Got my first look at Saturn this morning. Looked pretty good through the telescope, tried to get a quick beginner pic but it was difficult to focus. Plenty of room for improvement. It was pretty low in the sky and didn't have much time before the sun came up.
Don't lose it..sure you will do better but this is your first..the most precious image you will ever take. Protect it , save it...and take time to look back upon it and remember how it was part of your journey. Your first sacred step in exploring the universe.
Alex
Hehe, thanks mate! Pretty happy that I could find it and see rings. Wasn't too worried about the image, just had to capture something. I also took some video and downloaded Autostakkert, with the idea of having a go with it. But for some reason the video won't open, maybe it's not compatible, I don't know. Says it's a VLC media file (avi).
For some reason the video worked with Registax, first time using it and there's a lot to learn. But I think the video image came up a bit better than the single frame.
A first image is always something to cherish
Well done !
Maybe give Autostakkert 3 a try, in most cases it does a better job of stacking video Avi files than Registax
I only use Registax to sharpen and colour correct my final image lunar or planetary images
Autostakkert 3 is also free
Maybe give Autostakkert 3 a try, in most cases it does a better job of stacking video Avi files than Registax
+1 for Autostackkert it's a great little program for this kind of stuff. Now's a good time to have a play and practice on it. Then when it comes into season and is nice and high in the sky you'll be ready for it. Nice work on your first ever Saturn!
If your interested in using Autostakkert 3 for stacking your planetary and lunar images and video, I can send you a easy to read basic user guide I put together for myself I while back
Thanks Martin, that would be good if you could do that. It is hard to learn how to use them. At the moment I'm using trial and error, and watching youtube vids. The more info the better as there aren't really any instructions.
Got a pretty good look at Mars this morning. Seeing conditions were a lot better than the last 2 mornings- no dew falling. I had issues with my telescope dob mount slipping due to the low angle. Plus the weight up front of 5mm long eye relief EP, barlow, and camera mount. I need to rig up some sort of counterbalance at the back. I made do with holding it with a bag. So I had trouble getting even 10 seconds of video.
Mars was white on the bottom and red on the top. (upside down) Still have to go through it all but have done one pic.
Getting some better (for me) images of Jupiter now too.
I’ll send my Autostakkert 3 basic user guide below and send my Registax 6 basic user guide on a following thread
Cheers
Martin
Autostakkert 3 Basic User Guide
Image stacking prerequisite - use between 1000 and 2000 frames of AVI video file or jpeg frames to stack. Number of frames and length of video depends on quality of seeing conditions
Open Autostakkert 3 on your laptop or PC
“Expand” or “Limit Frames” options are not normally used or required
Press (1) Open button to select and load your image files
A single frame image of your selected file should appear in the right hand side window
Image Stabilisation - set to “Surface” for close up lunar or planetary surface images or set to “Planet” for whole lunar or planetary images with black space surrounding the planet or moon
When “Surface” is selected a box pops up called “Improved Tracking” just tick it. Also 2 other options appear “Expand” or “Cropped” . Try either option to check quality of your results
When “Planet” is selected a box pops up called “Dynamic Background” just tick it
Next is “Quality Estimator” tick “Laplace” only for poor quality video and increase “Noise Robust” to 6,7 or 8. For average quality video set “Noise Robust” to 3, 4 or 5. For good quality video set “Noise Robust” to 1 or 2.
Set Quality Estimator to default or Local (AP)
Press (2) Analyse button - set reference frame to “Auto size”
Analyse will provide a quality graph showing best to worse images from left to right
Stack Options - click on TIF file
Use the “Frame percentage to stack” boxes to choose the number of frames to stack. Use 25% , 50% and 75% in 3 boxes left to right and leave 4th box ( don’t use boxes for number of frames to stack only use percentages)Your output stack files will show folders P25, P50 and P75 so you can choose the best one out of the them.Alternatively you can hover your mouse over the graph and select an area on the graph just where the green quality line passes the 50% horizontal line. Press CTRL on keyboard and right click mouse at the same time and the selected frame percentage will appear in the first left hand side box( this is a short cut way but only gives you one selected percentage option, I usually get good results anyway using this method )
Go to “Frame View” window and set your align points automatically or manually on bottom left hand side buttons. Set between 100 to 500 align points depending on Surface or Planet. Surface option will require more align points to produce more detail. More align points will take the computer longer to process
In “Stack Options” do not select “Sharpened” or “RGB Align” as this can be done later in Registax 6
Tick “Save in Folders” so that your new stacked folders will be placed in the same folder as your original video files
Do not use “Advanced”settings like “Drizzle” or “Resample” as these reduce image quality
Press (3) Stack button / the status box will show the stacking progress with green ticks top to bottom until complete
Stacked image file will be saved as a P number in the same folder as original video file ready for further processing in Registax 6
Nick,
Here’s my Registax 6 basic user guide below
Cheers
Martin
Registax 6 - Wavelet Sharpening and Processing
1/ Open Registax 6 on Laptop or PC
2/ Press “Select” and load your 16bit stacked image from Autostakkert 3
3/ Click on “Wavelet” tab and image will load into Registax 6 window view
LEFT SIDE CONTROL PANEL
4/ Select “Linear” and make sure “Step Increment” is set to 0.Leave “ Initial Layer” to 1 or 2
5/ “Automatic” check box is used if you want to see your changes instantly rather than use “Do All” tab and wait.”Automatic” is best left unchecked and use “Do All” tab.
6/ Leave “Hold Wavelet Setting” unchecked
7/ Leave “Used Link Wavelets” unchecked as this is not required
8/ Denoise and Sharpen feature has 6 sliders numbered Layer 1 to Layer 6. Layer 1 is for the small features in the image and Layer 2 upwards are for the larger features in the image. An image with poor detail or poor resolution due to seeing conditions etc... or high SNR will require say Layer 2 or 3 and upwards to achieve any result. An image with good detail will only require say Layer 1,2 and 3 to achieve a result. In any case adjust sliders to produce the desired result
9/ “Available Schemes” leave this section blank as it controls the sliders behave
RIGHT SIDE CONTROL PANEL
1/ “Histogram” button usually left as default
2/ “RGB Balance” button click “Auto Balance” tab
3/ “RGB Align” button is used to align the colour across the whole object. Once opened press the “Show Area” button and drag the green box around the object then press the “Estimate” tab. The RGB align is then processed automatically
4/ “Gamma” button is used to brighten or darken various parts of the object depending on the way or direction you bend the curve on the graph
5/ “De noise and De ringing” button is used to reduce shadows or fuzz in parts of the image
6/ All remaining buttons perform various colour control and sharpening to the image , so try them.
7/ Brightness and Contrast sliders control the amount of brightness, contrast across the object
8/ Remember to press “Do All” after each adjustment or function
9/ When final image has been processed to desired taste press “Save Image” tab and save image as a tiff or jpeg file to a folder in your nominated location on Laptop or PC.
Steve
Once your video frames have been Analysed (2) a Quality Graph is displayed showing best frames to worst frame ( left side to right side )
The green quality line on the graph starts on the top left best frame and falls away to the bottom right at the end or worst frame
The four segments of the quality graph do not correspond to the four frame percentage boxes in Stack Options
I usually find if I pick a point in the quality graph where the green line passes the 50% horizontal line or just past it , I usually get the best frames to stack. It usually ends up being around 20% to 40% in the first box. So I point the mouse at that point and press CTRL and right click to automatically place the value in the first box. I leave the other 3 boxes blank
Alternatively you can manually guess the best frames by selecting different percentages in the boxes. There’s no hard and fast rule but I wouldn’t use 4 boxes as there’s no benefit in fact I find even using 3 boxes with different stack percentages result in a similar quality stack but don’t let me sway you from using 3 boxes with different values
So for default values I mentioned in my basic user guide to use 25% in box 1 , 50% in box 2 and 75% in box 3 , that way you get a good balance across the whole video and therefore can compare stack results
Things like seeing conditions, atmospheric turbulence, number of video frames and stack percentages all are variables so you have to experiment. After a season or two you get to know your equipment, video files and the right parameters for Autostakkert 3
Good luck and have fun !!
Thanks Martin, great info- hopefully might help some others too. I'm having issues installing AS3, something to do with the FreeImage.Dll file.
The number of frames is something I wasn't sure about. With my camera, at 30 fps the most I can do is 10 sec, or 300 frames (at high res). If I go to 15 fps then I can get 3000 or more easily. I might be better off getting more frames at 15 fps.
Hope everyone is OK. I've made a bit of progress after making a few changes. First I got a different camera, a Canon 600D. Also changed from afocal to eyepiece projection. Only seems to work well with the 25mm eyepiece, but there is a slide to vary the magnification so that's OK. With this I was able to equal the results I was getting with the other camera. I then noticed a big improvement going from trying to keep the planet centered in the view, to just letting it drift. Much less vibration. Only thing is the videos are quite short, so I learned how to join about 10 of them together. I'm finding the drift method gives better results. Also got my first pic of Mars with some sort of detail, hopefully will improve on that soon. Some recent pics:
Nick
Great work !!
Your producing some nice planetary images now , can only get better from here
Looks like your getting your head around this “Lucky Imaging” on planets
I know it’s early in planet season but try and wait until their a bit higher in altitude so your not punching through all that dense atmosphere which creates more scintillating effect from frame to frame
Ideally planetary imaging is best done above 60 deg Alt but you can’t always do that. Try and capture as many frames as you can then you have more chance to let Autostakkert sift through and use the good ones
Good on you keep going
A great resource on line “e book” to learn about planetary imaging is by Jerry Lodriguss “A guide to DSLR planetary imaging” I bought the book in line and learnt so much about this part of Astrophotography. I often refer back to it from time to time. He’s has some short tutorials on YouTube as well but the e book covers every aspect of planetary imaging using a DSLR and telescope
Cheers
Martin
