Saturn, Jupiter June24

[Shiraz]

Managed to get a few snippets of usable seeing despite 80kt winds at 300mb. The rrgb Saturn image is the best from the session, but has dismal blue channel data, which results in colour artefacts. Dione and Tethys are visible to the lower left of the rings in the red channel data.

Registax 6 did an heroic job of getting an rgb image out of the wobbly Jupiter data from the next morning. The result is pretty fuzzy and it had to be downsized for display, but at least there are tantalising hints of some detail - and it is nice to see Ganymede again.

Thanks for looking. Regards Ray

[asimov]

Both very nice images, Ray. Must say I admire an imager that knows his stuff in the respect that downsizing is sometimes necessary in order to display images 'correctly' (correctly reads as 'effectively').

I've been trying night after night for months now to capture something/anything in something above 3/10 seeing, but it's not happening....By jove I hate QLD sometimes..

Onya Ray.

[Saturn%5]

Great shots Ray, sadly all i see at night is cloud and in the morning fog :(

[Shiraz]

Thanks very much John. Image scale is an interesting area - poor images often look considerably better if they are scaled down - best to do it when gathering the images, but you need nerves of steel to reduce the Barlowing - "it might get better".

Thanks Graeme. It sure is frustrating to watch holes appear in the jetstream.... but not in the cloud cover.

Regards Ray

[asimov]

Actually, I'd have to disagree to a certain extent Ray. Over the last 12 months I've been experimenting in the area of image scale & what I've found is, it's still better to keep the sampling rate high at capture time...even in questionable seeing. I have side by side pics somewhere on my computer of Saturn taken with (for the seeing) over sampled @ F30 in comparison to F22, & the F30 version is better.

What I was meaning was, to still capture relatively large, but resize down in editing software before posting for presentation purposes.

[Shiraz]

Hi John. Thanks very much for that tip - will follow it up and see if the same outcome is obtained with a filtered mono system. On the other side of the ledger, I have found that reducing the image scale at capture is advantageous in increasing the SNR (better stacking software performance) or allowing higher frame rates (reduced seeing smear), and it can also ease focusing problems on low level sources, such as the Saturn blue channel. Clearly need to look into this further, since there are many competing factors here. Regards Ray

[asimov]

No problems mate. Reducing scale at the scope is an important factor of course. As usual, I get most of my tips from Bird, even though the tips may not have been passed on first hand, but I read & take in every word that man ever says about planet imaging.

I enjoy passing these tips on down the line, as well as the ones I've picked up in my quest for better images.

[Quark]

Creditable results in both instances there Ray, well done.
It is certainly amazing what a good job RegiStax does, your Jup has some nice detail in it, for sure.

Regards
Trevor

[Shiraz]

Thanks John - very much appreciated.

Hi Trevor. Thanks for your comments. Not really much detail yet, but glad to get something.

Regards Ray

[Troy]

Very nice pictures Ray :)

[michaellxv]

Very nice result Ray. I see you are also burning the candle at both ends.

[Shiraz]

Hi Troy. Thanks very much.

Thanks Michael. Yes, set up again this am in time to see the clouds roll in - just before the fog.

Regards Ray

[John Hothersall]

Those are excellent results, Saturn still performing and Jupiter warming up and thats good detail for a difficult low target.

John.

[Clayton]

Great work Ray:thumbsup:
Good to see you getting some nice shots:)
I could manage Jupiter in the mornings now, if I could force myself out of a warm bed:lol:

[Shiraz]

Hi Johns. Thanks for your comments.

Hi Rob. Agree, it is difficult to get up enough enthusiasm to go out in the cold.

Regards Ray