Have a load of captured images to process and first of the cuff is a bit of an attempt at Neptune. Damn this was hard to get and hard to process as well.
My webcam Mogg Adaptor is being modified so all my images for today are using the DSLR on live view capture with APT software.
The CMOS sensor produces a lot of noise so there maybe some atifacts in the image.
Registax was only able to align 60 frames before it lost it, while AVIStack was able to lock onto nearly all the image 2000 frames in all.
I may play around with the frames a but more but feel it will be the best I can get.
BTW image is supersized about 300% at 200 DPI a lot bigger than the final image.
EDIT: Slight error image is 600% larger than captured.
Your right about neptune being difficult, I can't even see it in the viewfinder and a tiny devil too. Right colour but a bit too big, good going for a lonely planet.
Thanks all for the comments, I used Worldwide telescope to locate Neptune, then looked for close stars to Neptune then it was an estimate to bring the scope into alignment. I was unable to locate it in my finder scope too.
The size was a mistake, I increased the picture 300% after already increasing it 200%. Plus the 500% increase using the x5 feature on live view.
It really was a fluke, when I looked at the computer screen I had to really search for it buried amongst the CMOS noise. Once I found it, big sigh of relief and managed to capture a few thousand images.
I am hoping the CCD cam will be better when I get the mogg adaptor back again, I think though the ccd will be more difficult to locate object though.
Hi Malcolm
Good going on a really difficult target.
Re Registax problem, if using the latest version, have you tried a low pass prefilter (blur) to reduce the effects of noise while aligning? Not sure how it would go on such a small object, but maybe worth a try. Also may just possibly be worth trying drizzle stacking to extract the best possible resolution - if you can get it to align properly that is.
Good find, thanks, although there is so much more noise in the frames it is difficult to know whether is is clouds or noise. The only think I suppose is that the noise is RGB not white.
Wasn't really looking for that. I may re-process a different way to see if it turns out the same.
I may also re-image once I get my webcam adaptor back.
Nice shot. If I look closely, I can see 2 low-contrast white spots, could you have captured clouds here?
I've circled the location of the spots in the image below:
I have re-processed without so much level, The original was done using Registax but the re-process one uses AVIStack. AVIStack shows reversed to Registax too, not really going to align them.
I used AVIStack before and saw 3 white spots, I changed the processing and noticed the 3 white spots still there.
There is still a lot of noise in the frames so I not going to definatively say I got some clouds. There is also a bit of black in it as well.
Total stacked in this 590 frames. First one processed on 11/10/2010, second re-processed 14/10/2010.
I think this is worth chasing up further, as Neptune is known to have high level white clouds in its atmosphere - as seen in Voyager images, there is a significant chance you may have seen these atmospheric features.... if so, a truly remarkable effort.
I also looked at your Uranus shot, and it shows no detail on the planet, so there is a fair chance that these are not camera artifacts. If they were, then your Uranus shot would likely show similar markings. The positioning of these spots and orientation looks consistant with how cloud patterns should look with Neptune's current aspect with its south pole tilting toward Earth, which is currently 27°.
Ok I had a look at a hubble animation and the clouds do look quite white. Click here .
I have about 3000 frames and will consider looking at each frame to reject any that may produce poor data then re-process it. Gonna be a long job
I think you may have captured clouds here, if so a truly stunning effort, I hope someone will chip in and verify this. This has to be examined in greater detail.
Just to let yo uknow that I have re-processed the images to see if there is any contrast or the same contrast. I had reservation due to the amount of noise in the frames and my suspisions are right. Tried 4 different processes all of which came up with in most different results. Only slight though but enough to show specific detail.
Nice blue planet is about all ATM. Hope to try again another time lets hope for better results.
I hate to be a downer but you'd really need exceptional conditions and an exceptionally long focal length (10-14m or more) to capture any kind of detail on Neptune - and even then it's unlikely.
It's a great image, especially with a DSLR. But when it's upsized the amount it is, it's extremely unlikely that you can trust any changes in colour on something that literally would've been a few pixels across when captured.
I always thought it was not relaible but had to give it a go.
Scope DOB F5 - 1500mm, 3x Barlow and 5x zoom on Live view altogether theorically 22.5m
There is no quality or exposure degredation using 5x zoom does not alter the lieview/sensor performance only 10x does but can't image with 10x anyway.
I had exposure levels to maximum couldn't push any more out of it. CMOS noise is quite high though which is why the structure of the image is not reliable.
I tried my webcam recently, not a chance. I am going to pull out my low light camera and give it a go. Plenty of time for Neptune though but may need filters for colour but in the meantime with the low light camera will start with mono.
I will still be running a series of new tests with APT software update recently, as I purchased mine and there is a couple of new features that might help.
