final saturn from 28/12 *reprocessed*

[bird]

Update: The newest image is lower down...

Ok, here's the final result from combining 6 separate runs taken between 4am and 5am on the morning of 28/12.

The image size has been resampled to 150% and I decided to leave the final image at that size.

The brightness and contrast may be a problem, I don't have my trusty CRT on hand to compare with, and I am working on a Dell lcd display so it may need to be tweaked. If you find it too bright or "soft" then let me know.

Details:

13.1" f/5.5 newtonian + TV powermate, FL=11000mm
True Technology filter wheel + Astronomik RGB filters
PGR Dragonfly Express monochrome firewire camera
Captured on Linux with Coriander, processed with ppmcentre on Linux,
Registax, Astra Image and The Gimp under Windows

approx 12 minutes each or red, green, blue
red/green: 20fps, blue: 12fps

cheers, Bird

[asimov]

Hi Bird, a wonderful image! It has a slight 'soft & fuzzy' look on my LCD screen.

[bird]

Here's a sharper version, looks too sharp on my screen but might be better on other screens...


ps This version looks best on Leisas' Sony laptop...

Bird

[davidpretorius]

dell laptop for me and the 2nd one is sharper

I love it mate!

when is the 14" mirror due?

[ballaratdragons]

Hey Bird, another stunning image from the 'Anthony Wesley Collection'!

That is a very very good image. :thumbsup:

The 1st image looks fuzzy on my CRT, but the 2nd image is WOW! Nice & Sharp, and the colours seem better too.

But the 1st image does look more natural, so I would pick it, despite the fuzziness.

[Dennis]

Hi Anthony

Both look quite superb on my LCD monitor. The 2nd one looks a tad too sharp but that would just be nit picking. Wow, what gorgeous images of the ringed one!

Cheers

Dennis

[bird]

It's been sitting here in it's shipping container for a few weeks. Now that the 13.1" is working well I'm in no hurry to use it - I don't have access to any workshop while we're living as guests with Michael & Cate and I have to build a new mirror cell + cooler for it.

It may stay in it's box until we move into the new house in March and I have some space to work. It's going to be a close call whether it fits in my current tube (16" tube, 14.5" mirror...) so I may give in and have Gary make me a larger tube for it... I sort-of plan to buy a larger mount to stick in the observatory when we move in, maybe a Titan?, and maybe one of those yummy 3" JMI motorised focussers...

cheers, Bird

[bird]

Here's the separate red, green and blue images. Just look at the difference! The low altitude is mostly to blame, at 39 degrees the blue has a lot of air to go through.

The red channel is lovely.

cheers, Bird

[h0ughy]

WOW, and Iceman in on holidays - gee he would drool over this one!

Excellent Bird, excellent My preference is the 1st one, lovely colours so natural. I hope Lostock can give you a better window of opportunity!

[bird]

ps on the separate red image above, you can see the outermost "F-ring" by the thin shadow it casts on the planet, above the rings.

[matt]

That red channel is outrageous, bird!:eyepop:

The Encke Division's clear as...

[ving]

:jawdrop:

fan-bloomin-tastic!@

[iceman]

Indeed i did this morning!

Fantastic image, Anthony. The best i've seen produced from Australia this season, and one of the best worldwide!

Well done.

[jjjnettie]

Simply Beautiful

[Robert_T]

Hi Bird, I like these a lot, especially the sharper second one, though the softer first one looks more natural. The image scale is just ENORM and really smacks you in the face:D

I'm amazed at just how good your blue channel is in relation to the red, especially at your latitude. Even when I've had reasonable seeing up here the blue is woeful by comparison to what I've got in the red.

Impressive:thumbsup:

[bird]

Robert, with a monochrome camera and electronic focusser there is something of an advantage over a colour camera - it's possible to set the focus for each colour channel separately so that each one is focussed as best as possible.

I normally find that the three colours focus at different points, probably a side effect of the glass elements in the powermate or maybe dispersion effects in the atmosphere, not sure.

Anyway, I spend a lot of time checking and tweaking the focus for each channel.

cheers, Bird

[hevelsky]

Wow, awesome Image !!!!! ;)
Good Job Bird :thumbsup:

[RB]

Anthony that's a fantastic image.
It's worth the extra effort doing individual channels that's for sure.

Well done

[bird]

Believe it or not, I'm *still* reprocessing this image... fixed a few bugs in ppmcentre (now called ninox btw), added a couple of new features, process process process...

I'm kinda hoping that I'll be finally done sometime later today, I'm starting to see the registax window in my sleep...

Bird

[bird]

Spent a lot more time on the processing this time, have been working on it since Sunday :-)

Compared to the imaged posted at the top of this thread I think this is an improvement - comments welcome.

cheers, Bird

[iceman]

Excellent image, Anthony!

Definitely smoother than the 2nd one above, which I preferred initially.

A few artifacts though, on the right hand edge of the globe and on the rings at top left where it meets the planet. They were there in the other one too, but seem more obvious in this version.

Looks great though! Tell us more about ninox, what the new features are and when it will be available :)

[matt]

Good one, Bird

Agree with Mike though re: artifacts. They're very obvious on my screen.

But great image scale.

And yeah.... when do we get to have a go with this new proggie????:lol:

[bird]

Yes, pushing my luck a bit with the image quality, but this might be the best saturn I get this season so I didn't want to leave anything behind :-)

There's a new version on the website now, from Saturday, and I'll be uploading a newer version today with one extra filtering option that I added yesterday to help eliminate some types of noise (called pop filtering).

Also fixed a bug - when you resampled the image size to 3/2 it was adding a smoothing pass which should not have been there. The smoothing should only happen when the resampling is >= 2x original size.

cheers, Bird

[bird]

p.s. there are fewer artifacts in the latest image, although the ones that remain may be more obvious :-)

Bird

[davidpretorius]

i have been comparing Chris's xmas saturn (http://www.cloudynights.com/ubbthreads/attachments/1320407-saturn06-12-23_18-48lc.jpg)

What a difference altitude makes!

The skills are all world class, the seeing was similiar, it simply comes down to getting closer to the equator for the planets to be nice and high in the sky.

Well done Bird, i can't wait for the observatory to be built

[bird]

I can get rid of the artifacts by using a different system of processing (more registax, less astra-image) , e.g: this image...

Bird

[iceman]

Wow, that's even better Anthony! Top stuff!

The encke division isn't as clear, but that's probably more realistic as more aggressive processing would reduce that gradient and make it wider than it should be.

I think that last one's a keeper!