More of the King

[alphajuno]

This is the first image out the chute from last night. Jupiter was still climbing so I may have some others worthy of posting after I get to them. http://mysite.verizon.net/respy48o/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/rgb3-800c109g082-08-07-21-0.jpg

[iceman]

That's an excellent image, Dave! Loads of detail and good colour.

For the altitude it's top notch. I can't wait to see what you get when it's really up high for you.

[AlexN]

Fantastic image Dave! Looking forward to more!

[Matty P]

Beautiful image Dave, lovely detail and colour.

Very well done. :thumbsup:

[alphajuno]

Well, here's another one from the 20th. Last night, the seeing was quite poor and with the hurricane in the Gulf, it will be a little while before things clear up again...

Jupiter was at an altitude of almost 38 degrees when this was taken - the max for my location.

[iceman]

That's really, really nice! The seeing looks like it was very good given the altitude. The detail is excellent.

Perhaps a tad too red, maybe add a little green or reduce the red? I also aligned the colour channels slightly. plus a slight smart sharpen.

I hope you don't mind me having a play, let me know if you do.

Cheers

[alphajuno]

That looks great, thanks. I may have just used the color balance settings from my previous picture. My deconvolution is a little heavy-handed I think too so I'm still working to make that a little more delicate. The details seem a little finer before I try to get rid of the atmospheric effects. I've only been doing this a short time so I'll take all the tips I can get. I appreciate it!

[alphajuno]

I played around with the deconvolution as well. I think my blue was a little weak also...

http://mysite.verizon.net/respy48o/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/rgb2-800c109g0101-08-07-21-.jpg

[iceman]

Hey Dave, it looks a bit overprocessed now.

Can you post a stacked, unprocessed version that I can have a play with?

[alphajuno]

How about this zipped jpeg2000 file? It still has some wavelets from registax but it's my lowest processed version. Thanks!

[iceman]

Excellent, thanks Dave.

Here's my processed version:
1) Split channels in AstraImage 2.5Max
2) ME deconvolution, recombine
3) Photoshop for RGB align, levels, saturation, colour balance and curves.

It appears that there's some slight clockwise image rotation (not Jupiter rotation) between each channel - what scope and mount are you using again?

It's an excellent image! You should be very pleased.

[alphajuno]

Wow. That looks really good. You work fast too, lol.

I have an 11" SCT Alt-Az. I try to run about 50 secs for each channel but I noticed that I was having some alignment problems because of that. If I align to the disk, things don't line up. If I align to the features, I get a red and blue edge.

But yes, compared to the afocal Jupiters from last year, these are awesome. It's a good year for me to practice too :D.

Thanks!!

[alphajuno]

Oh, what Decon ME values did you use? Every time I try it, I get a big glob. Which should be telling me something...

[iceman]

I'm not talking about the rotation of Jupiter, which is common when you capture for long times at a long focal length. In those cases, you should always align on the features - not the limb. If you get a blue/red limb, so be it. It doesn't detract much from the overall picture if at all. If it really bugs you, produce two versions - one aligned on the limb and one aligned on the features, and use a feathered copy to get the aligned limb, and copy it as a new layer on the feature aligned image.
That's what I did for my version of your image above.

The rotation i'm talking about appears to be related to the alt/az mount - you're getting clockwise rotation of the whole planet itself.
A wedge or an equatorial mount would fix that.
It makes it harder to line up the features unless you rotate each channel by whatever fraction of a degree it needs.


I used ME 6/1.4

[alphajuno]

OK, thanks for the clarification. I also had to mess around with rotating the images a bit too so ya, that's a pain. I'm considering a wedge at some point although now that I realize it will help with planetary processing too, then it's a higher priority. I'm also trying to minimize my set-up time/hassle so I have a bit of a quandry...

[AlexN]

Dave, what program can I open the jpg2000 file with? I was going to have a quick go at it just to check the results of my processing vs yours and mike's.. however I cant open the file with any program I've got...

[iceman]

Alex, I used Irfanview and it opened it fine. Then I just re-saved it to drag into photoshop.

Dave, if you want to get into deep sky photography, or have less hassles with rotation, then an EQ mount (or a wedge) is a must :)

However if you work out the required angle/deg to rotate each channel, and keep the same capture length each time then you can work around it for now.

[alphajuno]

Alex,
I saved it in Photoshop Elements 5.0. So any Photoshop would work too.

Mike,
Thanks. Right now I'm just dabbling with some of the brighter DSO's. After I get a little experience, I'll probably lay out some more money. I am getting more and more into it so I think the extra set-up will be worth it. I figured that there was a lot I could do now and then when the itch got too big, I'd upgrade my camera and set-up. I may be better off with two telescopes too :D. I may get something with wider field and that's more portable. That way, I don't have to fill up the whole backseat of my car with the CPC when I head off to darker skies.

[AlexN]

Im sure you could make a wedge for less than they sell for...