the top, does that give you access to the greyed out parameters?
If yes, turn off Auto Exposure and set your shutter speed manually. Try a few different exposures and see which ones render better details.
I haven't played much with webcams yet, but the principle, so far as I understand it, is you want the fastest shutter speed (to negate blurring from motion or boiling of the atmosphere), and you want to avoid using 'gain' that will just add noise, but not gather any more signal.
Wavelets work when processing images of the moon but don't make any difference to a planetary disc. It is like the planet is overexposed as it is just a bright disc with no surface detail at all.
Your preview when setting up should NOT try to be anything like a final exposure. Over exposed images can NOT recover detail. Get focus as good as possible then change shutter speed to something faster and the capture should be dark.
Your telescope is NOT a problem. Wavelets are what you need but its starting to seem you are not capturing properly to begin with. You should never be using any auto settings at all, they will cause you grief.
