DMK Jupiter 2x & 3x from Broken Hill

[Quark]

Hi All,
Mike, you were right about the dust on my DMK CCD. Couldn't see anything on it visually but still had the same pattern of spots with the CCD in my 3x barlow that were on the image I posted through my 2x barlow.

Judging by these images I have removed the dust.

These two images are with my 16" F4.5 Newt and are through my 2x and 3x barlows.

Judging by the increase in image scale a 5x barlow would produce an image to large to fit on the DMK chip.

Seeing was good early but dropped off later in the night.
Still really experimenting with Jupiter, used a lot more gain tonight and maintained my histogram at about 220.

Regards
Trevor

[kinetic]

Hi Trevor,

Very nice!

I was imaging too from 9:28pm onwards...local Adelaide time.
I saw the re-appearance of a moon from shadow around 9:05 but
wasn't set up quick enough to get it.

Your images are brilliant.
I loaded your one from 2 nights ago into Registax as a single
JPG and it can tolerate a bit more wavelets so your technique could be
a bit less gentle and still get away with it.
What was your cuttoff % and number of frames in the stack?
I have a few shocker dustbunnies on my chip that show up as
artifacts and not true data.

Here is my effort from tonight with my GSO Newt and SPC900

Steve

[AlexN]

wow.. your image with the 3x barlow is about the same image scale I get with my 8" and 5x powermate :D thats awesome :D

Detail on both images looks good Trevor, As does the coloring. perhaps just a touch more contrast would be nice.

Tried imaging tonight. was a bust and a half... Very average seeing here in brisbane.

[alphajuno]

Those images are great. If you're using a DMK, you may have a lot of head room still before you start getting too much noise with something like Jupiter. I've got mine cranked up pretty high (750 to 800ish) after I read that other people had tried that. Good luck! I was just looking at big scopes like that last night, lol.

[iceman]

Very nice Trevor - the 3x is giving a very good image scale. Like Alex said, perhaps a bit of post processing to increase the contrast (pull the curve down in photoshop) would give it a bit more oomph.
Shame the seeing didn't hold up for you.

Nice work also Steve!

[Quark]

Hi Steve,
Didn't realize you were on Iceinspace, great to hear from you.
You are doing some very nice work with Jupiter yourself, what software did you use for your animation?

My 2x Jupiter images are captures of 1000 frames per channel, each channel in 40 sec's. I set the cutoff in RegiStax at 95% of the tagged frame, this generally gives me about 400 frames per channel to stack.
Each final RGB 2x image is about 1200 frames.

Last night was my first imaging attempt with my 3x Bintel barlow, again I captured 1000 frames per channel, each channel for 40 sec's. The overall quality was not as good as at 2x, so set cutoff at 90% which resulted in about 300 frames to stack for each channel.

Obviously I need to experiment further at 3x, don't see much point in trying for a larger image just for the sake of getting a larger image. If that comes at the detriment of the image quality.

Regards
Trevor

[AlexN]

You dont really need much more image scale than that.. I would never have expected to see such image scale from a 3x. I suppose the extra aperture/focal length the 16" has over an 8" or 12" makes all the difference.

[kinetic]

[quote=Quark;349978]Hi Steve,
Didn't realize you were on Iceinspace, great to hear from you.
You are doing some very nice work with Jupiter yourself, what software did you use for your animation?

Hi Trevor,

Aren't you going to introduce me to IIS? :lol:

Got your pm.
I use Paint Shop Pro 7 Animation studio.
Quite easy to use but I'm still a beginner.
I only learnt 2 nights ago how to register and title
each GIF frame so they line up (ie the UT time stamp):D

I like doing the animations because they verify for me what
are artifacts of overprocessing and what is info.
Also shows how the seeing progresses etc.
But with winter here in Adelaide my Jupiter windows are
usually only half hour long before weather conspires against me.

fond memories of doing cartwheels on lake Menindee on your Nacra :D

Steve

[Quark]

[quote=kinetic;350099]

Hi Steve,
Just checked the members list, I joined up only 2 months before you.

Arrrrrr the Nacra, what a weapon that was.
Your probably right, I should introduce you, after all it's your fault, you are responsible for my obsession with astronomy.

Just goes to show, you should be very careful regarding who you let look through your telescope.

For those that have no idea what I am on about, Steve coned me into checking out the telescope he built about 25 yrs ago when he was an apprentice working in my department on the Broken Hill mines. A 8" Newt on a German Equatorial Mount, he even ground the primary himself, did a great job.

That experience changed my life and started me on this journey in astronomy that just gets more interesting by the day.

Regards
Trev

[AlexN]

Trev, when are you going to sue him for loss of income due to astro-toy purchasing! :D after all, it seems it all his fault

[Quark]

Yeh good one, but I think I may have cost him about as much in boats as he cost me in astro gear.

Trev

[AlexN]

ahh... a counter-claim... should be an interesting court battle :D :D

[kinetic]

[quote=Quark;350118]

I would be back there in a heartbeat Trevor if I could guarantee jobs
for my kids.
It's such a great city. I remember seeing the zodiacal light as a teenager
from our backyard!

Now whenever we go up there for a trip, the city lights are brighter
and they leave those army barracks lights on all night near Dad's place.

We usually do the trip in the wee hours so the kids sleep the whole way
but my real reason is so I can pull over at about Mannahill or Olary
and check out the skies I remember! :D

Steve