17-6-08 Jupiter, Brisbane. Nice seeing (my best yet!!!)

[AlexN]

Hey guys...

Been out in the cold running off a few AVI's of Jupiter tonight, and for the first time ever, I managed to capture 4 AVI's without removing the camera from the ep.. just recorded jup as she floated through, then tweaked the Dob's position, recorded it floating through again etc... This allowed me to capture 24 seconds of data without any rotation due to the camera being replaced on a slightly different angle...

Enough chit chat..

Usual setup - 8" Dob + 3x barlow + 2.5cm extention + ToUcam, 15fps..

Result Below!

(Will post more later, Just edited this one up, and had to post it ASAP!! :D

[AlexN]

Heres another one from maybe 10 minutes earlier... Went a little lighter on the processing on this one, seems nice to me...

The first image was 601 frames stacked, this one is 150 frames..

[iceman]

Nice work, Alex. Good detail and colour. I saw Jupiter last night.. shining through hte clouds on my way to pick Jacob up from scouts.
It's about the only view i've had in 2 weeks :(

[Lester]

Well done Alex and nicely processed.

[Screwdriverone]

Hi Alex,

Yes, I share Mike's Jupiter withdrawals.

My (our) only consolation is your superb images get us through in the meantime!

Fabulous pics once again, althought I think you are right, these are your best for details and GRS etc.

Congratulations.

Chris

[Robert_T]

Well done Alex,

This looks great, heaps of detail.:thumbsup:

There is a certain softness that suggests you might get siome improvement either with finer focus and/or more precise collimation... do you collimate before each imaging run?

[madtuna]

go you! very nice Alex! :thumbsup:

[Screwdriverone]

Hi Alex,

With respect to Robert's comments on focus and finer details I have had a quick fiddle with your image in Gimp and did the following to it:

Hue-saturation: Hue down -15, Lightness 0, Saturation +15

Unsharp Mask : radius 1.5 / amount 1.5 / threshold 0

See what you think, I beleive this brings out a bit more details in the banding and colours? However my effort looks a bit more "artifical" compared to the original.

Just a thought? I hope you dont mind.

I included your original first as a "blink comparitor"

Chris

edit: did it again with -10/+10 on hue/sat and 1.2/1.2 on unsharp - looks nicer?

[RB]

Firstly I'd like to say well done Alex, you've captured a very nice image, especially considering there's only 24 seconds of data :eyepop:
So well done there.

Now I've hardly done any planetary imaging so please forgive me for asking but when I look at the image it seems to have a green colourcast.
Is it just me or is this the correct colour palette for joop?
I ask because one day I'd like to get back into planetary imaging and I was curious, since I'm only into DSO's atm.

Usually I have a look at images in PS and try some colour correction to see if it makes a difference and on this one it just seems that Alex can improve by doing a simple colour tweak in Curves to adjust the white balance.
I could post a tweaked version if it's ok with Alex.

Anyway I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.

BTW sorry Chris(screwdriverone) your versions look a little too overdone with USM, prefer Alex's originals.

[Screwdriverone]

Hi Andrew,

That's OK, no need to apologise, I was fiddling with settings and thought it looked a bit too artificial. You are right, the originals look more natural.

I am just hoping I can get somewhere near Alex's standard in the near future.

Chris

[RB]

Me too Chris, me too.
If this weather finally clears up I'd love to have a shot at some planetary imaging.

:thumbsup:

[AlexN]

Thanks for the comments guys, they are always appreciated.

Robert_T : To answer your question, It could be either causing the problem... its focused electronically, however I only have 6 seconds per attempt to get it right... so it may be that... Collimation... Lets say this, I have not collimated my scope since I bought it (2 months now) for 2 reasons. 1 - I dont have any collimation tools (Cheshire, laser etc) and 2. I have no idea what im doing and fear getting it wrong...

Chris : Heard you got yourself a ToUcam!! :D Get amongst it mate!! Cant wait to see some prime focus shots from you!

Andrew : Color is the last thing you want to ask me about, Im colorblind in 30 odd percent of the spectrum.. I process my pics to look like other peoples coloring, but to me - it does not look green, not by a long shot. closer to orange in parts :P I do what I can with the eyes I unfortunately have... :D

By all means andrew, Post your color tweaked version, Id love to have a look!

[Screwdriverone]

I would love to, but 1) I got it only 1 hour ago, 2) Its daytime, 3) its raining, 4) no laptop (have to borrow the father in law's one)

Don't worry, when I get some sky time, look out! ;)


Chris

[AlexN]

Best of luck for imaging and clear skies!

[Matty P]

Well done Alex!

You captured a lot of detail and nice colour.

Keep up the great work.

[RB]

Cheers Alex, sorry I could get back to you yesterday.

This is what I came up with yesterday when I had a quick go on your original.
Basically opened up 'Curves' and using the 'Black, White and Grey' eyedroppers, just clicked on the parts of the image which corresponded to these shades.
No other adjustments were done.
Seems to have brought out some more detail though, not sure, see what you think.

Cheers mate.

:thumbsup:

[AlexN]

Thanks RB, your right it seems to have brought forward a bit more detail...

Looks very smooth now!! i love it..

Cheers