First crack at Astrophotography

[oggie doggie]

Below is my first crack at Astrophotograhy.

Pic 1 - Without uv/ir filter. Centered and stacked.

Pic 2 - With uv/ir filter. Centered and stacked.

Pic 3 - Without uv/ir filter. Processed RGB seperately.

Pic 4 - With uv/ir filter. Processed RGB seperately.

Taken with 8" Newt on HEQ5 with 84k Toucam.

There is along way to go but any input is appreciated

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[AlexN]

Great first go. Its always nice when your first shot resembles the target in some way, and yours is an unmistakable jupiter! my first thoughts are..

1 - using a barlow to increase image size helps, it makes focusing easier because you can see more, the more you can see, the sharper you can make the image. Also, extention tubes help increase image size also, I use a 2x barlow with the lens removed, so theres another 2cm of space between the webcam and the lens of my 3x barlow..

2- where was jupiter in the sky when the image was taken. My first attempts, because i got excited and wanted to image NOW rather than later, were all taken between 35° - 50° above the horizon. This causes a blury, wobbly looking image due to too much mess in the atmosphere at the lower altitudes. Waiting until it reaches the maximum altitude for the night proves to be the best way to image Jupiter, or anything for that matter.

3 - How were the images processed? it looks to me as if you used an unsharp mask, and perhaps a little bit to aggressively. or either a bit to hard on the wavelets. I have no doubt you've already seen these, but there are a couple of great guides to editing planetary images, both of which are written around Jupiter imaging.

- This, (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/index.php?id=63,306,0,0,1,0) by Iceman

- This (http://users.on.net/%7Ekooliez/JupiterProcessing2008.pdf)PDF was written by davidpretorius (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/member.php?u=327)
The pdf helped me a great deal in my jupiter imaging..

Well done on your first image, and keep at it!

[iceman]

hey oggie that's a nice result for a first attempt.

The first one looks best in terms of a 3D look and not overprocessed. However it's a bit underprocessed.

It looks better than the one WITH the UV/IR but I think that's just a symptom of either the UV/IR filter you're using (which one is it?) or the way in which you're setting your colour balance.

The first one has very muted colours because you didn't use the UV/IR filter. Set "auto" white balance and it should generally get the colours right if you're using a reasonable quality filter.

Splitting channels and processing RGB will generally produce a better result, but in the cases above the results are over-processed. How many frames did you stack from each channel? How long did you record for?

Anyway here's my quick play with image #1 (photoshop + astraimage).

[AlexN]

In Mikes re-process there, it seems also that a slight shift of the blue channel to the left might help a bit.. Although I've found when moving the channels around (in registax) that movement is too aggressive, ie. one click of the 'left' button moves the blue too far..

If you're processing RGB individually then you should have alot more control over this.

[oggie doggie]

Thanks Alex, I have found that i need to use an extension (barlow without lens) to get reasonable focus. I was using a 2.5 powermate along with the extension.
Jupiter was about 70deg at the time of capture.
I was using Mikes guide when i processed, obviously this is just a guide and dependent on the data. It is also dependent on the experience of the operator and how to manipulate the settings.

For a first go i was wrapped with the result. It looked like jupiter which is what i was after.

The processing is somthing that is trial and error and i will no doubt continue to learn as i go.

Thanks for the tips.

[oggie doggie]

Thanks for the tips Mike. I was using a Binter UV/IR filter. Is this a reasonable quality?
I am encouraged by what you have done with the processing of the first pic.

I stacked about 1500 frames and i agree it looks over processed. Its all part of the learning curve.

I will have another go and hold back on the processing.

Thanks for the tips.

[AlexN]

1500 frames is overkill. Theres too much chance of "bad" data... in registax after you optimize, use the stack graph to limit it. 300 - 600 frames is heaps depending on the conditions.

What frame rate were you recording at?

[oggie doggie]

I have taken on board the advice and had another crack last night.

I think the 2 things that seem to have made a difference were the increase in shutter speed and modifying the settings in the deconvolution process.

I am very happy with the results. Definately a bit more colour this time around.

Stacked around 700 frames for each chanel then processed through astraimage.

[AlexN]

Cool.. Well done! Its always great in your first attempts to get the GRS too... :)

focus is perhaps a little soft still, this could also be collimation. But its 100% on your last attempt, so by all means, a great job!

Keep at it!!
Alex.