What a night. 10:30 til 4:30. That's about the time Jupiter finally clears the trees now.
While I may be getting the hang of Saturn, I think Jupiters going to be a bit more of a challenge to get all the detail out. Only managed to get one avi in (fuse blew in the 12v powerlead to the meade ) but it turned out ok. Can't wait til it gets higher. If you look closely you may just be able to make out a moon shadow right on the edge of the left (east/west? who knows) limb. I tried a number of different processing techniques. These are probably three of the best.
Again comments, suggestions and advice welcome.
Last edited by [1ponders]; 20-01-2005 at 06:52 PM.
They're great Paul, excellent job! The first one looks best for mine, the colour is more natural. The second looks a bit overprocessed and overexposed in the EQ band.
And yep, the blue area in the middle, I've seen referred to as "the blue barge", whatever the hell that is.. Bird might know
I captured it one of my images last week too (here).
Paul, the third one is my favourite, and you definitely got some of the cloud features there and a moon shadow.
As for how these things get their names, you'll have to search the net for that - I'm just using terms that I've seen around the place. These cloud features are all transient, so they get names like "festoons" and "barges".
I *think* the term barge refers to a large (usually blue) feature that slowly sails around the equatorial belt. In the image here you'd probably call the elongated blue cloud a festoon instead.
Good stuff, clean capture but with a little grain, maybe turn down the gain a little on your next capture, much better than my best this year and now I am envious as we have had cloud cover here for 4 days.
I like the moon shadow also, keep up the good work.
Paul, I think number three looks grainy as it a resize of an image I mucked around with in sigma clipping in reg 3.
At this stage there's one thing I've found different between processing Jupiter compaired to Saturn. I really ramped up the wavelet settings. Normally I only use the first 3 sliders at the most, 1st - 20ish, 2nd - 7ish 3rd - 4ish, but with Jupiter I used them all and way high levels on the first 3 sliders. I was awsome seeing the detail just pop out.
Ice did you do your capture and process in K3ccd tools or the standard ToUcam capture prog and process in Registax? I fyou still have the avis, try really ramping up the wavelets.
Paul can you send me a single frame, so that I know what to look for when shooting? I always have trouble with the focus and hopefully once I have this thing collimated it will focus a lot better.
I focused first on Regulus using my modified hartman mask, then locked the mirror, fine focused using the microfocuser, then swung over to jupiter without changing focus settings.
I have to take the ToUcam out and use a 15mm eyepiecs that is not quite parfocalled to find and center jupiter.
Good luck
Last edited by [1ponders]; 21-01-2005 at 03:53 PM.
Things might be a little different next week Gary when I have to go back to work. No more 4:30 morning for me for a while. Fortunately Jupiter will start to appear at a more respectable time soon