M42

asimov (John) · #1 12-10-2005, 10:27 AM

Well, finally I got something almost worth showing. lol!

It's not easy squeezing shots outa this camera! Great fun even though it takes 4 hrs to process 1- 2 min AVI into 1 pic!

I'm learning heaps here, won't be long before I upgrade to a toUcam or something..

ving (David) · #2 12-10-2005, 11:09 AM

who needs a toucam, thats what i say!!!

good one

Itchy · #3 12-10-2005, 11:21 AM

oohh looks interesting.

I'd like to see it a little larger though.

Cheers

davidpretorius · #4 12-10-2005, 11:42 AM

woo hoo!

asicam!!!!

i played with the raw colour mods last night for longer exposures ie 1, 2, 5, 10 seconds. it really tightened the stars up! i was very impressed. still too hard to get any decent image without tracking. Your 12.5" with tracking and the raw colour mod / long exp mod for the toucam would work a treat!

ballaratdragons (Ken) · #5 12-10-2005, 12:45 PM

John, you will have to buy up all the Kodaks and sell them re-labelled as TouDak's.

That is amazing.

atalas · #6 12-10-2005, 02:06 PM

Looks Interesting john, two minute avi , is this the same as a two minute exposure ?

Louie

ving (David) · #7 12-10-2005, 02:21 PM

not really louie... a 2 min exposure is a single shot. a avi is a stream of really short shots that have to be stacked...

i think

davidpretorius · #8 12-10-2005, 02:35 PM

i think asimovs camera has a 4 sec exposure time option, but what he has produced here is 60+ secs of video and he has stacked them, i think

atalas · #9 12-10-2005, 03:55 PM

Oh so how many stacked would he need to get the fainter parts of the nebula ? or is this
out of reach of those cameras ?

Cheers

Louie

davidpretorius · #10 12-10-2005, 04:03 PM

i have the modified toucam and will be able answer that after star camp.

I can get the same amount of features as asimov has got in a say a single 1 second or 2 second long exposure with a toucam

i need the tracking to be able to test how well the long exposure goes with a toucam versus 1000's and thousands of 1/25 sec exposures stacked.

all will be tested with a solid tracking scope at snake valley!

my honest opinion, i do not think that you could stack enough 1/25 sec exposures from a video to get the images we are used to with orion. An orion is the brightest!!

atalas · #11 12-10-2005, 04:09 PM

It will be interesting to see the results Davo , this will be a bit like Mith Busters !

Louie

davidpretorius · #12 12-10-2005, 04:37 PM

yup, me and ken breaking scopes at star camp!!!

now who will be buster?

Question:

The mod for long exposure for a toucam is $140. Where do you draw the line at inconvenience. Just say i find out that you can image orion without the long exposure, but you have to leave the scope tracking for 2 to 3 hours and then stack that? (big file!!!) As opposed to spending $140 and getting 24 x 15 minute exposures?

Where will guys draw the line and spend the $140 for the exposure mod on a toucam???

asimov (John) · #13 12-10-2005, 07:22 PM

Hi guys!

I had a problem with processing this image: I took 2 mins of AVI & processed. (6" achro) @ 15 frames per second. The result was totally CR....ummy! deleted it (3 hrs down the drain).

Went back out, took 63 still shots each at 2 secs. My cameras default mode is jpg = grain: batched to BMP & resized to 400x300 in bink & smacker.......bink & smacker then ran out of memory at shot 38 doing the conversion. ( I have since learnt irfanview does a far better job at this)

So the end result is 38 stacked shots @ 2 secs apiece = 76 seconds exposure time.

I need a couple of hundred of 2 second images stacked to get a 'better' result. I can take 1 frame every 12 seconds. (not including the 2 secs to take the frame) Do the math lol.

I also took a darkframe, now I just have to fiqure out how to use it!

Kodak easyshare in AVI mode for DSOs = not possible. Good for planets, open bright clusters & bright globs. Max still exposure time is 4 secs = too much noise. Thats why I dropped backed to 2 secs. It's just a matter of working out the limits of ones gear, & working out how to get the best outa the gear your using..Experimentation & analysis is the mother of kodak owners!!

Interesting stuff.

( I have 200 kodak easyshare's on sale if anyones interested!

)

asimov (John) · #14 12-10-2005, 07:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by davidpretorius

Where will guys draw the line and spend the $140 for the exposure mod on a toucam???

When I've wrung the neck of this terrestrial snap-shot camera & squeezed every last bit of life out of it!!

Oh....that's right, I have to buy the toucam & lappy before I can do the mod on it!!