Jupiter, 30th January (no eclipse for me!)

[andyc]

Cloudy here, and so I've processed some more from the nice morning on Tuesday. C14 going better with a new camera cable, though still a few more bits to work out yet!

RGB, IR and methane frames.

My best images of Jupiter yet, and Jupiter is only halfway to opposition :D

And a cheeky Mars, with clouds on Elysium

A larger view of some of the Jupiter frames is here (https://photos.app.goo.gl/hUV8ABBreO6hBMjw1)

[blinky]

pics are looking good andy!. your getting the hang of that big rig quickly. have you tried playing with the limb darkening feature in winjupos? it can help lessen the artifact on the edge of planet if aesthetics is factor for you.
also the damian peach dvd part 2 has good processing tips for photo shopping it.
Leigh

[andyc]

Thanks Leigh! Yes, I use the LD on Winjupos, haven't really tried to use it to attempt to fix this kind of edge rind, which was present in the raw videos (and not from stacking an extended period of rotation). It seems to be either a diffraction, collimation or even ghosting - so have been practising with the collimation a bit before the next imaging session. Thanks for the reminder about Damians DVD - I'd like to get it someday for a number of reasons! And reminding me on PS - I did use a bodge of blending in the unsharpened edge on last year's jupiters, forgot about that for these ones :)

[blinky]

okl, interesting. I'd be interested to know what its from when you work it out. Have you tried collimating with a false star? I read in an astronomy mag recently its possible to pin prick a hole in foil and put a bright light behind it to use as a false star. yet to try it myself.

[Troy]

Good images, Andy :thumbsup:

[John K]

Great image Andy - excellent start to the Jove season for you!

[bigjoe]

Keep posting these Andy..cant get enough of seeing features on Jove, esp a transit..photos of big Ganymede passing in front would look spectacular..shadow and all.. Mars ..look at the detail you've captured and its still only 5.7" ..tiny.

That C14 Rocks.

PS: The artifacts there but can be fixed next time.

bigjoe.

[andyc]

Thanks everyone :thumbsup: Joe - I will indeed, and Ganymede's high on the list :D Collimation for me I think is just a case of practice - it's the first time I've owned an SCT, and so I'm learning about adjustments mainly by stars inside/outside/close to focus. I made a Duncan Mask but it's hard to use when collimation is nearly there (it's good when it's far out). As I set up and take down each session, I need to have a fairly rapid method of collimating or checking collimation - the light/foil is possible, but I'm usually hoping to have stars handy :P.

The rind effect - I read a very interesting article by Martin Lewis (http://skyinspector.co.uk/mars-edge-artefact), essentially a mini research project on what might cause edge artefacts on Mars. The associated Cloudy Nights thread (https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/367638-mars-edge-rind-artefact/#entry4708341) also has some more good discussions. There's a good bit of info to digest, whether or not it all perfect! I'm a little more convinced that it's a lot to do with diffraction at hard edges, and at least after last night, convinced it's not primarily focus, collimation or wavelets, though I imagine errors in these would not help.