Moon 26-12-09

[mswhin63 (Malcolm)]

Hi All,

Playing with an older webcam lower resolution but am happy with the images. Wasn't really after the full moon processing but testing methods of processing. Seem to be a good result, seeing was good, focus was not bad either but heat waving was a bit excessive. I believe Registax helped enourmously with the waving as I used multipoint alignment.

For the moon Gaussian wavelet method was far superior than the default.

Feedback welcome, thanks for looking.

[ReaPerMan (Paul)]

Nicely done, I especially like the first pic. I have a thing for Clavius! Thanks for sharing your processing method i might try that on some of my pics. Paul

[mswhin63 (Malcolm)]

Originally Posted by ReaPerMan

Nicely done, I especially like the first pic. I have a thing for Clavius! Thanks for sharing your processing method i might try that on some of my pics. Paul

Clavius does have some appeal, I even used it as my avatar now.

I am not sure if a DLSR will have the same method as a Webcam which I am using. I stack 100 frames to get a single image, I think DSLR may only have 3.5fps whereas I have 30fps. As I don't track or anything I just let the moon cut across the field of view then move the scope to try and another section. Other AVI's i have tried to get enough to cover a whole moon surface then mosaic together.

I think I overprocessed this set too.

Usually my hard drive gets full, I spent about 1 full day restructuring my hard drive to get more imagery done.

I have purchced and waiting for delivery a cheap Dual Core Webcam with up to 160fps. I am hoping for better Jupiter shots without a barlow. I love to experiment.

[ReaPerMan (Paul)]

Hi Malcolm
I'm using a webcam as well so your process relates directly to what I am doing. I have tracking so i don't have to worry about the target racing across the screen and i usually try to capture anywhere from 500 frames or more, reduced down to 200 stacked. What i have been trying to learn is what is the best settings to enhance detail but not alter it significantly thereby keeping the wavelet artifacts out of the picture. After i get my pics i then usually montage them together and post process in CS4. I am at work now (just gone midnight) and will try to get out over the next couple of nights the aim being to capture a whole of moon montage and also to try to put together some nice hi-res pics of a few select areas. My fingers are crossed as i havn't had much luck with the Perth viewing on my days off lately!

[mswhin63 (Malcolm)]

Originally Posted by ReaPerMan

After i get my pics i then usually montage them together and post process in CS4.

I think this is where I differ to your processing, I usually have at least 10000 frames, even on the pictures posted above I had about 5000 frames reduced down to 3000 after VirtuDub. I would stack 100 frames to get one image and I would collect 100 frame every 50 frames (overlapping) If I really want to, I can delete out of focus images leaving me the sharpest. I did this on the third image by looking at one small crater and delete each image that I could not see the centre meteor impact hill in the centre. It took a while so as this was an experiment I stopped after the first 100 frames.
You do have tracking which can give you the edge as you can track on a portion and take few hundered frames then move onto the next portion (less OOF or motion blur frames). You should get more higher quality images then me.

I use IMerge to create a mosaic. I tried to join them using GIMP but there was always the hard work of getting the right light curves between one image to the next. IMerge works it out automatically and left with a smooth transition to the whole moon shot.

Thinking about it now, even though with tracking it may take a bit longer than non tracking. Leaving it to track across a whole surface then pointing to another starting point to start on another track leaves the scope to cover the areas needed without me touching it. Tracking requires a lot of stop start processing. I don't have tracking but this is how I feel it will happen.

I am hoping with a 160FPS webcam that motion blur that I get when non tracking may be gone with such a high speed. But cheap webcam can have deceiving information posted.

Did I mention I love experimenting