First Toucam of Venus

[ballaratdragons]

I have finally decided to try run my first (and only) Avi of Venus through Registax & P/Shop.

I took the Avi 2 weeks ago and the final video is absolutely disgusting! The Planet is a mass of glowing light and dances all over the place, so I stuck it to the side as a bad image.

Well, I gave it a go at processing and was pleasantly suprised!!!!
When I zoom in I can actually see surface features but the image is heavily pixelated, so I have left it as a small image to make it a bit crisper. Not sure what the dark image on the right of the Planet is?

I will never discard a wobbly dancing Avi again!!!!

GS f5 12" Dob, no tracking, TouCam Pro, Prime Focus, Registax of 180 frames, PhotoShop. Brightness down to 20%, contrast up to 60%.
Transparency: 10/10 - Seeing: 8/10. Fairly windy, Temp: 18 degrees.

Comments welcome.

[ving]

you just never know what you are going to get do ya....
on ya ken :) thats a fine crescent :)

[ballaratdragons]

Thanks David.

I would love to be able to get rid of the pixelling though! Really spoils images.

[ving]

yeah no idea what to do there...
once i get imaging maybe. :)

[asimov]

Nice one Ken....I dunno what to make of this pixel problem you have with your toucam.

[ballaratdragons]

I am currently transferring the Avi Movie from the lappy to the desktop to give it another go in Registax in the desktop. See if it makes any difference. I will post it when done!

[ballaratdragons]

The first stage in Registax is the alignment box. Should I have it set on 32, 64, 128 or 256?

Having it set at the wrong size may be causing the pixellation.

[asimov]

As long as the square covers the planet, it should be ok. The bigger it is the more accurate....but takes longer to process. (or so I read)

[ballaratdragons]

Thanks Asi,

I have just reprocessed in Registax on this desktop pooter (which really shouldn't make any difference) and it came out heaps better!

I will post an extreme close up which did not pixelate very much and you can see the surface features I was talking about. I hope it works when I press 'Post'.

[asimov]

Cool. That's better!

[ballaratdragons]

I used the same settings :confuse3:

[ballaratdragons]

I was reading in another thread about picking out frames & limiting frames from an Avi.

Huh?

Coz there were some really bad ones in the pic above that I would've like to have left out. But didn't know I could.

[asimov]

On Venus I stick with pretty short AVIs. My last lot was about 200 frames long & I hand picked only 20 of the best out & stacked 'em.

[ballaratdragons]

That's what I mean, you only picked 20! How did you pick them out. When I run Registax it runs and stacks the whole Avi. I don't know how to delete particular frames.

I am also thinking that what I called surface features in the pic above are probably some sort of effect from waveletting. I had a look at some Venus photos and they don't even look similiar, so they are probably not really surface features at all.

Pity, coz I got excited when they showed up!

[Robert_T]

Hi Ken, when you run Registax what quality percent are you using. I vary this and just keep repeating the alignment phase and see how many frames it ends up selecting. If you only want a few then set it high 85-90% and see what you get. Once you've gone through the Optimise step and moved on to the stack phase (before hitting the button to stack) you also have some tabs at far right. The stack graph you can grab the sliders and pull then down or left and thus cut out more frames - the bottom bar will tell you how many. There is also a stack list tab (I think) where you can then manually select and deselect frames. The key to accessing all this is to do one stage at a time, eg just "optimise" not the "optimise and stack" button otherwise it will just charge on ahead.

Failing that you may have seen that thread I started recently on better planetary images through using Virtual Dub. This allows you to scan through your avis manually and delete bad frames and then resave for stacking in registax. Iceman posted a link in that thread to the Virtual Dub site where you can download it for free.

cheers,

[xrekcor]

Hi Ken,

Nice Venus shot you got there. You might want to try a shorter exposure time, not
sure how you do that on a webcam. But it does look a lil over exposed and that can
cause pixcelation. I very rearly use registax if at all, but I do remember like Robert
above has mentioned you can de-select images when you first load your series of
images or avi.

regards,CS

[ballaratdragons]

Hi Robert, I tried the suggestions you made.

From 170 frames down to 73. and re-aligned and optimised several times. Thanks for the help.
This is the best I can get it.

[ving]

that looks alot cleaner ken. :)

rob, you can take a single shot rather than and avi. is this what you mean?

[ballaratdragons]

Ta David. Yeah, it's getting there. There are so many buttons & levels & do-hickies to set!!!!

Doesn't help with a terrible original Avi either :help3:

[asimov]

http://registax.astronomy.net/html/download.html

Go here for the instructions. (PDF)

[ballaratdragons]

Thanks John! Printing them off now. Time to sit and read methinks!!

[asimov]

No worries mate.

[asimov]

Now if I could only find this same PDF instructions for version 2...Ah what the heck! I love doing things the hard way!!

[ballaratdragons]

Just put Version 3 on your lappy. I use it without any problems on my 800x600 lappy.

I move the window around to see what is off screen. At some stages I click on the 'Maximize' button up in the right hand corner and click on it again for other stages. I get the full function of Registax 3 this way.

[asimov]

I tried all that Ken! I can't get to one crucial button....THE SAVE BUTTON!

[ballaratdragons]

Yeah, I had trouble with that at first, but I worked it out. I can't remember now how I did it but I use it.
I shall have a look in my lappy later and see how I did it and let you know.

[asimov]

That would be appreciated..

[atalas]

Congrats on your Venus Ken ! bet you can't wait to get tracking on your EQ mount dude
must drive you crazy at times .

[h0ughy]

Nice Ken, you have come a long way mate. Nice thread to have waided through!!

[ballaratdragons]

It does at times Louie! Patience is the game though.

John, I worked out how I have been 'Saving' in Registax 3 in the 800x600 lappy.

You can only go as far as the 'Wavelet' screen to Save. If you go on to 'Final' there is no accessable 'Save' button.

When you are finished waveletting in 'Wavelet' move the whole window off to the left of the screen then grab the bottom right corner and click/drag the window to stretch over to the right of screen and the 'Save Image' button will appear. Then save your image as a Jpeg file in whichever program you want.

Try it and let me know how you go!

[ballaratdragons]

LOL! Thanks Houghy.

Must be a boring thread to some though, as I plod along getting instructions and re-posting my next processing attempt, then get more instruction and re-post again & again!!!

[asimov]

Thanks for that Ken.

I thought I already tried all things possible....(pretty sure I tried all that you suggested)

Won't hurt to give it another go though.

[ballaratdragons]

OK John, I wait to see how it goes for you.

[asimov]

Of course, the ultimate for me would be to not bother using the lappy for processing at all...I want to buy a USB external hard drive & just send the AVI straight to that then just transfer the AVI straight to my main puter which already has V3 on it.

[ballaratdragons]

I use both, depends on which one I feel like using at the time.