First light C9.25, ToUcam, Mars.

[Dennis]

Hello

Well, last night (19th Nov) finally got first light with the C9.25 and ToUcam after weeks of cloudy weather in Brisbane. Quite a different process this avi stuff, compared to the LPI where you can see the results in "real time" as the final image is captured and stacked as you acquire the series.

I used an x2.5 Powermate. The original AVI was captured with the native Phillips ToUcam application. I then processed 500'ish frames using the automatic "Planetary Align" Wizard in K3CCDTools.

I tried Registax but was on the receiving end of an error message "Cannot decompress the avi" which prevented me from going any further.

I did note that the image scale with the ToUcam was significantly larger compared to the LPI. I presume smaller pixels on the ToUcam would cause this.

Exposure was 1/25 at 30 fps with "Outdoor" checked for whitebalance.

Edited: Added second image as processed in Registax after "cutting" the avi in Studio 9 to remove the corrupted frames.

Cheers

Dennis

[beren]

:) Very nice

[RB]

Wow Dennis that's great.

Well done.

[JohnH]

Very Nice shot Dennis, congrats!

[Robert_T]

Magic Dennis, you've got to be happy with that as a first try through a new scope!!! :)

You might find that 30fps is too fast and that you're getting a lot of corruption/compression and dropped frames as a result. A lot of y early avi's I couldn't open in Registax as a result (at least I think that was it). Try running around 10fps and see if that works...

cheers,

[davidpretorius]

I know what i will get one day!!!

[h0ughy]

i will simply enjoy your second attempt the first was very good!

[Dennis]

Thanks for the comments guys, it was quite hard work compared to the relative simplicity of LPI imaging! I had a peek through the Forum at recent Mars images posted by the locals; Rocket, Beren, Bird, Mike, Anthony, Asimov, Robert T, Rumples, 5Ash, John K et al and I am now humbled by tasting a sample of the effort they put in to capture and process such a fine bunch of images. Not to mention their advice, tips and techniques – thanks guys.

I can see that there is a lot to learn to get the best out of this somewhat unassuming webcam!

Cheers

Dennis

[rumples riot]

Nice image and welcome to the 9.25 gang. I plan on giving my scope it's first like tonight. Just a little test of the collimation and perhaps some images of Mars. Your image gives me hope that I made the right choice. Thanks for posting.

[Striker]

Beautiful image of Mars Dennis...keep them coming.

[Dennis]

Hi Paul

The image was taken with the C9.25 "out of the box" as I have not yet got round to fitting a set of Bob's knobs to tweak the collimation.

I look forward to seeing your results after testing the collimation. It was Erwin who talked me into getting the C9.25, and I ordered it through him at York Optical where he used to work before he passed away. I was thinking of him and his wonderful planetary images last night, as I watched Mars dancing around in the seeing.

Cheers

Dennis

[rumples riot]

Dennis, am getting a set of Bobs knobs myself once I get the new OTA. Straight out of the box is pretty good.

[davidpretorius]

With all the ID talk and stuff, it is great that our science can beautifully blend with such a great image from a departed friend!

No-one will explain it, I don't want it explained, it is a beautiful touch to a beautiful image.

I have a really great feeling about the planet imaging coming up over the next 6-12 months. There are some great new scopes arrived (You and Paul), Bird Technology rubbing off an all of us. Yes Saturn and later Jupiter when he is nice and high in the sky, look out!!!!

[iceman]

Great job Dennis! Fantastic shot for your first light.

Definitely reduce your FPS - capture at no more than 10fps, and even go 5fps if the seeing is incredibly good. The reason for this is that your data is compressed at high frames rates, so you're losing the fine detail.

The second one you added looks heaps better. You should try capturing in k3ccdtools, and make sure audio is off so that registax doesn't hate it.

For whitebalance, try "auto" for 10-20 seconds until it looks about right and then switch it off. What other settings did you use for gain, gamma, etc?

How long did you record for? For Mars, at the focal length you're using you can probably go for about 4-5 minutes and see no evidence of planet rotation. It will give you more good frames to select from when doing the align/stack.

Looks like you've done a nice job on processing too, well done!

[Dennis]

Thanks for the hints and tips Mike - much appreciated. I read in the IIS Forums that most of you were shooting around 3 minute segments so I was using that as my baseline.

I used the native Phillips SW for capture as the image looked very washed out in K3CCDTools, so I’ll read the manual and modify the settings!!!

A 3 minute avi came in at around 1.2 Gig – wow, these are large file sizes!!!

Cheers

Dennis

[asimov]

Really nice images there Dennis! Love that second one! I had that 'cannot decompress AVI' last night for the 1st time.

I was capturing at 5 FPS total 3200 frames. I assumed I got this error because it was just too big. I did'nt know what else to do, so I deleted the AVI. Very small hard drive on my laptop so I could'nt really keep it on there. A pity because It was going to be my best yet shooting with my refractor..

[Robert_T]

Asi - you might try opening the AVI in another freeware program like Virtual Dub - just google it and you should find the down load site. I've had the can't open avi before and just opened and resaved the AVI in VirtualDub and then it worked (don't ask me why) ;)

[Dennis]

Hello, Asimov

I opened the "corrupted" avi in Studio 9 and trimmed the frames that Registax could not read. The only problem is that saving the trimmed avi turned Mars into an oblate spheroid, as it was saved in a format of 720 x 480 so after I ran the trimmed avi through Registax I had to resample the final image back to 640 x 480. Also, Mike said to make sure the audio radio button was not selected.

I notice that Robert mentioned VirtualDub so I'll try that.

Cheers

Dennis

[iceman]

I use VirtualDub, to save the avi again (after deleting frames where the planet drifted slightly out of the FOV), or to save the avi as a set of bmp's to run through ppmcentre.

You can also use Bink&Smacker.