Saturn and ToUcam settings

[Dennis]

Hi

Well, I finally got around to running my Saturn avi from 01/02 Jan through Registax and here is the result. I also did a couple of screen captures to show the settings I used.

Histogram was around 160 – 170.

C9.25
X2.5 TeleVue PowerMate.
Philips ToUcam 840.
Captured via K3CCDTools.
Processed in Registax.
2100 frames
1302 selected

Cheers

Dennis

[RB]

Wow Dennis,
Awesome shot, well done.
Was there any noise reduction applied?

It looks great.

[beren]

Very nice :) Interesting with the brightness tab all the way to the right :confuse3:

[matt]

Dennis

I take it those 2 capture screenshots are the K3CCDTools software in action?

Is that freeware? If so, got a link?

Good shot, mate. And taken with a 9.25. Very encouraging:)

[Dennis]

Andrew - I had just re-built my PC and hadn’t loaded all my apps, so all the processing was done in Registax. I fiddled with the Histogram, Gamma and Contrast/Brightness. I then converted the final bmp to a jpg on my Notebook using CorelPaint 12 with no further processing.

Beren – Yes, I subsequently read in the ToUcam YahooGroup not to do this! Someone recommended leaving the Brightness and Gamma sliders as is (central) and increasing the Gain to bump up the brightness, something I will try the next time.

Matt – Although I used K3CCDTools for the capture and it invoked the two screens, the same screen can also be captured from within the Philips ToUcam native software. The link to K3CCDTools is here http://www.pk3.org/Astro/?software.htm and it’s not free. Cost approx US$49 for Version 3. I’m still on V2.

Cheers

Dennis

[davidpretorius]

dennis, my settings are brightness and contrast 50%, gamma 5 or 10%, exposure 1/25 and lately with a 5x powermate in a f5 newt, gain at 50% and 75%, both with very nice colour results

[Dennis]

Thanks Dave - I'm still struggling with the optimum settings and still mostly get onion rings, so I will try a higher gain...if the clouds ever blow away.

Cheers

Dennis

[Dennis]

And here's another one, taken later the same morning, but after Saturn had crossed the Meridian, so the Tak mount had to do a Meridian flip and almost tore the TouCam cable from the Notebook!

This time, I used the K3CCDTools software to auto grab 5 avi's, each of 210 seconds, at 4 minute intervals, and save them using the advanced file naming format in K3CCDTools. Meanwhile, at around 02:09am , I was upstairs having a cuppa!

This time, in Registax, I opened 2 of the best avi’s at the same time from the set of 5 giving a total of 4200 frames. Registax can handle up to 5000 frames apparently. Although I had the “Automatic” box checked to Align, Optimise & Stack without user intervention, after Registax had chewed its way through the first avi, it paused and politely asked me to place the alignment box on the 2nd avi before it ran through to the Wavelets phase.

C9.25.
X2.5 TeleVue PowerMate.
Philips ToUcam 840.
Captured via K3CCDTools.
10 fps.
1/25 sec.
4200 frames (x2 avi’s of 2100 each).
Processed in Registax.
1867 selected.

I was free wheeling so I had stopped taking screen captures and notes at this stage, hence I’m not sure of the Image Controls and Camera Controls settings, but from memory, as I was experimenting with the Brightness slider hard right, I think Gamma was more to the right and gain was hard left? Even though this one has more frames stacked (from 2 avi’s) the dreaded onion rings have reared their ugly heads.

The Cassini Division looks “sharper” than the previous effort.

Cheers

Dennis

[ballaratdragons]

Nice work Dennis! The first one is excellent. What happened to the Planet surface in this 2nd one though? The CD looks great but the planet is wierd.

Keep up the great work!

[asimov]

Very nice shots Dennis! Interesting seeing other peoples setting too. Even at high gain I've been getting the onion rings at times.:confuse3:

Pity about those darn onions...it's enough to make you cry! lol. Sharpest shots of seen of Saturn apart from Birds I reckon. Your image scale is huge! too.

More gain zero-little gamma to cure the onions, or so they recommend. Seems to have worked for me in most AVIs now.

[Dennis]

Thanks Ken & John

Ken - the effect on the disc is the "Onion Ring" effect due to underexposure so when Registax stacks the images, the underexposed limb appears as a series of rings.

John - thanks for the tips. I started maintaining a Word document with screen captures against the filename of each avi so I could record what settings each avi was captured with. I've not been consistent in doing this, which I now regret, as I have avi's whose settings I cannot recall.

Cheers

Dennis

[Astroman]

Excellent progression there Dennis, look forward to seeing more images from you in the future, your off to a good start.

[iceman]

AWESOME Saturn, Dennis! Easily your best.

The full saturation has definitely helped you capture the colour much richer and more natural than your previous efforts.

Excellent work, well done.

[xrekcor]

Excellent Shot Dennis!, easily one of the best I've seen from an amateur
astrophotographer. Well done!

regards,CS

[Robert_T]

Hey Dennis, so sharp you could shave with it! ;)

If the onion ringing is due to under-exposure what does the K3CCD light meter indicate when you're capturing (I usually sit around 150-180).

I actually run with the brightness fairly high at the expense of gain. I'm still playing around with this, but am still a little wary of too much gain = grain - but then it depends a lot on seeing an number of frames I've got to stack.

beautiful shots!

[asimov]

Terrific processing work too Dennis. I had a bit of a play (hope you don't mind) with your 1st image & I could'nt really improve on it any better than what you've already done with it!

Awesome stuff mate!

[Dennis]

Hi Rob

If your "light meter" is my "Histogram" bar, which K3CCDTools calls a "Brightness Meter", then I was on 160-170 for this shot. I'll refer to it as Brightness Meter next time to avoid confusion :confuse3:

Cheers

Dennis

[Dennis]

Hi Rob, Robert, Mike & John

Thanks for the complements.

However, Celestron, TeleVue, Takahashi and Philips deserve the accolades for producing the fine equipment that made the Saturn image possible.

Not to mention my excellent schooling in ToUcam techniques and settings, at the one and only “Ice In Space” on-line University of Planetary Imaging – thanks to all the guys for sharing your results and settings, along with the advice and feedback via this forum.

It is quite remarkable to be able to post images, get instant feedback and help from like minded souls and then apply the lessons learned the very same night! Almost as fast as 20-20 cricket!

Cheers

Dennis

[davidpretorius]

now i know what the encke division is and how hard it is to get, and your first one has it.


double well done!!

[iceman]

The encke division is a very small feature, it hasn't been captured in Dennis's image (as fine as it is).

The image scale needs to be much larger to capture such a small feature. What most people see in amateur images is what has been called "the ghost of encke", which is really a processing artifact from sharpening.

There's a very fine article on it here:

http://www.astro-imaging.de/astro/ghost_of_encke.html

[davidpretorius]

thanks mike, great article link. the cloudy night link is good to as to whether an 8" or 10" dob can also see the encke division. At the end of the day 450X + with a 10" with perfect condition............ouch!

[rumples riot]

Great shot Dennis. Exceptional image quality and very sharp. I even LT would love this shot. Congratulations.