17-6-08 Jupiter, Brisbane. Nice seeing (my best yet!!!)
Hey guys...
Been out in the cold running off a few AVI's of Jupiter tonight, and for the first time ever, I managed to capture 4 AVI's without removing the camera from the ep.. just recorded jup as she floated through, then tweaked the Dob's position, recorded it floating through again etc... This allowed me to capture 24 seconds of data without any rotation due to the camera being replaced on a slightly different angle...
Nice work, Alex. Good detail and colour. I saw Jupiter last night.. shining through hte clouds on my way to pick Jacob up from scouts.
It's about the only view i've had in 2 weeks
There is a certain softness that suggests you might get siome improvement either with finer focus and/or more precise collimation... do you collimate before each imaging run?
See what you think, I beleive this brings out a bit more details in the banding and colours? However my effort looks a bit more "artifical" compared to the original.
Just a thought? I hope you dont mind.
I included your original first as a "blink comparitor"
Chris
edit: did it again with -10/+10 on hue/sat and 1.2/1.2 on unsharp - looks nicer?
Firstly I'd like to say well done Alex, you've captured a very nice image, especially considering there's only 24 seconds of data
So well done there.
Now I've hardly done any planetary imaging so please forgive me for asking but when I look at the image it seems to have a green colourcast.
Is it just me or is this the correct colour palette for joop?
I ask because one day I'd like to get back into planetary imaging and I was curious, since I'm only into DSO's atm.
Usually I have a look at images in PS and try some colour correction to see if it makes a difference and on this one it just seems that Alex can improve by doing a simple colour tweak in Curves to adjust the white balance.
I could post a tweaked version if it's ok with Alex.
Anyway I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.
BTW sorry Chris(screwdriverone) your versions look a little too overdone with USM, prefer Alex's originals.
That's OK, no need to apologise, I was fiddling with settings and thought it looked a bit too artificial. You are right, the originals look more natural.
I am just hoping I can get somewhere near Alex's standard in the near future.
Thanks for the comments guys, they are always appreciated.
Robert_T : To answer your question, It could be either causing the problem... its focused electronically, however I only have 6 seconds per attempt to get it right... so it may be that... Collimation... Lets say this, I have not collimated my scope since I bought it (2 months now) for 2 reasons. 1 - I dont have any collimation tools (Cheshire, laser etc) and 2. I have no idea what im doing and fear getting it wrong...
Chris : Heard you got yourself a ToUcam!! Get amongst it mate!! Cant wait to see some prime focus shots from you!
Andrew : Color is the last thing you want to ask me about, Im colorblind in 30 odd percent of the spectrum.. I process my pics to look like other peoples coloring, but to me - it does not look green, not by a long shot. closer to orange in parts I do what I can with the eyes I unfortunately have...
By all means andrew, Post your color tweaked version, Id love to have a look!
Andrew : Color is the last thing you want to ask me about, Im colorblind in 30 odd percent of the spectrum.. I process my pics to look like other peoples coloring, but to me - it does not look green, not by a long shot. closer to orange in parts I do what I can with the eyes I unfortunately have...
By all means andrew, Post your color tweaked version, Id love to have a look!
Cheers Alex, sorry I could get back to you yesterday.
This is what I came up with yesterday when I had a quick go on your original.
Basically opened up 'Curves' and using the 'Black, White and Grey' eyedroppers, just clicked on the parts of the image which corresponded to these shades.
No other adjustments were done.
Seems to have brought out some more detail though, not sure, see what you think.
I do what I can with the eyes I unfortunately have... 
