planetary imaging woes

[Somnium]

i am trying to improve my planetary imaging with Jupiter out in full force in recent times. the only problem is that i cant seem to get a decent image. i record video on my QHY5Lii and then stack it in registax, i have tried both my 2x and 5X televue barlows/powermates to try and get more detail while using my BT 250 newt on an NEQ6 mount. but no matter how hard i try i cant get a really clear image. looking through the data i see that the atmosphere is jumping around between every frame (taken at the highest practical frame rate). is it just really rare to get good seeing conditions? or is the fact that i am taking it from Sydney going to mean that i will never get decent seeing conditions, i.e. do cities significantly disrupt the seeing conditions?

[Nikolas]

Some samples may be helpful

[raymo]

I find a cheap webcam does the best job.[mine was $15 in K Mart.]
The 5x will only make the atmospheric instability worse, except on
the rare occasions when the atmosphere is really stable.
raymo

[glend]

I was looking at Jupiter last night through my 16" dob and the atmospheric wobble was noticed. It's not just a city effect and the heat at ths time of year is a part of it. Because Jupiter is low in the NE you will be looking through much more atmosphere than if it was at
The zenith. I could not push much beyond 200x visually last night, just enough to see the great red spot easily. It your keen for the best possible imaging of Jupiter this month then I would suggest you come along for a couple of days to the Bretti Star Party camp around the new moon (16th - 21st). Bretti s a great dark site but even there best results are found later in the night when the heat rising from the ground as disapated.

[dannat]

Apart from Fri night, we have had 12 windy nights ins row, coupled with some warm days. Seeing isn't great atm

[creeksky]

I am looking at it now with 8 inch Dob, its like a heat haze wobble as its rising?10mm doesn't improve it much, just barely see faint 2 brown/tan stripes,4 moons almost horizontal alignment.Moon will be up at 10pm :(

[NorthernLight]

apart from seeing issues, have you checked your collimation is right at the sweet spot? I found that after collimating with a Cheshire eyepiece, visuals improved by a long shot.

[Somnium]

i thought the issue might be collimation but i re-collimated last night and still had the issues, besides when i started going through frame by frame in registax it was clear that the atmosphere was extremely volatile. i have attached a couple of images for you to have a look at, this is the best i have from the past 1.5 years. i am not saying these are horrible but i do expect a lot better. i am just wondering if anyone gets good results from a city or whether i need to take my shots elsewhere for higher quality images

[Somnium]

i reprocessed my best image and it seems a lot better. perhaps i just need to wait for perfect seeing, i didn't realise how elusive it is :mad2:

[creeksky]

Gee,they all look great to me!(sorry only a newbie)

[JimsShed]

My thoughts as well :)

[raymo]

Yes, great improvement Aidan, very nice.
raymo

[glend]

Are those single frames, not stacked? Looks under-exposed but other than that ok to start with.

[Somnium]

they are all stacked, i will play around with the exposure, i was trying to balance the brightness with the contrast and detail

[sil]

only guessing you're not processing with a properly colour calibrated monitor and workflow. but yes its difficult to get much detail, getting a good focus can be tricky and yes you're data will look like the planet is swimming under water. all normal with my experience.

one direction i can point my scope has a large road 0.5km away and once i get focus acceptable to record and i hear a car on that road i can count to 20 and my image washes away as the disturbed warmer air rises to cross my line of sight. so i learnt to keep an ear out and record only once there was no traffic. likewise any breeze brings thermal differences to the air turbulence. don't forget cooldown on the scope too.

processing wise are you discarding low quality frames, refining alignments to get the most from your data?

[Camelopardalis]

Doesn't look bad for summer city seeing ;)

We do get some decent nights here in Sydney, just not in the summer :lol: I have the same camera and you should expect good results from it with a decent night, probably in autumn or winter...

[Somnium]

in time for Saturn's opposition :)

[Somnium]

I still feel like an absolute newb so i have a lot to learn on the processing front. i do discard bad frames in Registax, but i don't go through frame by frame, i use the stackgraph to choose the better images.

[Camelopardalis]

Luckily, Jupiter will stay large for a while yet :)

[John K]

ok, I'll chime in here, seeing that staying up tonight to take images of Jupiter has been cancelled due to the clouds. You need to do a couple of things before you start imaging:

1. Seeing check - use skippy weather to get the seeing forecast. It does not matter that you live in a big city. I am 5.5km from the Melbourne CBD and here are some of the results this year:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/johnkazanas/sets/72157620534659372
If the stars are twinking like mad leave it for another night.

2. You need to cool down your mirror - does it have a fan? Leave it outside several hours before imaging, use anything you can to get the temperature mirror down. You have a lot glass in a 10". Even putting on a domestic air conditioner inside to cool the mirror works well. Get a weather thermometer and attach to the side of the mirror and try and get the mirror to ambient before imaging.

3. Collimation - must be perfect. Point the scope to Jove, get tracking, and then collimate before you image.

4. Make sure you get 70% plus on the histogram with your exposures. Your images look faint to me. Crank up the gain and try and get the highest FPS you can - this will freeze the seeing and you will get good frames.

5. Forget about Registax for stacking. Use Autostakkert2 with multi point aligning. Then throw it into Registax for wavelets. Then get a free copy of Astra Image and do some deconvolution. The some contrast and noise reduction in Photoshop or something similar.

6. IF you want to get more funky - assume you have a colour camera - break the avs into RGB using a software program, and then process seperatelty and recombine.

Have fun and keep us posted on progress.

Clear skies,

John K.

[Somnium]

Thanks for the feedback John,

i am definitely envious of your images, but it is shots like that which make us mere mortals strive for perfection. it is good to know that you are getting these types of shots from Melb. i probably do need to cool down the scope for longer and i will try using Autostakkert2 and Astra image and see what i can do with post processing but i think the main areas of concern are to do with data capture. i will keep an eye on the skies and post progress.

[Somnium]

last night i went out, cooled my mount down for at least 2 hours with fans on, checked skippy sky (it looked promising) directed my scope to Jupiter and collimated it perfectly. turned on my camera at about 12:15 and got what i consider some of the worst footage of Jupiter in the history of man. the file size is much too big to upload here, i just wanted to get peoples thoughts. should i wait till 2 - 3 am until the city sleeps and there are fewer cars on the street before imaging ? are the predictions of skippy sky usually accurate ? or am i missing something fundamental

[ralph1]

From where I was last night, the seeing was very good up until 11:30 p.m when I went in and had fallen to pieces when I went out again at 5:30 a.m to observe Mercury. Maybe you were affected by the same bad late-night seeing?

[Somnium]

Maybe ... i think i must just have the worst luck with seeing conditions because i have never had a crisp view of any planet through my rig.