Saturn - 29th Jan 1am - improving..

[netwolf]

Ok i think its better than the first, using the Neximage.

But most of my time was spent fideling, K3ccd kept crashing when i start capture. So I used a small capture utility AMCap and made 3 120sec clips. I made more clips but then i realised i had overwritten them doh, got to be more carefull. Initialy i made clips using only the Neximage, lost those clips. Then decided to try with the 2x Barlow. I used my AAM DSC to help keep Saturn in the EP's (fixed broken encoder pin with a staple and taped it up). But even when i new it was there at a 5fps i could not alwasy see it on the screen. I had to switch to 30fps, auto setings and to see it and then bring the settings down to 5fps. Then i could star capturing. One mistake i made was to try and play with the focus while capturing.. dumb dumb dumb, many of my frames were bad cause of this. Oh well i learned a lot about capturing process with a Neximage/Toucam setup. I was happy to have my DSC there to help me relocate Saturn as i needed to when it drifted out of FOV.

I also realise that i myself was causing to much movement in the scope, next time i will just let it drift through. Instead of trying to move the scope. I wonder if someone could estimate how long it should stay in FOV with a Neximage 2xbarlowed in a 10" F5. This way i can set my capture time to this length and grab one long sequence then chop it up with Virtualdub.

Thanks to my mate who has loaned me his Neximage... I will give it back soon...

Regards
Netwolf

[matt]

Hey Netwolf.

Nice to see you out there imaging with the NexImage.:)

In answer to your question, it won't remain in the FOV very long at all without tracking and using a 2x barlow.

My guess is somewhere around 5-10 seconds.

Could be wrong though

[asimov]

Hi Wolfie!

Nice shots mate. I would not use the barlow, & resample in registax to get your image scale, that would give you more time to capture. Very hard to get good focus if the object is small on the laptop screen though.

You could also try taking several image runs & splice the AVI's together like Dave Pretorius....He's the resident expert on capturing without tracking here lol, even though he has tracking now.

[Dennis]

Hey Wolfie

Man - I broke out into a cold sweat just reading your epic story, describing the trials and tribulations of your Herculean efforts in capturing those images. Mate, that alone is worth an Australia Day honour! :prey2:

You’ve captured the Cassini Division and the banding on Saturn’s disc which is terrific given your set up. :thumbsup:

Cheers

Dennis

[davidpretorius]

yes, improving.

When i was using my toucam and a 2.4x barlow, i had aprox 8 seconds of the image to move from right to left.

try qfocus, it is french capture program, but you can convert to english.

I also had probs with k3ccd

Well done!

[davidpretorius]

also make sure you turn the toucam / neximage so that the image is moving across the screen ie 640px.

if you can say get into the quick swing of it, you might be able to get to say 10 to 15 passes. Bink and smacker or virtual dub can then put these together. You will have to use virtual dub to turn them into individual bmps and use ppmcentre to centre them , so that registax won't have a kitten whilst aligning.

[asimov]

Permission to play with image #2 Wolfie....?

[Chrissyo]

Nice :) You got some detail on the rings and planet surface. And also, you've gotten a good colour! I don't think I've ever managed to image saturn with a nice colour like that, mine always come out brown/orangish (which I then fix up in photoshop). Nice work :)

[matt]

Dave. What do you mean by:

also make sure you turn the toucam / neximage so that the image is moving across the screen ie 640px.

??????

[Dennis]

Hi Wolfie

I just created a Field Of View indicator in Starry Night Pro for a 10inch f10 telescope (f5 with x2 Barlow) and assumed that the Neximage was equivalent to a Meade LPI, i.e. 640x480 pixels, chip = 4.8mm x 3.6mm.

When I turned on the FOV and let SNP run at x1 sidereal rate, Saturn traversed the ccd's (longer) 640 axis, in 24 seconds.

The attached screen print of Saturn from SNP looks about right compared to your images.

Cheers

Dennis

[matt]

In a barlow, Dennis?

[netwolf]

Thanks all four your kind comments and help.

Asimov go ahead touch it up all you like. What do you mean by resample in registax and image scale?

Matt i think what dave means is rotate the webcam in the Focuser such that the planet moves through more pixels. The CCD is a rectangle so i am guesing we need to set it such that the planet arc's accros the longer diagonal.

Dave thanks for the tips will try qfocus, am also considering purchasing a Orion accufocus seems pretty cheap for a motor focus option. I basicaly went through Mikes guide on how to, but left out the conver to bmp and ppmcentre bit and as such registax did trhow a hissy fit about it. I will try ppmcentre.

Thankd and Regards

[Dennis]

Hi Matt

Yes. I first created the FOV in SNP based on a 10" f5 scope, hoping for a Barlow option, but couldn’t find one. :sad: So, I then changed it to a 10" f10 'scope and the FOV decreased as expected.

Also, the screen print looks in proportion to Wolfie’s actual images so I reckon we are in the same ball park.

Cheers

Dennis

[netwolf]

Dennis, thanks for that mate.
It seems to me that it is easier to find and keep saturn in the FOV if i use a higher fram rate. I am guessing because there are more samples being taken. For some reason even when the DSC says i am on Saturn (checked with EP) it does not appear on the screen. I have to swithch to a higher frame rate and back down again, sometimes even then it takes a bit of movement in the general area to locate it. Its easier without the barlow.

Regards

[asimov]

Quote by Wolfie>'Asimov go ahead touch it up all you like. What do you mean by resample in registax and image scale?'

I mean you can process in registax at the original size that you shot the frame (IE 640X480) or you can 'resample' the image in registax at IE 1.5X (one & a half times bigger) or 1.8X or even 2X. Sometimes you get a better image & somtimes not, but it does pay to experiment with different registax settings/options.

Had a play with your image, thanks.

[davidpretorius]

spot on!

any resampling needs to be done with centred images i reckon, registax does not seem to like the image moving around too much!

[asimov]

Correct Davo! Hit 'em with PPM centre 1st yup yup!

[davidpretorius]

nuce one asisats

[netwolf]

Thanks Asimov, it looks much better. I will have to try your resampling method out.

Ok I ran ppmcentre, and took the liberty to delete the bad out of focus and of screen shots. Bird's program is excellent, it also tells you which are the empty frames. Is there some way to use birds program to delete empty frames. BTW i used 400x400 in ppmcentre as per Mikes instructions.

Regards

[netwolf]

Asimov, can you explain what you did with my image.. I understand the resampling now, I checked that out, gave mitchel at 150 a try and seems good. But you mentioned filtered in your filename, what filter in what program and how.

Regards

[asimov]

Wolfie...I took the image into neatimage (a very nice program) and sharpened and noise/grain removed.

This happened after I took it into picture publisher 8 and resized/cropped/rotated/despeckled/tone balance/saturation/stretch detail/unsharp mask.

[netwolf]

Asimov, i will just send you my work befor publishing.. I dont think i can do it half as well. But i will start checking it out.
Regards

[asimov]

:lol: Wolfie! I'm not that good, there are others here with dedicated astrophotography software that are far better at it than me.:)

I am limited to what I can do with this picture publisher 8 as it is not dedicated for astro-pics...but I have learnt to use it to the best of my ability.

Neatimage is free to get off the internet & I can recommend it for taking noise out of pictures.

But yes, I would be glad to reprocess your images! I now ask permission to have a go at your last image posted.

[netwolf]

Feel free Asimov, any improvement is appreciated.

Regards
Netwolf

[asimov]

I'm afraid your latest image is more blurry & less detail present than you original #2 image so It did not come out as good. I used the same processing on this one as #2.

[netwolf]

Thanks Asimov, think maybe i deleted to much. I will just center and run registax wihtout deleting anything, accept maybe the empty frames.

Regards

[asimov]

How many frames have you got?

[netwolf]

600 frames..

[netwolf]

Asimov the one i reposted is test1 the one you reprocessed was test2. I will do a rerur of test2 post centering the frames.

Regards

[asimov]

I only have dialup, otherwise I would suggest you zip & email me with them if it was only a small amount of frames!

Another thing you could try is rotating & centering all your 3 originals above & then stack them together to see if there's any improvement in the final image..

[asimov]

Yes, I had a good look at all 3 & decided to do #2...it looked slightly better to me.

[netwolf]

Ok As per your sugestion Asimov, I stacked the original 3 after centering then with ppm and aligning them individually. I have created a 1.5x and 2.0x version also.

[asimov]

Cool. Give me awhile & I shall see if I can improve upon them. :)

[asimov]

Hi again Wolfie.

I picked your #3 pic this time. (2X resample)

I had to leave a certain amount of noise/grain in the image to squeeze the detail out. I couldn't relate how many steps of process work on this one.......lots! lol.

I also purposely kept the image small....the smaller the noisy-image, the sharper it looks.

[netwolf]

Thanks very much Asimov. That looks amazing, nothing that i could have done. A real piece of art.

Thanks and Regards

[asimov]

My pleasure! Looking forward to seeing your next lot of pictures.:)

[davidpretorius]

well done asi!