My Best Saturn Yet! - this morn 19 Dec 05

[Robert_T]

Hi All, struggled out of bed at 3.30am :zzz2: to see Saturn washed out by the Gibbous moon - and almost went back to bed, but thought what the hell, I'm up now:)

Was very glad I didn't pack it in as it quickly became clear that the seeing was very good, in the region of 8-9 out of 10, there was naught cloud and it was dry (no dew), cold even (it was warmer in my A/C bedroom).

I had the Mewlon 180 setup under a tarp all night so it was well cooled :cold: and ready to go. Got maybe 5 decent 200 sec (2000 frame sequences) - the pics below from 900 frames out of the second one. Still haven't quite got the hang of saturn in terms of gain... seem to have run a lot more gain and drop the exposure to 1/10th sec (at 10fps) to get decent brightness. Seems very grainy in raw mode, but comes up alright in the wavelets.

Anyway, the one of the left is Astra Image LR deconvoluted and on the right, just an Unsharp Mask in Photopaint. Same 900 frames.

I'm very pleased, only wished I had the C9.25 setup as well as I would have loved it's extra light grasp and resolution with the excellent seeing.:)

Cheers

[h0ughy]

very Nice Sir!!!
yes agree with the grainy part, but you can't mistake what it is, and thats a great shot!!

[asimov]

Holy complete CD's batman!! It's all the way around!:)

Well done Rob! Nice colour too. ;)

[davidpretorius]

they are brillant. very exciting.

congrats!

can you do me a huge favour

post one raw image
post one aviraw converted image ie whatever you use to comvert from raw
the stacked image without wavelets.
and anything else you are doing to achieve the final colour of #1.

I am having a crappy time getting the colout right and am about to throw the raw mode out of the window for saturn. I would love to know your steps so i can compare my own to see what i am doing wrong.
thanks

[bird]

Hi Robert, nice results!

Bird

[Robert_T]

Hi DP, actually when I referred to grain in the "raw" frames I meant "unprocessed" frames... I'm no longer running the neximage in "Raw Mode". Like you I just couldn't get the hang of colour in Raw Mode and while there may be more information in there I seemed to be getting less out than with "unraw" so I ditched raw mode - to put it politely my skill and patience just isn't up to getting the most from raw mode right now. So step one to better colour is change back to standard mode... you know you want to and you can then record back at a blistering 10 fps instead of 5fps....:)

I think I saved a Registax file so I can resurrect the unwavetted file, but will have to wait till I get home as it's on the other pooter.

As for colour, for me it's a constant process of experimentation. I use a range of programs from registax, through Photopaint, Pixel Studio 2, Astra Image 2 and Irfanview and keep tweaking via "curves", colour balance and saturation in each until it looks right (or rightish). I couldn't be said to be a highly organised person with this and it tends to be a bit like when I cook, bit of this and bit of that, couple of cans, etc etc :drink: - sometimes something worth eating comes out but it's rarely repeatable. It's clear what works for one planet does NOT work for others.

One thing I've only really just started using is the colour weight buttons under the Histogram tab in Wavelets section of reg 3. They seem fairly effective.



Cheers,

[rochler]

Very nice pics of Saturn, like your work!

[rumples riot]

Big jump in quality Mate. If the grain was not there is would be a fantastic image. Can you stitch two AVIs together and see if the grain disappears. Nice work though and clearly your best so far. Might have to stay up late or set the alarm myself tonight. Got the new scope now and need to install bobs knobs tonight.

Great work Robert. keep em coming. :drink:

Paul

[davidpretorius]

you have answered my quest rob, ditch raw mode until i swap the chip for the more sensitive b/w and get a colour wheel.

[RB]

Well done Robert,

I like the one on the left better.

Great work mate.

[Robert_T]

Hi Rumples, good to hear your "keeper" scope has arrived. I'll give it a go stitching the avis together. I have a couple that were taken with same settings back to back. Processing time with the 256 pixel frame is a chugga chugga long time, but don't mind when I have some reasonable quality material to work with:)



DP - I for one will VERY interested in how you go with the B&W chip swapout etc. I will be going that path myself, just waiting for a few intrepid explorers such as yourself to blaze a trail first ;)

cheers,

[iceman]

Nice work Rob, improving all the time.