tips please seasoned planet people

[graham.hobart]

I have been playing with an ASI224MC - and these were taken with an RC 6 and 2 x powerview at native ie 1370mm f9 x 2 .
I was suprised at the Saturn one but disappointed with Jupiter- my shots are being processed like this
capture about 1000 frames ( i know, right!!)
PIPP to debayer (it either auto detects RGGB or I try another-doesn't seem to make a difference, )
save as pipp avi
AS!2 and now AS!3 to stack avi- local setting and best 80% frames
-save either as tif or png- seems not to make a difference
open in registax 6 for a twiddle with wavelets on the dyadic gaussian setting - vrey smal tweaks as it seems to make the granular appearance worse.
Ok what am I doing wrong here?

any help gratefully received - lengthy critiques can be Pm's!!
NB thanks to Andrew so far for the help...
PPS I have my mates C9.25" ready to go on the mount- I tried it on cgem when it on my deck and was pleased with the image scale but haven't tried it on my pier yet.

[Tulloch]

Hi Graham, hope I can help.

I use FireCapture to capture images from my ASI224MC in the following way. Use a reduced Region of Interest (ROI), making sure that the height is about 50% larger than the planet you are capturing. The maximum capture speed you can get is related to the amount of data coming through the cable which is related to the size of the preview (ROI) screen. Next, use the "Crop" tool to draw a box around the planet, FC will keep this in the centre of the ROI and makes stacking in AS!3 easier. See the first image for where these settings are.

Next, make sure that "High Speed" mode is checked. This captures the video in 8 bit which also improves speed, there is no impact on image quality for capturing the planets in 8 bit mode. You can find this setting by pressing the "cog" symbol on the "Control" box, see the second image.

I have found that for my setup the best results are obtained by setting the shutter speed for Jupiter to 6.66ms (ie max 150 fps) and Saturn to 10ms (max 100 fps), then adjusting the gain level so that the peak histogram level is about 50% of maximum (ie max value about 128).

Capture the images in undebayered format (ie not RGB colour). There is a setting in FC where you can force the recordings to only record in raw format, it's in the "Image/Debayer" settings area.

You do not need to use PIPP in your process (in fact PIPP screws up the Bayer pattern), drag the video straight into AS!3 and follow the steps I mentioned previously (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showpost.php?p=1487002&postcount=10).

Capture Jupiter for 3 minutes, Saturn for 5 minutes, Mars for 4 minutes (I usually image at 200 fps for Mars, others go much higher), Uranus and Neptune I normally choose 10 or 20 fps.

For the images I took at the start of the month (see link here (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=184973)), my FC settings for Jupiter and Saturn are shown in the logfiles attached to this posting.

Andrew

[graham.hobart]

Hi Andrew-thanks heaps-great advice.
Just playing with firecapture now (indoors).
In the sixth box down on the left hand side "options- I leave the debayer unticked?
I just have the histogram and cutout ticked for now?
:thanx:

[Tulloch]

The best spot in in the Options / Image / Debayer. Click the box that says "always record undebayered (RAW) but preview in color" (see image attached).

That way it shows all the pixels when I need them (to focus, set the crop box etc) but always turns them off before capturing so I capture at the fastest rate possible.

Also, make sure you use the RAM Buffer (in the System / General tab), set it to a high value.

Oh, and don't forget to set the USBTraffic value to around 70 to 80. Too high and it could drop frames, too low and the fps rate will drop.

Easy :lol:.

If I haven't mentioned them before, watch these tutorial videos, they are great.
http://planetaryimagingtutorials.com/

Andrew

[big-blue]

Thanks Andrew from me too.
it is a great summary of the basic settings.
I might also add that it is worth practicing the techniques (including optimal collimation) so that everything is ready & tested for those much rarer nights of very steady seeing... with the added benefit that it is so much easier to find the point of best focus on such nights. Good luck.