Feb. 2012 Saturn

[asimov]

Well, this is going to take some time. 3 HD's full of data which comes in at 600 odd GIG starting from the 10th Feb up to two nights ago when I stopped imaging. Some major culling of AVI's of 6/10 & less gets me down to about 200 GIG to actually process. All AVI's have to be split in 2, Debayered & stitched back together. Mars is going to be a complete nightmare, as I have to split all those into 3 :lol::eyepop:

Here's todays efforts. Straight off the cam at their native capture sizes ranging from F20 up to F30. Same wavelett scheme used for each in Registax 6. No processing apart from slight unsharpmasking & intensity levels for each to get them roughly equal in brightness. Any major variations in colour is where I tried for a slightly different white balance whilst capturing. Some could have done with more processing of course. All these could take a 1.8 resize easy but I'm not going to be bothered with that. Varying seeing (obviously) on each. Ranging from a rock solid 7 up to a fast flickering 8.5 - 10. Not enough 10's to really make the images 'crack' however. I've already tried very small stacks with nothing but the best frames but it doesn't quite work that way All random throw-on's to a blank canvas & posted. Couldn't care less about their positioning :P

Onto the other 2 HD's.

[Quark]

A lovely collection Asi, Feb has been a good month, just as Feb was last year but so much has changed with the rise & fall of The Great Storm, sort of like the Roman Empire I suppose.

Reckon you should print up some posters for your new observatory.

Regards
Trevor

[Paul Haese]

Nice mate, bottom left is my pick for the best image. Interesting if not chaotic choice of presentation.:)

[jjjnettie]

I reckon you'll be sleeping through March John.
A great collection of images. :)

[asimov]

Thanks Trevor. The poster(s) would get wet in my obs. Hard to explain unless you saw it.

Thanks JJJ. I'm that used to no sleep, I sleep at the computer while I work. Have enough micro-sleeps & you're laughing..

I like chaos Paul;) Thanks.

[Clayton]

Saturns everywhere and all nice :thumbsup:
Often wondered why some of your Saturns lean to the left and others to the right :question:
I guess if you like chaos:)

[asimov]

Hi Rob & thanks. Yes, I'm not one for sticking to any plans or routines. I'll rotate them around until I think it looks better than how I captured it. Depends on the mood at the time too I guess. Today I was going for random. Might do the next lot nicely lined up in a row, rotated correctly...But I'd doubt it, sounds boring to me!:)

[Poita]

I love the layout, reminds me of Flying Saucers attacking in some 60s scifi flick!

[Shiraz]

That's a very fine collection of Saturns - top stuff. Regards Ray

[cydonia]

Nice Images,

What do you mean by " splitting them " in 2 or 3? Can you please describe this process. Trying to learn more about planetary imaging..Thanks

[asimov]

In order to take up less HD space, I mostly use a Y800 codec to capture with IF I'm capturing @ 60FPS. An AVI(video) captured with Y800 is roughly half the size of a standard colour AVI. The Y800 AVI then has to be Debayered/demosaiced in order to 'bring out' the colour info. To get one of these AVI's into a program that uses the BEST debayer algorithm (Firecapture) I have to split the AVI into two sections & debayer seperately & then stick the 2 debayered sections back together. Registax can debayer Y800 data too of course, but it uses the lowest quality algorithm which naturally gives you a low quality final image.