Jupiter 4 Feb 2006 04:34am

[Dennis]

Hi Guys

The seeing was outrageous this morning in Brissie. Here is the mighty Jove as follows:

C9.25
TeleVue x2.5 PowerMate
JMI NGF-S motorised focuser
Philips ToUcam
10 fps
461 frames from 900 processed in Registax

I have attached screen prints of the settings used, along with a single, unprocessed frame from the avi, just to show how good the seeing was.

Cheers

Dennis

[[1ponders]]

Holy Mackeral Dennis :eyepop: I looked out at about 10:30 and thought "Damn %&*$# clouds" :sad: I shoulda stayed up :sad: How was Saturn

[janoskiss]

That is just brilliant, Dennis!

[Dennis]

Hi Paul

I didn't even look at Saturn as I was out tinkering with the Pentax *istDS trying to image the Ghost Of Jupiter. The intermittent cloud kept thwarting me so I then plugged in the ST7E and had a go at the Sombrero (M104) and the Antennae (NGC4038/4039) but couldn't get decent spells of clear sky. In frustration, I plugged in the ToUcam and slewed to Jupiter and was gob smacked at what I saw, so I spent the rest of the morning grabbing avi's, chasing the sucker holes.

Cheers

Dennis

[iceman]

omg! That's one of the best Jupiter's I've seen! Just incredible Dennis!

Unbelievably good, detail in the GRS and all.

Would you mind putting the avi on CD/DVD and sending it to me? I'd love to have a go at processing something with seeing that good!

[asimov]

HOLY COWWW!

Seeing is KING!

[[1ponders]]

Dedication pays off Dennis. Congratulations. That is a fantastic image.


I think I'll give up sleep permanently now. Thursday night was the first night in ages I decided to risk setting up. Sky was lovely and clear. Managed to get about 3/4 the way through repolar aligning after Lostock and in rolled the cloud. Sat outside for 3 hours waiting for it to clear. :mad: Man I am so over it.



I'm glad someone is getting a break.

[Dennis]

Hi Mike

I played hide and seek with clouds from 3:13am to 4:54am and grabbed over a dozen avi's, so I'll burn the lot to a DVD and post them to you. I need all the help I can get with the results of an amazing night's work!

I almost didn't set up the gear due to the iffy conditions...... :whistle:

Cheers

Dennis

[iceman]

Awesome, thanks Dennis. Have you got a 4x powermate? It would've been a great jump in image scale for you under ideal conditions.

Your focus and collimation looks spot on too.. I can't stop looking at that image! and that raw frame! There's no noise or grain! Transparency between the clouds must've been good too!

[iceman]

oh btw, I sort of feel sorry for you that every avi from now on is most likely never going to reach the heights of this fantastic image. :lol: You only get nights of seeing like this a few times a year.

[Dennis]

I tried the x5 PowerMate (both PowerMates are 1 1/4") but the image broke down - not enough aperture methinks. I was also plagued by dust bunnies that were not visible with the x2.5

Cheers

Dennis

[asimov]

Yes Sir!! Best image of Jupiter I've seen in ages too! Congratulations Dennis for being at the right place at the right time. And your capture/processing skills too of course!

[davidpretorius]

well .....welll...................wellll llllllllllllll.


WOW

Dennis, absolutely brillant: focus, collimation, seeing = awesome detail. I will be happy to play with data if there is any left over.

Bird was also out last night and if hope he had some luck

Between the reprocessing of mine & this rippa, it has been a great night for jupiter for me. THanks all.

As for tassie, the transparency was great, the night sky beautiful, but the jetstream attrocious!!

[bird]

Wow, that's very impressive! What a great image.

Bird

[RB]

Unbelievable Dennis.

That's easily the best Jupiter image I've seen.
That's all I have to say.

:drink:

[Robert_T]

Dennis, absolutely, without doubt the best ever Jupiter.:prey2: :prey2: :prey2: I really don't think Hubble could do much better. Incredible detail within the GRS and what looks like another storm immediately adjacent!

I'm also smacking myself round the head. I had the scope set out all night. I got up at 4am and was grateful to see cloud all about so I could pack it in an get back to sleep. If only I'd know the seeing was like that I would have gone seeking the sucker holes. :sad: :sad: :sad: :sad:.

Was it cloudy your way too - you must be on the southside eh?

Congratulations on setting the bar to new levels.

cheers,

[Striker]

Thats absolutely fantastic Dennis.

I was shocked when I first opened up your image..well done mate.

Ok tell the truth...what book did you get this out off....lol

[Robert_T]

and to think my 4x powermate was languishing in its box while I was snoring through this ...:sad:

tomorrow morning I'll be staring at the cloud hopefully like the old man of the see looking for that big white whale:prey:

[matt]

Dennis

That is magnificent!

That really demonstrates what the 9.25 is capable of in the right hands.

The seeing must have indeed been exceptional but you've done a very nice job getting to that final image. I'm very impressed.

Care to post any details on your processing?

Congrats and looking forward to more. How good is it going to be at Opposition!!!!!:)

[Hitchhiker]

Absolutely beautiful image, Dennis. Among the best Jupiter images I've seen!

[Dennis]

Hi Matt and others

Thanks for those kind words. The processing was minimal, as the exceptionally good, still, seeing is what has made these images. When I ran the avis through Registax at a 90% Quality setting, they all passed that threshold.

All I did was apply wavelets, mostly as follows:

1 = 25
2 = 12
3 = 5

The images were saved as bmp's then opened in Corel PhotoPaint and saved as jpgs with 20% compression. That's it; no magic, just being in the right place at the right time with a cooled 'scope, recently collimated and with good focus through the JMI motofocus. The seeing almost made the focusing refractor like, in that the point of best focus kind of "snapped in".

K3CCDTools helped too, ‘cos I used the automatic setting to capture a 90 second avi every 2 minutes when the sucker holes got big. Jupiter had hauled himself high up the ecliptic as well, so less atmosphere to image through. But the real success story here is the seeing, as Asimov and others have rightly pointed out.

For me, this is a once every 2 years event – quite rare. Even the individual frames are quite stunning. I’ll be quite interested to see how Mike and Dave get on with the DVDs I’ll be sending them, as their processing techniques and experience are greater than mine.

Cheers

Dennis

[matt]

Dennis

As modest as you are, promise me you'll send that image in to the astromags?:)

We need more poster boys for the 9.25 who aren't based in the Northern Hemisphere:lol:

(Let's hope Damian Peach has seen this image) LOL

[beren]

:thumbsup: Fantastic work again Dennis hope you send the images to the magazines they deserve to be displayed :)

[John K]

Awsome image! Thanks for sharing. The best I have seen on the Net so far this year. Well done!

[asimov]

Thanks for letting me have a play with your image Dennis. :)

[rochler]

that's a great image. Fair gave me a woody when I first saw it. Just goes to show what a huge difference the seeing conditions can make. I'm willing to bet that the wee hours of the morning just before dawn are truly the best hours to try and get a moment of viewing like that. But even then, you'd have to be very very lucky...

Well done, I can't see that being beaten anytime soon! :prey2:

[Dennis]

Nice one Asi - looks warmer than the original and with better contrast. Also looks slightly bigger. Even after a long sleep I'm still not over just how good the seeing was. Needless to say, we were clouded out last night.

Cheers

Dennis

[Dennis]

Hi Rochler

As I was watching the image on screen via K3CCDTools, the capture sequences approaching 4:54am, when the skies had turned blue with morning twilight showed some amazing moments of stillness and clarity.

The blue festoons and white ovals were clearly visible and snapped into sharp focus as I watched, enthralled by the Jovian display and humbled by the good fortune to have been so lucky to be out there.

Cheers

Dennis

[iceman]

Nice work Asi.. colours are nice and rich but probably a little overprocessed for my (recent) liking.

Still looks amazing though, i'm amazed every time I see it.

[RB]

Dennis I don't think your image needs improving, I like it as it is.
I just had a little go to see if I could highlight the details.
Still your image leaves me breathless mate.

Well done once again.

Andrew

[Dennis]

Hey Rocket

Well done - I actually prefer your variant. You have really brought out the blue festoons, white ovals and other detail that lies submerged in my original. 10 out of 10 mate!

Cheers

Dennis

[davidpretorius]

i like your reprocess rocket, like dennis said, the blue festoons look great!

this forum is tops, whether you end up taking the video or processing someone elses, the lack of professional jealousy means that we all take so much pride in each others work!!!

[RB]

Thanks guys,

That's why I love this forum too.
:)

[asimov]

Nice job Andrew!! You know...I had my version looking almost identical to yours at one stage in neatimage but decided to back off with an option & posted mine as you see it.

Theres so many ways to reprocess an image that one could spend a long time doing just one & coming up with different versions I believe.

Well done!

[Dennis]

Hey Asi and Andrew

Would it be possible for you to explain the additional processing you used to enhance my original Jupiter?

Doesn’t have to be an essay, (unless you have the time), more a bullet point description of the steps and techniques you used.

Thanks

Dennis

[asimov]

For starters, I don't use the normal software like most of the guys here, I just put up with what I have which is picture publisher 8.

But I do have neatimage.

In pic publisher: cropped/resized/adjusted the color saturation/tone balance (high lights, midtones, shadows) stretched detail/hue map adjustment/colour adjustments on blue & red/despeckle/gamma adjustment/unsharp mask & sharpened.

In neatimage: sharpened/noise reduction.

[bird]

Once again Dennis, a fantastic image! Makes me smile to see images like this coming out of Aussieland.

There are a few other forums you might like to post this on, including the "solar system" astromart forum. I'm sure the imagers there would like to see it, this is far and away the best Jupiter image I've seen so far this season.

Bird

[RB]

Well Dennis I did something similar to what Asi did, but only fewer steps.
In Photoshop I adjusted the colour balance a little - increased the highlight RGB's slightly, mid tones only just moved alittle and shadows where boosted a bit (can't remember the exact amounts).
And used Neat Image with a basic(default) Noise reduction/Sharpen setting.

Thats it.
:)

[Robert_T]

Reprocesses by Asi and Andrew here are beaut. Rather than one being better than another I find each, including Dennis's originals, highlights a different aspect of detail. All masterpieces - thanks of course to having such an equisitely detailed and varied palette to work with :)

[Dennis]

Nicely, diplomatically and tastefully stated Robert - do you work for the Diplomatic Corps?

Cheers :)

Dennis