Jup Aug 17th, GRS+Bird Strike+ Callisto+RGB animation, all in good seeing

[Quark]

Hi All,
Imaged Jup Aug 17th over a 2hr 57min session. The seeing was very stable for the duration, between 7 and 8 / 10.

I had run just the 5 fans on my cooling system for 2 hrs before hand and this had my primary within 1/2 degree C of ambient. I ran my 3 Peltiers for 20 minutes and it was another 20 mins after I shut the cooling system down before I captured my first set of R, G & B avi's.

Over the nearly 3 hrs of this imaging session the ambient temp dropped 3 degrees and during the session on three occasions I fired up my cooling system for 15 min bursts, on each occasion it was about another 15 mins before the air currents generated by the cooling system had subsided.

I have posted here 6 RGB images plus an animation of those RGB's. I am most pleased with the detail in these images, especially the albedo shading on the surface of Callisto. There is some very fine detail in the polar regions and in the GRS. These images equal the best I have posted for this apparition.

It was fortunate that the seeing was good, as the Bird Strike has stretched out considerably and is noticeably dimmer than in the images I captured from Aug 12th, which were also in good seeing. It is still there but may become indistinguishable in the not to distant future.

http://www.iceinspace.com.au/uploads/20090817JupAnim.gif

Thanks for looking.
Regards
Trevor

[hickny]

Superb!

[Lester]

Excellent images there Trevor.

Thanks.

[Dennis]

Hi Trevor

What a beautifully detailed animation, and, at such a huge image scale!

The processing looks very natural and it was a real treat to see Callisto hauling herself out from the icy shadow of the Jovian disc, as well as the “half” Callisto in the 4th image. Really well done!

Cheers

Dennis

[astroron]

Such dedication to your craft Trevor:) great images and animation:thumbsup:

[Kevnool]

Awesome Trev.
The animation is a stunner.
Back from Bendigo and straight into imaging thats dedication.
Cheers Kev

[Jeffkop]

Great images Trevor. Fantastic. Whatever efforts you put into this sequence you have gotten your just deserts ... I'de be really proud of these ... Heaps of detail and the gif is bonus too.

[Rigel003]

Great images and I love the animation. Quite a roller-coaster ride.

[Mike21]

I guess it must take a lot of maticulous tuning to achieve work like that.

[iceman]

Wow Trevor! Incredible sequence. Image #3 is the standout for me, as is image #4 with the crescent Callisto.

Your images of Jupiter have really come along in leaps and bounds in last month or so - your processing has improved a great deal. It's great to see you taking advantage of the good seeing you've been getting!

Congratulations!

[jakob]

Fantastic pictures, thanks for sharing.
J.

[Jeff]

Awsome Trevor.
You've gotta be happy with those!

[astroron]

Yes they have Mike :)but he has to have something to do now that Saturn is out of the way for a while:rolleyes:

[erick]

Great work, Trev!

Birdstrike fading rapidly, it seems - but I'm sure its dynamics are fascinating the experts.

[Quark]

Thanks very much Peter.



Thanks for your comment Lester.



Thanks Dennis, yes I really like the animation. I was fortunate to have virtually three hours of very stable seeing. This is the first time I have ever imaged this effect, of one of Jupiter's moons as a crescent, coming out of the shadow of Jupiter.



Thanks Ron for your very nice words. I must say that I really do feel the need to follow Anthony's impact to the end, especially as he is currently unable to image it. So many planetary imagers in OZ are having such bad luck with the weather that I take it as my responsibility to capture this event at every possible opportunity.



Thanks very much Kev, I am pretty pleased with the standard of my work of late. Mother Bear reckons I am obsessed, she is probably right.



Thanks Jeff, about 20 hours went into the processing of this set of 6 RGB images. I started processing during the actual capture session. I generally sleep pretty well on the following night, that is unless I can image the 217 degree region on successive nights, then my data just piles up.



Thanks Graeme, I just had a look at your image from the same night at the same time and it is a stunning image. There must have been very stable air over most of South Australia on this night.



Thank Mike, its like Panteen, it doesn't happen over night, but it does eventually happen.



Thank Mike, I am very pleased with these results. So much of my time over the last couple of years has been put in on refining my Saturn technique with really little regard for anything else. I am particularly pleased with capturing Callisto as a crescent, although it was a total accident and not planned.



Thank you Jacob, for commenting.



Thank Jeff, yes very happy with these results.



Yes Ron, looking forward to re-acquiring Saturn in the morning sky of late Nov or early Dec.

[Paul Haese]

Lovely images Trevor. I reckon the third one is the sweetest of the lot. Some really fine detail high up in the polar regions there. That would take some resampling I think. Well done.

[Quark]

Thanks Paul, not sure I really understand this re sampling process. I think I have seen, in a post by Anthony, that he resamples in ninox before loading, what I assume would be bmp's into Registax. The advantage being that he then uses multi point alignment.

Recently I have tried re sampling in Registax after aligning and following the creation of my reference image, although not with this data. I found that I then could not open properly, the re sampled image in Astra Image and by re sizing to the original size, after applying my final wavelet adjustment in Registax I could see no gain in quality. I think I am just inept regarding re sampling.

[Paul Haese]

Trevor, I use the resampling option in Astra Image once I have the whole image together and nearly finished. It does a great job of the resample. Photoshop CS3 also does a fine job of this too. Don't make it harder than it really should be. Just use those options and see what the data is like. Good data works well.

[StephenM]

Great images Trevor - I really like the crescent Callisto image!

Cheers,
Stephen

[Quark]

Thanks Stephen, yes I don't recall having seen this phenomenon previously.


Thanks Eric, I think there is great interest in professional circles how this pans out.

[Quark]

Thanks Paul, I have just finished having a bit of a play with re sampling image 3 from the set posted in this thread. I did all of my post Registax processing on 150% resampled data. When finished in CS4 I down sized to the original image size.

I have attached the new version it is much sharper than my original, which I thought looked alright and have included for comparison.

[Harpspitfire]

absolute super job!!

[Screwdriverone]

Jeez they are good Trevor, well done!

Envious I am!

Congratulations.

Cheers

Chris

[Quark]

Thanks for the positive comment.



Thanks very much Chris, its a steep learning curve but it feels great when things start to come together. I thought this set of images were pretty good but after playing around with re sampling what was probably the best image of the set and seeing yet another major improvement, it seems there really is no limit to what amateurs can produce.

[Paul Haese]

Yep that is it buddy. That resampled and sharpened image is fantastic. Excellent work. Certainly one of the best for this season. So much detail present. Remember that good data can be resampled and then resharpened. I like the smart sharpen tool in PS CS3. Great tool for doing that final bit of sharpening.

[Quark]

Thanks Paul, I have PS CS4 and I finish off my processing with a small levels adjustment, Smart sharpen and either Despeckle or a very light application of Noise Ninja, depending on how good my data is.

I am really amazed with the gain in resolution by employing re sampling and am working through all of my data from Aug 17th reprocessing it with this technique.

[Rigel003]

That last image is fantastic Trevor, a real improvement. I'm not sure about this resampling near the end thing though. Resampling enlarges your image and for the extra pixels that have been added it interpolates values from the surrounding pixels. It will make a bigger picture but it can't improve resolution or add extra detail. I would rather have a smaller but sharper image than a bigger blurry one.

[Quark]

Thanks Graeme,

I am very pleased with the gain in resolution from re sampling.
This technique is quite new to me and will require more experimentation to establish the most effective way to employ it.

The image scale from my 16" F4.5 Newt is very nice to start with and I have found that with good data, even the resampled image is very nice, definitely not blurry.

Graeme, I freely admit that I do not understand the nuts and bolts of how resampling and for that matter deconvolution or other sharpening filters actually do their stuff. But I can see the results of my experimentation and at the end of the day, that is far and away the most crucial thing in processing, at least in my humble opinion.

I am doing minimal processing in Registax. I think this is where I have picked up resolution with the image posted here. The majority of and probably most crucial part of my processing was done on the upsampled image. The upsampled image, after final processing would stand alone on its merits, however down sizing that image back to my original image scale really gains so much, I was quite surprised as my data was very good to start with.

Obviously there are limitations to what can be extracted and it would be a wast of time and effort to do this with poor data, crap in crap out is how I look at it. However, with good data to start with there are real gains to be made. The proof of the pudding really is, in the eating.

[Quark]

Hi Graeme,
Just as amatter of interest, I have attached the resampled image, posted previously, but at the full upsampled size.

[Paul Haese]

Still fine data.

Now this will blow you away. Using 12 bit on the skynyx really helps when resampling. Remember the pixels are pretty small and really good data can be resampled and sharpened a whole lot more.

Graeme I hope you are using 12 bit now rather than the 8 bit version. I switched a long time ago and have noticed the difference since.

Trevor the enlarged image is pretty good, lot of detail showing for sure and not too blurry. Good data

[alphajuno]

Excellent work Trevor - those images are truly awesome. Thanks.

[Quark]

Thanks Dave, I think, in Australia we are fortunate that Jupiter is virtually over head at the moment, that obviously assists greatly with image quality.



Thanks Paul, as you say, 12 bit capture would be great but the quality of the seeing, I think, is still the major determining factor with image quality. It would be nice to be able to image with higher end equipment but the DMK really is great value, to sort of get a leg into this field.
At the moment I am just rapt to be able to see some progression with my results with the equipment I have.