Saturn

[Nino (John Peacock)]

Just can't quite get any more detail out of it.

[sil (Steve)]

Great start though! Planets drove me nuts when I was capturing them. I found it help to err on the side of underexposure (with stacking you can do plenty to bring up exposure later) by upping the capture frame rate. Jupiter and Saturn have details and rotate fast so you only have a few minutes in which to capture for detail before their rotation will blur your results. Using a region of interest to save pixels can help here too. The faster frame rate means more images to work from, good and bad depending on conditions. Then I would run the capture through PIPP and pare it down to the best quality frames and centre the object. From here i dump into Registax and since I centered the PIPP output I don't need to align, I go through and stack then I run re-align using stacked and stack again, no need to limit frames unless I want to try (since I started by keeping best frames only from PIPP anyway). Then I save the fits file and go on to wavelet processing etc. Sometimes I take from PIPP into PixInsight instead but Registax is quick and easy and the results I can get are often as good as PixInsight.

Buying more gear won't improve atmospheric conditions which are the biggest problem with planetary imaging. But capturing faster frame rates means more good frames to work from when conditions calm. Also cool down your scope first, If possible don't shoot through the air above a town or major road as rising air currents will effect seeing, if you have no choice try to shoot as late as possible or after midnight when vehicle traffic is low (therefore less air disturbance).

Also look for when the planets are at their closest to earth too. Anything you can do to maximise the chances of capturing good frames can pay off later in your processing.

[Nino (John Peacock)]

Thanks for the advice Sil, I used my old meade LPI and a 10inch LX200 for the photo. I have a Orion 5mp star shoot that I have only just recently purchased and I'm not sure on how to go about processing the video I have taken with it. Time to read more and learn. Cheers John

[sil (Steve)]

Try using FireCapture if you haven't already. I found it handy. Also if you're still learning try to at least keep your source files you capture, when you figure out processing you will want them to reprocess.

I assume you haven't done any wavelets on your image above, you're going to freak when you finally see how much you can reveal from the same footage

Don't worry too much if the planet is all "swimmy" in your video preview or if the planet looks under exposed. The processing uses tons of frames and you can end up over exposing, single frames being under exposed isn't a problem, and seems to allow more detail to be revealed.

When I first started webcam capture I was disappointed until I played with wavelets then suddenly my dull muddy jupiter popped out bright and crisp with banding and the great red spot clearly visible. It was a great rush of excitement and i kicked myself for deleting what I'd thought was bad footage. Getting a workflow that would give me an image and writing it down so i didnt forget gave me a repeatable process I could then get better understanding on and start improving each step. Keep at it!