Jupiter - First Image DBK21

[desdrl (Des)]

My first image taken on 5-10-2010 with my new DKB 21 CCD camera and my second astro image ever (first was a moon image).

Taken from my postage stamp size backyard in inner city Sydney, I'm ony about 4.5 Km from the city centre so VERY light poluted skies and a street light about 3 metres away in the laneway that shines straight into my yard, no such thing as night vision here, thanks City of Sydney Council! only street light in the laneway !

Equipment: Meade LS6ACF, TeleVue 2x Barlow, DBK21 CCD w/UV/IR filter fitted, 1,038 frame AVI stacked Registax 5.1 and a bit of tinkering in Photoscape (freeware).

Still trying to get to grips with Registax, main problem is trying to understand the lingo . If you have any suggestions much appreciated.

[mswhin63 (Malcolm)]

Hi Des,

Nice image, great colour from the camera may need a bit of balance, It will take time. What I usually do with Registax is learn 1 option in 1 tab section with one pass and see if there is any difference or improvements. It may mean loads of passes for 1 planet.

With Registax the most important start is to select the best frame. There is a slider at the bottom. I move it quickly to see like a high speed movie to see any improvements back and forth slowing down untill I find the best detail overall.

I have reduce using registax Registax for aligning and stacking but I still use it for colour balance and alignment. I use AVIStack now and occasionally compare result with Registax.

It will take some time but your are far superior to my first attempts.

Light Polution wont do much to planetary with the exception of a small stray light altering colour, The other is making sure you have good focus and good atmospherics (That the tricky one).

Keep it up.

[DRCORTEX (Lance)]

Thats a nice pic.

cheers
Doc

[michaellxv (Michael)]

Well done Des, that's a very good first image.

[asimov (John)]

Good start Des. Is it the USB or firewire version? The DBK takes a little while to come to grips with, but it's one great camera once you do.

Don't be too concerned about light pollution with moon & planet imaging. It's more about transparency, seeing conditions & scope cool down more than anything.

I've had my best success re: the DBK by using it at 30FPS using the YUY2 + unspecified codec however if you want a smaller file size you can use Y800 +Y800 & debayer in Registax after the fact.

For colour balance, try previewing Jupiter using YUY2/unspecified, open up your histogram tab in RGB mode/linear/, (making sure exposure is at 1/30th & frame rate of 30) Leave gamma at default (100) adjust gain so the histogram shows just below 250 value on all 3, & then tweek your red or blue white balance sliders to obtain identical values according to the histogram. You'll find the green non adjustable for all practical reasons, but the red & blue need to be the same to get a good colour balance. Retweek your histogram to just below 250, making sure you have no highlight burnouts in the central region of Jupiter.

Are you using IC capture? If so, watch out for version 2.0 it'll cause you grief...Version 2.1 is a lot better.

Cheers.

[Scorpius51 (John)]

Not bad Des! It's heaps better than my first image of Jupiter. Well done.

Cheers
John

[desdrl (Des)]

Thanks for the compliments and advice guys, ASIMOV it's the USB version, I'll try some of your suggestions in Registax and to get out again once the weather clears, since I took the image there has not been one clear night here in Sydney I am using IC Capture, I need to check the version.

[asimov (John)]

Originally Posted by desdrl

Thanks for the compliments and advice guys, ASIMOV it's the USB version, I'll try some of your suggestions in Registax and to get out again once the weather clears, since I took the image there has not been one clear night here in Sydney I am using IC Capture, I need to check the version.

It's about the same kind of weather here in Bundy, & it's driving me crazy! I need an imaging fix twice weekly to maintain sanity

[desdrl (Des)]

Finally got a clear night be it a bit windy , tried some capturing but the images did not come out well at all, out of 6 captures only one half decent is the attached moon pic, ah well tonight looks like it going to be great

I want to put this out there as I don't know whats going on, Ive only been out with the DBK21 twice since I got it and this has happened both times, when I do the first capture the AVI is colour but all other captures after that are black and white I have not changed any settings from the first capture so don't know why?

I'm using IC Capture 2.1

Anyone got any ideas.

Cheers