Final and best Jupiters from last night! 25/05/2006

[iceman]

Hi all.

Here's the final processed images from a great night last night. I started quite early, around 8:50pm and finished around 10:00pm when the seeing started to deteriorate.

In that time I captured 7 "normal size" avi's and 2 avi's at the large size with the extension tube.

I capture all avi's at 5fps, 1/25s exposure, gain around 30% and gamma 50%. Each avi was about 2 minutes long, some 2:20s.

Normal processing, split RGB, process each channel, 150 frames of each channel stacked, followed by LR 7x1.4 in AstraImage. Ganymede was aligned and stacked separately (each channel as well), and composited onto the final image in Photoshop.

Here's an animation of the 7 avi's I captured, all except 2 were very good quality and it was hard to choose the best one to reprocess bigger. Unfortunately it lost some quality when converted to gif, but you'll get the idea.

Jupiter + Ganymede animation (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/downloads/20060525-jup_anim.gif) (270k gif)

There are 4 images below:

1. Normal image with 5x powermate, normal processing.
2. Image with 5x powermate, resampled 150%
3. Image with 5x powermate + extension tube (from avi 1)
4. Same as above, but from avi 2 (slightly different processing, too).

I'm really, really happy with these. Especially the detail in the belts and on ganymede. The only thing i'm not pleased about, is that it's not going to be fun to image again is less than ideal seeing! :)

Comments welcome

[Starkler]

Excellent stuff Mike :thumbsup:

It looks like you may now have reached the limits of the GSO and will now need to spring for premium optics to move forward ;)

[matt]

Wonderful images Mike.

Up there with the best in the biz:thumbsup:

[Dennis]

Awesome images Mike - I especially like the images with Ganymede passing in front of Jupiter's disc AND you can still SEE the DETAIL on Ganymede - simply out of this world.

Cheers

Dennis

[ving]

tell me mike, does it cost much to hire hubble?
:thumbsup:

[davidpretorius]

There it is!!!!! the extension tube WOO HOO!!!

They are superb!

My question to you is "will having the extension tube be determined by the seeing" I have found it easier to focus at larger scale and you can always resize it back to "normal" size.

Basically, does it need to come out, obviously with the issues of dust bunnies and eq platform put to one side for a moment.

Great detail on ganymede, you must be stoked!

[Striker]

Thats a beauty Mike.

I agree with Geoff...move up...I wont tell the wife.

[fringe_dweller]

bloomin heck! thats unbelievable!
will point out that in pics 3 and 4 it appears that Jupe either has A/ developed a belly button B/ a lolly has got stuck to it, C/ or it is that jupe is in fact a giant keg of beer with a tap located at the bottom :D and if that isnt a reason to go there I dont know what is?
Well done Sir Iceman!

[Lester]

Well done Mike, You have set the bar pretty high now. Lets see who can jump over it next time.

[seeker372011]

:bowdown:

[leon]

Top shots Mick, i'd be happy with half of that quality imaging.

Now we all started somewhere, and each of us must have taken that first image,and we are all at different stages of experience.
Maybe we should have a post where we can enter our very first image,
No awards, or prizes, just for fun, to see how far some of us have come since that first attempt... could be fun to look back on, and it would be amazing what some of us have hidden away.

Anyway it's just athought

leon

[iceman]

Many thanks for the comments!


I think with a better webcam (fast framerate, no compression, mono RGB imaging) better resolution can be achieved with the GSO Optics. But more aperture would be nice too! Where's the 16" truss dob when you need it! :)



I don't know yet, Dave.. One thing I found with the extension tube is that you need a lot more frames to stack to eliminate the nasty artifacts that come with deconvolution and heavier processing. For the small shot I stacked 150 of each channel, and for the extension tube I stacked 200 because @ 150 it looked horrible with those swirly patterns around the edges again.

I will pull it out more once I've cleaned the CCD and got my tracking smooth again, but in less than great seeing it's just going to need resizing down and I don't know if it's worth the hassle in those situations.


Thanks again guys.

[ronnierigel]

speechless...or should I say replyness!

ron

[strongmanmike]

....?......ok here goes.....:bowdown: !!!!

Eeeeeeexcellent Smithers eeeeexcellent!

"Who's that man Smithers?"

"Ahh, that's Mike Salway from sector 7G sir"

"hmmm? bring him to me, he's just the man I've been looking
for!"

:)

Gotta get me'self a web cam oir something similar, planetary imaging is a whole new ball game I've not dabbled much in!

Mike S (the other one)

[h0ughy]

Hey Mike the Evil twin is after your secrets!!!!!!!!!


Very ordinary, I expect better from you next time, like more detail on the other moons, sharp festooning definitions and crisp eclipse shadows.............Top effort Mike.

[xelasnave]

:eyepop: You have set a high bar for yourself with this effort.:thumbsup: Very good work Mike I would print them up, frame them and hang then in the office they really are very good.
alex

[janoskiss]

stunning images there Mike! bloomin amazing!

[Robert_T]

:thumbsup: Mike, these are up there at the pinnacle of the art. There would be few who have surpassed this and I doubt any have done it with the gear you have taken to the extreme here:)

[[1ponders]]

Please Master Salway.

Will you come to Qld Astrofest at Duckadang in mid July and run some classes. I'm sure there are enough Qlders here to put in a gold coin each to cover a night or two. If not I'll damn well pay for it myself :prey:

How'd that "How To" coming along Mike :P

[LT_Ng]

Absolutely very stunning images Mike. Mine are light years behind already. Could you send me some steady and clear air?

Havn't had any posting here for a long while. Except bad weather has been continuing since the beginning of this year, work drives me crazy also. For the past 6 months, I could only have 2 nights free for imaging. But the sky didn't cooperate and so the images were very poor that they were not worth any posting. Weather forecasts it will be mainly rainy the whole next week!

This year, I will spend my holiday in Australia again. Luckly, my wife allows me more astrophotographing time with this vacation. I will arrive in Sydney on July 17th and want to visit Bird, if he is available. Then back to Sydney on July 23 to pick up my friend at the airport. Maybe have one night stay in Bankstown and visit my another friend there. Then will drive to Coonabarabran via Orange to spend 2 nights for star field shooting there. Lastly back to Sydney via Port Macquarie along routie 34 and routie 1.

Last year, I was very lucky to meet Paul in Nambour and it is my great honour to make friend with him and his wife. It was very joyful to have time spent with them. The memories are always playing back in my brain once I feel very frustrated and difficult time with my work.

You guys have captured so many awesome planetary shots. Except the good sky conditions, your skills in camera setting and image processing do play very important role. So, I really hope I can meet some of you and share experience in planetary imaging as well as processing in this journey or to join some star parties. Could this dream come true?

Bird, will you be available from July 17th to 19th around? Could we have a meet? Please PM me.

Paul, sorry this year I can't visit you and Sya this year as my wife Barbara wants to visit Canberra.

That may be an OT here. So, I will open a new thread next week in the General Chatting section to talk about more of my planning on this journey. I will be more than happy to have your arrangement for any meeting and site suggestions for accommodation and star field shooting.

Thanks in advance.

Clear skies,

LT

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My homepage: http://www.geocities.com/tatsco

[iceman]

Thanks again, I'm humbled by your comments. It means a lot. Planetary imaging can be very frustrating thanks to such variable seeing conditions, but as Davo says, once you've done the hard yards in the preparation, the capture settings and the processing, when you do get that ripper of a night, you're ready to produce a great image.

I'm happy that images like this can be produced on fairly humble equipment.. my next upgrade would be a new camera (DMK/Lumenera/DX) but it's not a cheap route so it's going to have to wait.


Paul, I'll be there.. but you'd need to pay for the family too ;)

I am going to write a how-to on my capture/processing, but it's true what Damian Peach says - if the seeing is really good, then very little processing is needed. Dennis has proved that time and time with his marvellous images this apparation, with so little processing.

My processing routines help to extract the best out of an image in less than excellent seeing. I used the same routines on these images, I think it can still help even on great raw data.

LT, I think there'll definitely be an opportunity to meet when you come out! I look forward to it. Definitely create a thread in general chat and we can discuss it there!

Thanks again everyone.