Hello Saturn

[Poita]

A quick go at saturn last night with the 4" (105/650) refractor and the DMK21 mono and a 5x powermate

Some processing errors, but this was just stacked in Autostakkert with pretty much default settings.

[Helo]

Nice one Poita, I hope (one-day) to obtain something as nice as your image. I was wondering how large the file was for Autostakkert? I have used colour files (scared of debayering) from my DBK and they seem too large to be accepted - any tips? :question:

Thx

Helo

[Poita]

Are you sure they are too large and not just the wrong codec?

I loaded a 4GB colour .avi into autostakkert last night, I haven't finished processing it yet, but this was the raw stack from the DBK21.

I just use the 'unspecified' or whatever it is called as the avi option (the last button).

Now I just have to make it not orange....

EDIT: I've added a raw frame so you can see what the capture looked like before stacking, and one with a (very bad) colour adjustment of the stacked image)

I hadn't tried planetary with the refractor before, I usually use the big SCT, but it did a fairly reasonable job.

[asimov]

Nice work Peter.

Haven't found a limit yet with AS!2 so yep, it'll be the codec.

[Poita]

Thanks!

BTW, no matter what I do with the DBK21 Saturn always seems to be the reddy-orange like in the raw frame I posted.
Am I missing a setting somewhere? My other targets come out at roughly the colours I would expect.

[asimov]

Hi Peter. Yeah, Saturn shouldn't be that colour at capture time..Just so I get the picture of what you are doing, some Q's - What codec are you using? If a colour codec, are you then opening up the histogram window & adjusting the R & B sliders to exactly match the G (hue) before capture? 'Auto' needs to be unticked of course..

[Forgey]

very nice image Peter!

[Poita]

Thanks. I've been using firecapture, I'll give ICCapture a go, the sliders don't seem to do anything in firecapture since the last update.

[loki78]

Really nice work Peter :)

Keep it up!

[asimov]

Yeah, I can't use firecapture with my little capture laptop so can't help you there. Good luck with IC capture - it'll give you fits on a few occasions with sudden crashes etc. but generally speaking, works ok most of the time..

[EricB]

Great shots, Peter. The DMK21 has done a really good job on Saturn. I am looking forward to see more.

Cheers,

Eric

[Poita]

Mostly luck and good seeing. The electric focuser was on the SCT so I was trying to focus by hand which was painful.

I was pleased the refractor could at leat make a go of it at only 4" aperture.

The camera is versatile, it did okay on the moon too:

[EricB]

Very nice, I like the way the light is balanced.

ERic

[MGTechDVP]

Great image, Peter... just make my craving to go out even that bit more painful... if it's not rain, its cloud out my way... damn this weather.

Try capturing through R-G-B filters on the DMK21 and see what colours you get then.... Last one I imaged on the 24th turned out yellow and the one on 21st was violet/blue with a hint of green... I think I'm doing something wrong in capturing the color data on the night and so I'm losing a lot of colour information. I user a Infra-Red cut filter for the luminance.

Keep up the good work, can't wait to see more.

Mariusz