17th Jan: Saturn, Venus and Mercury this morning

[von Tom (Tom)]

I set the alarm for 4am this morning in the vague hope that maybe, just maybe, it will be clear at that time of the morning for the first time in how long? One look out the window had me setting up the 12" Auto Goto Dobsonian and camera.
First up was Saturn, which I had never seen before with this telescope. The storm has had me quite excited over the last weeks and this was the first chance I had of seeing it.

I took images of Saturn, Venus and Mercury. Mercury was in extremely poor seeing very low.

Attached is a composite of the planets this morning and of Jupiter last night. I didn't think of catching Uranus : (

Thanks for looking!

Cheers,

Tom

[iceman (Mike)]

Excellent work Tom! What camera did you use?

They all have their colour channels misaligned - this can be very easily corrected in Photoshop or some other editing programs that can split into RGB channels.
If you correct this, they'll all look heaps better.

Well done!

[von Tom (Tom)]

Hi Mike - thanks. I used a Canon EOS 550D in movie mode and two 1.4x teleconverters. I am still learning the post processing, as well as what the best capture settings in camera (picture style, white balance, contrasts etc) to use. I'll also need to train my eye for these planets. No doubt I will be revisiting these shots as I learn more.

[iceman (Mike)]

Great work for a DSLR!

Do you have Photoshop? What post-processing do you do now?

[von Tom (Tom)]

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

[Shiraz (Ray)]

Great stuff Tom. Look forward to seeing more images.

[mswhin63 (Malcolm)]

Originally Posted by von Tom

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

Hi Tom, Firstly some nice shots. As Mike has mentioned there is some colour alignment issues.

I have done a lot of planetary capture of Jupiter with my DSLR so I can help.

Firstly have a look at my gallery website you will see a couple of Jupiter shots that have been done with my DSLR.

Actually yesterday I started to re-visit a lot of my Jupiter images because of an issue with my Deep sky colours and have made some improvements as well.

Firstly how fast is Jupiter being copied (Frame Per Second). The ones on my website are at 6-8 FPS. This means that I can only capture about 500 frames before Jupiters super fast rotation starts to blur the image, so 6000 at this speed would show up major issue 1000 will be good no more. If your mode is faster than maximum I would take is is about 3000 for 30FPS.
I have only just found some new software that I hope to use to improvement frame rate but I am on DOB hold for a while.

Colour alignment in Registax in the most case estimate is quite good, I have only just started to use it manually for ever so slight improvements.

One other thing we have in common is I do my planetary image using a DOB, but I do not have ALT/AZ tracking which you have. One of the issues you will have is rotation especially with 6000 frames even at higher FPS. I use an Equatorial Platform which work slightly different so I have no problem with rotation affects.
I believe there is a feature called De-Rotate on the alignment TAB, I do not use it but I suppose it is for your situation, It is designed to rotate the Planet to minimising the effects of ALT/AZ rotation.

What is interesting is that you don't have a Barlow, Your images are quite large for a barlow. I find Drizzling may not be the best way to increase the size. Maybe to start keep it at normal size to start, see what kind of effect that creates.

Just to let you know that I am now having colour alignment issues which I didn't think were a problem even with my images, but as I found out yesterday, I have managed to get some massively sharp improvements, but to the detriment of colour. The reason is my barlow, you though are using tele-extenders this could be causing Chromatic Aberration which I have only recently found it to be one of my problems. The only resolution to this taking 3 sperate images, each one focused on a different colour 1 for Red, 1 for Green and 1 for Blue. With the tele-xenders they could be causing each colour to be out of focus

Honestly there is so much more to say only to say I have been imaging now for about 1 year, and I am still finding things new to learn in my processing. Keep up the good work, getting up at 4am is a chore enough for me.

[anthony.tony]

you hav edone well to capture these shots with a DLRS camera.--Tony

[von Tom (Tom)]

Hi Malcom,

Thanks for your detailed reply, and beautiful Jupiter images in your gallery with great colour. I use the crop video mode of the 550D which uses the central 640x480 pixels of the sensor and records at 50 frames/sec. The maximum I record for is 2 minutes (6000 frames) although 30sec-1 minute is more normal. I don't have the computer connected to the camera at all, I just download the video to disk after.

I would like to work on my optical setup, which would hopefully give a greater image size. I'll look at getting a Barlow which will let me make comparisons with the teleconverters - hopefully I'll be able to stack them all too! There is still much to learn, and the great images posted here are an inspiration.

I'll go looking at colour alignment techniques to improve what I already have.

Cheers,

Tom

[mswhin63 (Malcolm)]

I am considering selling my Barlow for visual users and moving towards a Powermate. These have a better AP spec.

Although one test I want to do is RGB imaging before I get rid of the barlow.

In your Jupiter image I noticed there is a double image, this I believe is causing the colours to look out of place. In registax try the align using centre of gravity. Also pick the best frame out of all of them, then reference that frame before aligning.

Your speed is great, acutally I have found a better way to take video from my camera now and will try it again when I get the platform re-built. Before it was 6 FPS the new method will give me 23FPS which should marked improvment. 50 FPS is massively fast.

I am begining to consider the DSLR in the right imaging device could be better than a webcam. This will take time for me to determin this properly.

Finally, what got me started was the article - http://www.iceinspace.com.au/63-306-0-0-1-0.html which gave me the basic of planetary imaging. You can still use it for DSLR imaging as a reference as you are creating an AVI. One of the best programs for aligning is the PPMCentre which centres all you Jupiter BMP, but you have to convert the MOV to BMP frames another disadvantage though is that Registax can only load 2000 images at a time. The centre of Gravity Align feature in registax is similar though and is a good start.

[von Tom (Tom)]

Thanks Malcom, you've given me alot to think about. I noticed the double images this and other shots and wondered how that was happening. And I did see that article when I first started and now I feel I'm beginning to understand enough to give that process a go - Thanks Mike!

Cheers,
Tom

[Liz]

Great images Tom , and you have captured the Saturn storm!! Did you know that the storm side would be facing you, or was it pot luck?

[von Tom (Tom)]

Hi Liz - absolutely pot luck. This morning I was up and it was not facing us. It's funny - waiting for clouds to clear on this planet just so we can see clouds on another.

[Liz]

Originally Posted by von Tom

Hi Liz - absolutely pot luck. This morning I was up and it was not facing us. It's funny - waiting for clouds to clear on this planet just so we can see clouds on another.

so true!!

[Matt Wastell (Matt)]

Hi Tom
Great collection!
Thanks for sharing your session!