I think I am getting worse with the Toucam

[ballaratdragons]

I spent a very cold night tonight to try get images of anything. It is still minus 1 degree here!!!

I am not sure whether I am getting worse with the Toucam or that I haven't imaged in quite a while and lost the little bit of knack I had, but I seem to be getting worse images than I used to.

Wish someone would write a manual on how to do all this correctly!

See what you think. :shrug:


Image 1: Joop and some Moons. (ED80 tracked on EQ1)
Image 2: SMC and environs (Just Toucam
Image 3: Same SMC pic after running it through 'Neat Image' to remove noise (first time I have used 'Neat Image').

[janoskiss]

It's not a science, Ken! It's a black art! That's why no books I reckon.

"Neat image" seemed to have destroyed the sharpness of the satellite streak.

[ballaratdragons]

Yeah Steve, lots of hit and miss and 'try again' with capturing methinks.

I captured these images on the same settings I have used before but they came out worse :shrug:

Focus was nice and sharp on the lappy, but this is the final result!

Neat Image totally destroyed my Sattelite streak! But it was the first time I've used it. Got LOTS to learn.

[h0ughy]

NIce try Ken, keep at it as practice make perfect!

[Dennis]

Good work Ken. Backwards….hmm….don’t forget you’ve got to cock your arm and take the ball backwards before you then throw it forwards, so backwards is as important as forwards.

Cheers

Dennis

[ving]

hi ken :)
I assume you sent the jupiter image thru registax?
the colours need aligning, as you can se teh redchannel hangs over the left hand side of the planet. this might help somewhat :) also either the seeing was particularly bad or your focus might not have been spot on.
(wish i had bought my lappy with me, i could have fiddled with it)

as for the other 2, how long was the exposure? the stars look burnt (i know nothing of widefield processing tho).

hope this helps a bit... one newbie to another :)

[ballaratdragons]

Yep David, ran Joop thru Registax. It is also the first time I have had colour defraction thru the ED80! Might have been the fog building up on the front lens.

The seeing was 8/10, Trans 10/10. Focus was pinpoint.

As for the burnt out appearance on the widefields I have no idea. The exposure was for only 25 seconds, whereas I usually expose around 30-35 seconds!

Not to worry, I could have missed something in the settings. Next clear sky I'll try it all again. . . and again

[ving]

oh and that said, your moons look nice and round! :)

[ving]

i have saved the jupiter one to my USB drive and i'll give it a quickie tonight. i'll post results tomorrow if i get a better result. :)

[asimov]

Hi Ken. The capture setting are pretty darn crucial so I found out on DSO's with the modded toucam. It depends on the object your trying to get too.

If you could 'set it & forget it' on DSO's we'd be laughing but its not turning out that way. Plenty of trial & error happening my end before I consider going for an actual capture.

I've found 45 second exposures to be the best overall...& plenty of them stacked; the more the better. Most guys are getting & stacking 100.

I've found 90% gamma & 15-20% gain is giving me pretty good results so far.

I'll keep ya posted as to setting etc. as I go mate:thumbsup: Might be of some help to you..

[ballaratdragons]

They are the settings I find best too John.

Sometimes I can even get the Gamma down to around 70% and it improves.

All was well on the lappy monitor, it just saved crummy images!

How on earth do you stack Long exposure images when it only takes one???

[ballaratdragons]

I look forward to the result :thumbsup:

[asimov]

One??

What proggy are you using for Long exposures? I use Desire. Set how many frames you want & how long, press the button & go and have a coffee!

[[1ponders]]

Keep the chin up Ken. You're definately not alone in scratching heads over "what the hell happened there" situations.

Another thing to consider too is the image you are getting on your laptop. Laptop screens are fickle things and notoriously difficult to use to judge image quality, whether capturing or processing. I've pitched quite a few Jupiters that initially looked pretty good on the laptop screen during capture, but once I saw them on the CRT :rolleyes: ....in the bin. Do you have your screen set to full brightness and if you have adobe photoshop on it have you done the Adobe gamma adjust? It's not much but every bit helps.

[ving]

in registax you can stack single images, you can proably do it in registar too.

i didnt really do any better on your image ken... i couldnt get the colours aligned at all :confused:

[ballaratdragons]

Good point Paul!

I usually capture on the PC with CRT monitor, but this time I used the lappy. It has been set at optimum, but yeah it's nothing like the CRT images.



I use Desire too John. I was unaware that Desire could save multiple images under the one selection!!! I thought I had to name and save each and every individual exposure!

Hmmm, looks like I will be playing with Desire this evening cloudy or not!!



I didn't know that Registax can do that! Gonna have to click on all sorts of buttons and find out how.

Thanks guys :thumbsup:

[ving]

when you go to load the files in registax just make it look for the type of file you are taking (eg bmp). make sure all your pics are in the one folder tho... once you have found the folder, hold down the ctrl button while clicking on each one you want to stack and wahlah! you have numerous single images loaded and ready to stack :)


for capturing if you use k3ccd and hit the capture button it will keep caputing frames at whatever framerate/shutter speed you like till you tell it to stop and save it as an avi movie. I did this on my jewelbox pic which was numerous 4 second pics stacked :) you are using a toucam so the free version of k3ccd should work for you :)

do you take darks?

[ballaratdragons]

Thanks David. I don't use k3ccdtools, too complicated for me. Philips Vlounge for Avi's and Desire for Long Exposures. Nope, never used darks. I gotta learn one thing at a time :thumbsup:

Another problem with capturing on the lappy is it only goes up to 800x600 resolution, and it freaks out getting info at USB-2.