First light with the Toucam - Saturn

[[1ponders]]

Finally got a fine night with only moderate turbulance. Decided to astrochristen The ToUcam with my first ever planetary shot. Love to hear comment on improving the image.

Paul

[gbeal]

Paul,
a few details would assist.
Scope, frames per second, total frames etc.
I use the auto white balance for about 5 seconds, to allow the camera to set the "proper" colour setting, then uncheck it.
Cassini is good, and all looks well. Keep shooting.
Gary

[[1ponders]]

Gary

LX200 8"
15 fps
50 frames of 500
As you've picked its the colour balance I'm particularly interested at the moment

If I'm lucky I'll get to have another go tonight

[beren]

Geez , great first attempt Paul...:}

[[1ponders]]

Yes Aragorn, apart from the colour I'm very happy with it. Especially when you see the original I had to work with.

I'm going to muck around with the original in Photoshop, plus do a couple more tries in both Registax and L3ccdtools and see if I can do something with it. If you've got any suggestions about how to go about it I'd love to hear them.

This is a single frame from the original

[gbeal]

Paul,
thanks. For some reason I use 10fps, and I really would like to know what actually works the best. Your raw/single is good, but the fact that you only used 50 of the 500 is a worry. I normally set about 85 - 90% as the cutoff, and still use about 250 - 400 of the 600 or so originals, so maybe the seeing wasn't flash.
As Rumples will attest, Waveletting is where it is at. I am fortunate to have a slave for mine, but as I have said a few times lately, I must become more efficient at this stage of the process.
The colour balance I have already sorted for you, perhaps try the stacking again, and also the waveletting as well. I doubt P/Shop will fix anything too much, I feel it is more in the latter stages of Registax.
Gary

[Robby]

Great shot Paul,
Good clarity on the Casinni Division. Try doing a grey scale of the image. This can help with detail when conbined with contrast adjustments. It will also silence any "colour balance" knockers (not that you'll find any on this forum).
Did you use the new Registax 3?
I've also been using 10fps due to a gbeal suggestion, but may also try higher. Saturn seeing is never flash due to it's northern declination so you have done very well...! If this darn cloud ever moves we'll be giving it a go here too!
Rob

[rumples riot]

Very nice Paul, Gary is right Wavelets is where all the magic happens, but you have to have good seeing to begin with. Good to see some good images coming now in this forum. I am going to trry myself tonight. Clear skies.

[[1ponders]]

Thanks for the input guys.

I've taken onboard your suggestions and reprocessed the images.

I originally used the wavelets but I got a bit more aggressive this time. I also used Reg 3 this time, instead of two (I think I like the new one. :P Still being a wet behind the ears newbie to astrophotography I don't know them that well yet:D )I've also done a bit of processing in PS with levels, curves etc.

I'll certainly try the white balance info next time Gary. I think that part of my problem may have been using 15fps and then upping the brighness and contrast. I will certainly try 10 next time. BTW my exp was 1/33 if I remember correctly. I was trying to shorten the exposure time as much as possible to try and "freeze" the turbulance as much as possible.

So heres a couple of reprocess images

[[1ponders]]

And one in greyscale for Robby :P

[[1ponders]]

p.s Gary, my setting was at 80% or 90% cutoff. Total images were 341/509. Duh me! I thought that meant that only 10% - 20% got used. I know better now. New images used 80% cutoff.

[jackenau]

Pure inspirational material. Firstly the original post, the guidance from others and the end result.

Makes it a pleasure for me to belong to this forum and inspires me to try a bit of astrophotography eventually.

:2thumbs:

Ken M

[rumples riot]

Alright, I tried a little PS work on this shot myself. So I did a little colouring, some curves, a despeckle and increased saturation. Don't know if it is better, but I think subjectively it does. What do you think, If only I could capture shots this well.:D

[wavelandscott]

As was mentioned earlier what a great "team effort"...

As a new person to the hobby it is really great to see everyone share their experiences and knowledge...and see the collective knowledge improve the output.

Great Work All!

Makes me feel even more comfortable about asking questions and reading posts to learn more about astronomy!

[Mick]

To Cool Paul, wonderful image.

[[1ponders]]

I did a bit more processing on an enlarged image and I'm quietly happy with it :)

[Striker]

If only I had such equipment to take photo's......cough....cough...

Great shot Paul it looks great.

I will just continue on dreaming about my next scope. http://www.users.on.net/~striker/icon_banghead.gif

[iceman]

Excellent work Paul, great image and really crisp on the focus. RR, your reprocessed one introduced some violet/purple around the edges. I think the original (reprocessed one) is much better.

1Ponders, the settings I use are similar to what Gary and others have suggested.

5 or 10FPS, 1/25s exp, low gain, 0 to low gamma, and use auto colour for 5-10 seconds before switching it off.

Are you using a NIR filter?

[[1ponders]]

No NIR filter used (don't like the blue colour, though it should be removable in PS. I'll have to do a bit of research into that).

I tried the setting suggested the other night and the colour looked much more natural". Unfortunately I pushed to hard with the resolution and magnification ( experimented with 640 X 480 and two 2X barlows) and the shots looked terrible so I ditched them even after processing in REG 3 an PS. I'll try again when the clouds clear again up here but keep resolution and magnification in the reasonable range.

[iceman]

yeh good idea, you can really only push the magnification if the seeing is excellent.
Is your NIR filter blue as well? I'm unhappy with mine and i'm trying to return it.. there has to be a neutral colour one around.. probably costs a lot more though.

[[1ponders]]

Yep blue like yours.

I might have gotten away with the magnification if I hadn't upped the resolution so much. Seeing wan't toooo bad on the night. I'm going to experiment a bit with mags and resolution next time out.

[iceman]

I always use 640x480, but I can only go as high as f/10 with my dob, and that's with a 2x barlow.

[[1ponders]]

I was trying to use 640 X 480 @ about f/40 - 45.

I haven't done the complete maths but thats allowing for 2X mag each even though technically thats not the correct mag due to image placement in each barlow and then projected onto the Toucam chip (probably closeer to 6X).

At the moment I'm trying to work out a way to attach my ToUcam to my meade variable tele-extender containing a 20mm eyepiece to up the f/ration to around f/50 or more without using a barlow to keep lense elements to a minimun. Haven't quite worked it out yet :)

I'll drop the resolution back and bit and see how I go.

BTW Welcome Back :) Hope you had a great holiday!

[cometcatcher]

That's your first planet shot? Your a natural! Can't wait to see more!

[[1ponders]]

Thanks Kevin. At the moment I'll settle for clear skies to take a few more

[Conus]

Excellent first Saturn. Better by far than my first attempt. Whenever the seeing allows, I try to use 5 fps. Lately I've been getting a lot more out of my image sequences by hand-eliminating the bad frames in the freeware program Virtual Dub before bringing it into Registax. You just use the right arrow key to move through your avi, dumping the fuzzy frames with the delete key. Save as a new avi, then go to Registax.

[[1ponders]]

Thanks for the heads up Steve. I"ll look into that. Anything that will help with the final image quality will be a bonus.

I've just taken a heap on new avis so lets see if I wasn't a fluke :)

[[1ponders]]

I must have had very good seeing whe I recorded that image. The follow ups have not been any where as clear. Still happy with them, but I've set myself a real standard to maintain now:P though I think I got more plantetary detail on this one.

This is probably the best of the rest since.

And thanks again Steve. I used Virtual Dub on this avi after processing it the first time and wasn't happy with it. Made quite a difference. I wasn't sure how it would go as I was fairly savage with the culling of images from the original avi. I might go back to the first one I took and posted and see if I can cull a bit out of it too and improve it.

[bird]

Some nice work happening here. I like the greyscale image 1ponders posted the best.

Bird

[ving]

yeah, greyscale often brings out a bit more :)

[[1ponders]]

thanks guys. Its postive feedback like this that helps to spur me on (Oh and this great hobby:) ), and I don't think I'm alone feeling that way.:thumbsup:

:cheers: