Kens 9 star trap video

[davidpretorius]

Ok all you image processors out there, here is a cropped and centred video of ken's prime focus with a toucam of the trap.

6 stars are easily viewed i nthe video, but the aim is to try and squeeze more out.

Ken was able to post an image of where you could see 9 and it all seemed to line up with a reference image of where they all should be.

So please have a rip.

It is 9mbytes!

http://precons.com/iis/gallery/Nontracking/Deep%20Space/ken's%20small%20trap.zip

[atalas]

Thanks Davo and Ken I enjoyed that !

[davidpretorius]

ok i have iven it a quick go, i think ken processing was better, but i see spots where stars are meant to be

[asimov]

I'd like to give it a rip but I'm back home with my dial-up connection! = no way @ 9 megs!

[asimov]

All I want to know is how he got it!! Using the mod on the toucam or what?? If not, I wanna know some toucam settings??

[davidpretorius]

toucam prime focus, drifting across the screen. i will airbag kens cd to you asimov!

no long exposure

[ballaratdragons]

I used the Toucam in 'Normal' mode and I waited for the Trap to drift into view. As it drifted across the screen (coz I got no tracking) I recorded about 170 frames.

This was done before I knew how to use 'Desire' and is done in the ordinary Philips V-Record program.

The settings I used were:
IMAGE:
Frame rate - 5 fps
Brightness - 80%
Gamma - 30%
Saturation - 100%

CAMERA:
Auto setting
Shutter - 1/33rd
Gain - 80%

Using a GS 12" Dob and Toucam at Prime Focus. Dark sky helps.

Last weekend I watched Bert have a go at running my Avi through Registax and he picked up more stars than I did when I tried. So last night I gave it a go again trying to remember what Bert did and I got even more!

Here is an extreme close up of the finished pic. In PhotShop I magnified the image to 500% and played with Brightness/Contrast. That's all I've done so far. It's not a good quality shot.

I hope someone can make my Avi look even better and clearer coz there seems to be a lot of stars hiding in there.

[asimov]

Thanks for the settings Ken....& thanks Dave for airbagging the CDrom (unless you were joking?)

I reckon I have a trap photo in here somewhere with quite a few stars also!:confuse3:

Back thru the archives I do goooo!:)

[davidpretorius]

being picked up in about 10 mintues hopefully and on its way to SA!!

[asimov]

You don't muck about then!! Thanks!! :)

Geez, hope it gets here before starting work so I have energy to stack it! :nerd:

[Dennis]

Hey Dave

I just dumped my C9.25 and ordered a dob when I saw your post Msg #3 above. Then, I realised that Ken's image was the right hand one.....not the left. Phew, I'd better get down to the wheelie bin and rescue the gear.

Cheers

Dennis

[asimov]

Too late mate! I had a friend collect the rubbish at your place 30 mins ago!

[ballaratdragons]

and what's wrong with my image . . huh? . . huh?

Actually Dennis it does look like the left one through the EP.
Imaging without tracking ain't good!

[Dennis]

Absolutely nothing wrong Ken - just thought if you captured the LH version without tracking, who needed the complication of polar alignment, mains power, an expensive Eq mount etc etc compared to draggin' out the old dob.

Cheers

Dennis

[ballaratdragons]

I have just placed the good pic next to my latest effort and the stars don't match!!!! :scared:

I have stars where there are none and stars missing where there should be some. :confuse3:

Then after sratching my head I realised I have re-processed the wrong Avi! I did an older bad one. :lol: :lol: :lol:

I will have to do the right one. :P

Anyone else had any luck with the Avi Davo put in here for me?
Here are the pics that show nothing matches in my old one. I think some of it is noise:

[RAJAH235]

fwiw, info on why the Trapezium is... from 'Universe Today'. :D L.

[Wombat_In_Space]

Well I have had a go at it and this is my finished image croped to just show the ceter section of the image.

[davidpretorius]

good stuff wombat, have you tried brightening up so the real faint buggas start to show???

[Wombat_In_Space]

That is my next thing to do is try to get the faint ones to pop out from thier hidding spots.

This attempt was a quick muck around last night to see if I could get the main stars to look good.

PS found a great little pices of freeware software for changing AVI files to BMP images one button click and your done.

[ballaratdragons]

Darren, I have re-done the image in Registax. It's over in the thread "Kens Trap Reprocessed". Give that one a try.

What is the advantage of BMP over JPG?

[Wombat_In_Space]

More data to work with in the image allows you to change the format to a lower quality without losing to much of the quality. It all has to do with the Compression of the data in the image BMP less compression=very little loss of data, JPG high compression= greater loss of data.

[ballaratdragons]

:confuse3: ummm, right. OK. :confused:

[Wombat_In_Space]

Put in astro terms on planets, the bigger image (BMP) you see in the eyepiece the more detail you see, the smaller the image (JPG) the less you see

[ballaratdragons]

So when we post them in here as JPG's they lose their detail again?

[Wombat_In_Space]

Yep they lose some of the finer detail when we post them in here but you wont notice it unless you have the original to compare it to.

[janoskiss]

I just downloaded the vid. There seems to be some motion blur roughly along the 11-oclock direction... but I see no drift as the video plays.. :shrug: I think anything dimmer than the dimmest of the 6 stars has been lost to compression noise.

[ballaratdragons]

Ask Asi for the Disc Steve. It should all be on there. I checked it before I sent it to Davo. That's where Davo got it from to put it on the net.

[asimov]

What is classified as 'the trap' anyway? Where does the trap start & finish!?

I have an image just done of the main nebula I guess you would say with over 20 stars in it (yes, from your AVI Ken)

[ballaratdragons]

WOW! Show me quick!!! I wanna see it. :P

(Insert: 'jumping up & down excited' smilie)

[asimov]

You'll have to hang on a sec mate...I got stuff happening here. Back in 30 mins.

[ballaratdragons]

Ok!

[janoskiss]

My guess from looking at the video that there is no nebula at all in the data, just stars + noise. Any nebula you might bring out is just reprocessed noise. But I am just guessing after inspecting the frames from the video. :shrug:
C'mon Asi, prove me wrong! :lol:

[ballaratdragons]

There's lots of neb in there. I reduced it in my PhotoShop version to get at the stars!

Here it is with a little bit of neb gas Steve.

[asimov]

Ok. We have grain, we have noise, we have artifacts & we have NOT round stars!

As far as I know, the 'trap' is the very center of the nebula....The main 6 stars you see on a good night in most scopes, so in that case this image counts for nothing.

These 3 are at different stages of processing in registax.
I have yet to stack & process with the trap in mind.

Can someone verify total exposure time on this AVI....I make it 6.92 seconds.

[davidpretorius]

i make it around 11 secs

[ballaratdragons]

It's written on the bottom right of the Avi program John. 11 seconds.

I know there is a lot of noise & NOT round stars, that's why I was hopig someone could do something with it, coz I can't. Bert found about 10 stars in the trap area when we looked on his pooter.

The Trap area is the immediate area in & around the 4 main stars at centre.

[asimov]

Ok, I'll give it a shot on the weekend with the trap in mind then. Thanks.

[janoskiss]

Wow Asi & Ken! That is impressive! I compared Asi's final version with a low-res Anglo-Aust scope shot I found without looking too hard and there is heaps of real detail in Ken's Toucam vid! I'm going to have to get into imaging!

[ballaratdragons]

Yay! I knew it was in there somewhere!!!!

Get a Toucam Steve! Hurry, the sky is wearing out :lol:

Well done Asi the extractor!

[janoskiss]

It is??? :scared: Oh No! Leave some for me, guys!!

[ballaratdragons]

Here is a comparison. I lifted the neb out for this one. Thanks Asi & Steve.

My 12" dob, no tracking for 11 seconds, and the Anglo-Australian Mega-bucks scope. :lol:

[janoskiss]

Nice job Ken! Dobbies rule! They used an SCT for that AA pic obviously! :D Well done! :thumbsup:

PS: that was from a thumbnail sized jpeg compressed pic I made the image from. but no one needs to know that, right?

[davidpretorius]

just wait for him to have tracking!!!

well done ken!

[ballaratdragons]

Thanks Steve.

OK Steve, I won't tell if you don't!

[ballaratdragons]

Hey hey Davo. Look out tracking!!!!

[ballaratdragons]

I'll have to send everything to Asiartist after I capture!!! :lol:

[asimov]

Me? Gimmee a coupla weeks to recoup from no work for months! 1st day today welding in 43 deg heat...Welcome back to the engineering game asi! :sad:

(and welcome great big dirty EQ mount to hold a 16" OTA too) ;)

[ballaratdragons]

Hahaha! Your supposed to be making fences John, not EQ's. But, then again . . . :confuse3:

:lol:

Congrats on starting work again! ;)

[asimov]

Actually I jumped the gun a bit there lol. I meant after the fencing work, when I start as a fitter/turner blah blah.

Thanks mate.