Mars, no barlow, no tracking

[davidpretorius]

Hi all,

a lovely night down here in tasmania.

Transparency very good, seeing pretty good.

Had a serious go at mars tonight

Toucam in prime focus, 1/1000 at 5fps and gain at 30%. 200 odd frames stacked in registax, no wavelets (not sure what they really do).

Into photoshop and doubled in size

I am very happy, bring on the barlows and tracking!!!!

Also took some images of the star cluster in orions belt to see how many stars i could resolve - asimov style!

[asimov]

Thats great mate!!! Coming along in leaps & bounds!! Well done Davo.

[davidpretorius]

thanks, it was lots of fun, now cmon, wheres yours?????

[asimov]

Ang on a sec.........

[asimov]

Still not the best...bad seeing conditions here this morning. This is taken with the 150mm refractor stopped down to 80mm. 20 odd secs. of AVI & stacked using registax...about 900 frames wittled down to 300. Buggered if I can get a decent focus though! This time I used an 80mm magnifying glass so's I could see the lil' LCD screen on the camera better. :rolleyes:

Going out for another go shortly. :D

[asimov]

Mines upside down!.........or is yours!??

[asimov]

Hmmm...I'm gonna get heaps of AVI then process em' all....then stack the finished BMPs on-top of one another as well??

[davidpretorius]

mine would be upside down with the dob!, nice polar cap!!!

[iceman]

Great shot from both of you! Nothign but clouds up here!

[davidpretorius]

http://precons.com/iis/downloads/ai25max.zipHi mate, i just done a "shred" & "grafitti" of your lovely image with an evaluation copy of Astraimage (link above). Ice uses this or something similiar to break into red, green & blue, does a LR deconvolution and then combines back into the image.

Had to do a screen shot and paste into photoshop to add the copyright for asimars productions pty ltd so noone can have the audacity to play with your original.

My first go at astraimage, I am still tending towards your original!

[asimov]

Well I'll be blowed! That came out ok Dave....pity about my focus though...When you get time, try it with this image...Actually, looking at it I'm not sure if it's any better than the 1st one :confused:

[davidpretorius]

this one was harder to work with (spelt i probably forgot what i did the first time)

i did just the red component to bring out the surface detail.

will try again tonight.

great to see the camera setup working.


look out saturn.

actually saturn is getting higher, my littlest woke me up just 1 hr after coming from the stars and i had a peep out and the moon and saturn and a tinge of blue looked lovely!

[asimov]

Yeah, I ended up crashing at 6am, so I saw saturn as well. Still too low yet.

I'm going to have to drag a portable TV out there with me now :rolleyes: so I can get this focus trouble nipped in the bud! I fiqured closing the aperture down on the scope would work. Now I have to try it with the 12.5"

I also took AVI of orion Dave. I won't post anything yet until I'm certain of what I'm doing...I've got me some more experimenting to do with capturing DSOs.;)

And thanks Davo..:thumbsup:

[ving]

whats this? some sorta comp? :P
well done both of ewes! :)

[asimov]

Thanks Ving...nah, no comp between Dave & I...& we both know our images are crap!? :rofl: But were out there givin' it a whirl & having lotsa fun! :D

[davidpretorius]

if you get a chance to compress the orion video, i would die to have a crack at processing that one.

why do you need the tv outside for ?

good to see the old asimov smile is back with vengeance!

[asimov]

Well, the LCD screen on the back of the camera is: 30mm X 30mm square. Mars is about 5-6mm in diametre when looking at the screen & trying to focus....If I hook the camera up thru a bigger monitor I've got more chance of getting a better focus cos' of the bigger presentation/image scale of mars. The gas giants I dont need the TV for though...their big enough on the camera screen to make out & get decent focus.

Crap weather is heading in again...The 'asomov scowl' will soon return I fear!

[davidpretorius]

i knew that, i was just testing if you knew that about the tv as well........

[asimov]

;) oh....ok...:rofl: The orion vid is crap Dave...after stacking 500 frames I ended up with some stars & no nebulosity to be seen anywhere! :whistle: I now know how to fix that lil' problem though..:D The solution is more APERTURE for DSOs = 12.5" reflector. The refractor ain't any good for them. I can take a maximum AVI of 4 mins giving me a total of 3600 frames...This coupled with the 'blue throbber' I think I may have some luck with DSOs soon.:prey:

[davidpretorius]

good luck with the weather!

[asimov]

Heres 1 pic I did of orion last year with the 12.5" & the same camera last year.(one single JPEG) The 'blank pic is also orion....with the 152mm achro last night.:rolleyes: I wouldn't mind 3600 frames stacked of the 1st one..:D ;)

[davidpretorius]

what is the maximum exposure you can get with your kodak?

[asimov]

You mean still shots? 4 seconds..I've tried that, too much noise from the camera. That one above is 2 secs from memory.

[davidpretorius]

do you reckon neat image would clean up the noise or if you take a 4 second dark frame and then stack it with your 4 second image of whatever, would it be a goer?

[asimov]

Good point Dave! Hmmm...I keep forgetting about that 'neat' lil' proggy. I was mucking with dark frames etc last year, but using astrostack = no success (operator error-brain-dead-idiot no doubt)...YEP! I'll be giving that idea a shot too then! Thanks fer the wake up call Davo!

[asimov]

OK weather gods!? How bout it dudes!?? All these idea's to try with crappy weather!? Give us a break!????

[beren]

:thumbsup: Top work fellas