JUPITER this morn plus Great Salmon Spot

[Robert_T]

Hi All, thanks to Mike's prompt I took on the challenge to capture Jupiter's GRS this morning. I was a little late for the transit (no daylight saving here), but capture the GRS toward the limb. Seeing was OK, but not great. Captured one moon (not sure which - Io?) too.

Managed a fair amount of detail, but confess getting exposure and colour right for Jupiter this season in the capture is really challenging me for some reason. Last year no probs, Saturn and Mars I'm fine, but I just can't seem to get Jupiter right.

I'm bracketing exposures, but taking quite a few avi's well above 200 on the light meter. Still some problem with "onion" ringing here though far less than last time - earlier avis so sky was darker though by no means black. I'm getting some white burn out which doesn't really fit with under-exposure. For those of you using K3CCD tools - what are you reading on the light meter. What about saturation, gamma, gain and exposure settings? I've tried post processing in Registax with histo stretch on and off, but don't seem to make much difference. Astra Image and deconvolution processing doesn't seem to be having the nice effect it normally does either so it must be something in my underlying avi capture for Jupiter that just isn't right.

Anyway, the couple below are still probably close to my best so can't complain too much. Just want to make sure when the seeing's really up there I've got my capture settings sorted.

Cheers,

[Dennis]

Hi Robert

Wow, those are great images - I was not too far away, at Holland Park West, and gave up as the seeing was abysmal.

My “once-in-five-years” night on 4th Feb has really spoiled me. Last night (this morning) I had burnt out highlights and excessive grain and didn’t even bother saving anything.

Cheers

Dennis

[Robert_T]

Originally Posted by Dennis

Hi Robert

Wow, those are great images - I was not too far away, at Holland Park West, and gave up as the seeing was abysmal.

My “once-in-five-years” night on 4th Feb has really spoiled me. Last night (this morning) I had burnt out highlights and excessive grain and didn’t even bother saving anything.

Cheers

Dennis

Hey Dennis - ta, maybe I was expecting a bit much under less than ideal seeing... your “once-in-five-years” night on 4th Feb has really spoiled me too

[davidpretorius]

dare i say it, try raw colour mode to see if it makes a difference????. I find it very easy to swap between modes??

these are great, ice has some to post as well.

[asimov (John)]

Pretty good Rob. A pity about the onion rings.

[rochler]

You've been posting some really great planetaries, you must love that C9.25 - it seems to give really good quality & sharp definition from everyone who uses it.

I really must give Jupiter a try myself later.

Keep 'em coming folks, I look forward to seeing everybody's efforts, it's really inspiring.

[Robert_T]

Originally Posted by rochler

You've been posting some really great planetaries, you must love that C9.25 - it seems to give really good quality & sharp definition from everyone who uses it.

I really must give Jupiter a try myself later.

Keep 'em coming folks, I look forward to seeing everybody's efforts, it's really inspiring.

Thanks Rochler, yeh the C9.25 is an excellent scope for planetary imaging - Dennis's Jupiter from the 5th showed what it can do when the conditions allow. I'm still partial to my Mewlon 180 too for this sort of thing, but it does lack just that little bit of resolution you can only get with aperture

By all means give Jupiter a try - it's great fun!