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The in-camera settings are Landscape Picture Style (colours seem more pronounced), sharpness and contrast at maximum, ISO 100 to 400 and shutter speeds from 1/60 to 1/600 or thereabouts and auto(!) white balance. I'll typically capture 1000-6000 frames at 640x480 50 frames/sec. The tracking on the Sky Watcher (alt-az Dob) jiggles around a bit but generally stays in frame quite well.
After capture, which is in .MOV format, I'll use Avidemux to save each frame as a jpg. Then I use Registax on all of them and select the best 200 frames or so. Aligning then optimising/stacking, I'll re-align with processed and Drizzle 150%.
I am still experimenting with wavelets in Registax, so each time I use it it's a bit different. Sometimes I'll use Photoshop (7) to do the sharpening (USM in different stages).
I save as a 16-bit TIF from Registax and tweak levels and sharpening in Photoshop. Throughout all of this I really haven't touched the colours save what I did with the camera settings. I will use the Registax RGB align function.
If I post a stacked TIF of Saturn or Jupiter from Registax here (no sharpening or colour management) I would love to see what others can do with it, and what the optimal post processing may be.
I don't think I've yet reached the limits of what the 550D DSLR can do yet, in terms of resolution, and I'm willing to push it and the telescope to the limits. The camera is set at prime focus and I haven't yet tried eyepiece projection and don't have a Barlow lens yet.
The camera is great to use. I can visually focus and modify exposures, and can have it set up in a very short amount of time. I don't get alot of 'scope time so at this stage it's the best setup for me.
Cheers,
Tom
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