21/01/05 Saturn pic + Jupiter movie

[Comet Hunter]

Managed to get out and grab a few more shots of Saturn and Jupiter on Friday morning...

Saturn:

http://comethunter.com/images/sata.jpg

Seem to continually end up having the inner rings alot brighter (over exposed?) then the rest of the planet. Gain was 0%, brightness 50%, Gamma 0%, Saturation 100%, 1/25 shutter, about 15fps. Will try a few different settings next time I'm out to reduce the extra bright rings. :confuse3:


Jupiter:

Finally worked out how to do these movies!! :cool: Here is one of the frames

http://comethunter.com/images/jframe.jpg

The avi consists of approx 30 frames, at 5min intervals, and starts with Io coming out of occultation, then has GRS also coming out and ends with Europe coming in from the right. The avi is available...

Here (http://comethunter.com/images/Jmov.avi) - 5.5MB

or

Here zipped up (http://comethunter.com/images/Jmov.zip) - 540K

Thanks to bird for his centreing program - made things a lot easier and quicker.



:cheers:

[rumples riot]

Nice work, much nicer Saturn. JUpitere needs a little colour but very good on the detail. Keep it up.

[beren]

Hey Andrew thats fantastic , something to aim for and have a go at , thanks very much for sharing.

[[1ponders]]

Good colouring on the planet Andrew. Try dropping your saturation down a bit to around 65 - 75 % to get rid of the blue. Nice clear Jupiter

[Comet Hunter]

Up untill these shots I've been using about 25%-33% saturation, but upped it due to Ice's suggestion, so pumped it up to flat out to see how'd they turn out, think I've gone just a little too far :whistle:

Would've kept goin with the movie to get the full transit of the GRS but the giver of live was quickly waking up - could barely see Jupiter naked eye'd for the last few shots.

Think I might be reaching the limits for the QC, doesn't matter what settings I use (within limits of course) I end up with a similar level of detail in each shot. Just cant seem to get any more out of it. Might get myself a toucam me thinks....

[iceman]

CH you've got quite a bit of blue/red shift in your Saturn.. when you finish stacking in registax and go to the wavelets page, click on the planet to centre to processing frame, then click on the RGB Shift tab, and click estimate.
It usually does a good job of shifting the R/B and aligning them. That'll get rid of the blue upper right and red lower left that you've got there.
Just make sure you do it BEFORE you apply any wavelet adjustments.

You could try a lower saturation, but a lot of the saturn's i've seen in the last few weeks have had a brighter ring..

Other than that, Saturn looks REALLY good, easily your best.. a touch soft, possibly due to just off focus, or bad seeing. Also you could try adjusting the wavelets a bit more or trying an unsharp mask.

The jupiter frame looks great, i'll look at the vid tomorrow.

[Comet Hunter]

Thanks for the tips Ice! This is the result from the RGB shift estimate and a slight retouch of wavelets. Forgot to mention earlier this shot was taken with a 3x televue barlow.

http://comethunter.com/images/sata2.jpg

This is the nonbarlow version taken shortly after.

http://comethunter.com/images/satb.jpg

[[1ponders]]

Clever movie Andrew. Did you use Virtual Dub to put it together?

[ballaratdragons]

Hey Andrew,

I put your Jupiter Movie on 'loop'. It makes a big difference when watching it.

Well done!

[Robby]

Nice work. I did a Jupiter movie last year. It's not quite as crisp as yours but at least it's something! See it as http://www.astronomy.co.nz/astronomy/jupiter.htm
It is a flash animation and shouldn't take too long to load.
I was hoping to get out last night after a stunning day, but as usual the clouds rolled in after dark. We did get a break at about 11:30pm but the seeing was shocking, so I guess that was some consolation!

[Robby]

Opps I got the website address wrong :doh:
Try this one <a href="http://www.2fdesign.co.nz/astronomy/jupiter.htm">http://www.2fdesign.co.nz/astronomy/jupiter.htm</a>

[Comet Hunter]

Thanks guys.

Each avi recorded is 1min in length taken at 5min intervals. Then each was processed in registax. Then they were run through birds centreing program, then each image was "Canvas Sized" in Photoshop CS to help reduce overall size. Then all the images were put into VirtualDub and a few bad frames were removed and viola a movie!

Robby, nice movie of your own there! Its hard enough getting a single decent image let alone getting enough to make a worth while movie with. :thumbsup:

:cheers: