Please Help - My First Ever Images (Jupiter)

[gavcol (G)]

Attached are my first ever images of anything let alone Jupiter. Was a little worried about sharing them after seeing many of the fine images on here.

Especially the recent ones of Jupiter taken by other people this month. Makes me feel a little inadequate (although my wife reminds me that wouldn't be the first time )!

So I took these images on the 20 JAN 13 in the light polluted skies of suburban Adelaide, whilst the sky was clear the seeing was average. It was a bit windy which didn't help and there appeared to be significant turbulence in the atmosphere.

The setup was:

SW ED80 (Pro Gold Edition)
Cheap 2x Meade Telenegative Barlow (Shorty)
Philips SPC900NC WebCam
Orion Skyview Pro Mount

I captured one of the images through wxAstro Capture and the other through Philips VLounge which came with the webcam. Didn't really know what I was doing with the settings just played with them.

wx Astro Capture avi was 295mb in length and 1 minute and 16 secs long.
VLounge avi was 442mb and around 1 minute and 15 secs in duration.

I then used Registax 5.1 to stack and play with the layering, once again didn't have a clue what I was doing just fiddle with the controls. I have not used any photo imaging software such as Photoshop or GIMP to alter them (as once again I wouldn't know where to start). So what you see is straight from Registax.

I was kinda proud of them until I started looking at everyone elses!

I am looking for some constructive advice on capture and registax settings. Also what to do in Photoshop or the like.

Please be gentle!

Thanks for any help - Gavin

[Larryp (Laurie)]

You should be proud, Gavin! Theres a lot of detail in your images.

[Mark_Heli (Mark)]

Hi Gavin,

These are excellent pictures which show nice details on the surface including the GRS, bands and barges.

In terms of post-processing, my only recommendation is that you could adjust the red level slightly to get a more natural colour balance - on my screen, there is a slight red tinge across the image.

In GIMP, this can be done easily using levels (Colour Menu -> Levels). Then under channel, select 'Red' and adjust the output slider. Attached picture as an example.

Cheers,
Mark

[rcheshire (Rowland)]

After your description Gavin, I was expecting a couple of blurry dots. But, save a little colour adjustment they're very good. All astro images need a bit of a touch up.

Depending on your GIMP installation, Fx-foundary on the top menu bar has a nice set of sharpen algorithms. The luminosity sharpen is a good choice.

There are also some enhancement tools accessible from the top menu bar that do a good subtle job of enhancing detail.

Default settings usually work quite well.

[Poita (Peter)]

Fantastic result from an ED80 and a webcam. Great detail.

Download Autostakkert (AS!2) and give that a go:
http://www.autostakkert.com/wp/download/

Also, if you software supports it, view the histograms in your capture software before capturing, and adjust the RGB histograms until they are all roughly equal, it will save you some time in post processing if you can get the colour balance adjusted before you capture.

Really though, these images are great. Go a bit longer, up to 2 minutes for each capture, a bit of deconvolution or wavelet work, and a colour tweak and they will look fantastic.

[Scorpius51 (John)]

I agree! There is some very good detail in those images. The colour needs some attention, and you can increase the image scale. Don't de-value what you have there, it's a very good start.

Cheers
John

[gavcol (G)]

Hi All

Thanks to everyone who has commented with advice and the kind words (kind words unexpected!).

Mark - Thanks for your advice and I love how natural you made the image look with such a simple technique. It certainly made it obvious how important this step (i.e. GIMP or Photoshop) is in post processing and I will definitely putting into my processing regime from now on.

Peter - Thanks for the tip on using Autostakkert, I will download it and have a look. I like the advice on aligning histogram during capture and I could see how this would assist in reducing post processing time etc. I will definitely look at doing longer imaging sequences for the next lot. Not sure what you mean by deconvolution work though?

John - I did try to increase the image scale but it made the image really horrible and blurry/grainy/block like. Any further tips on this without reducing the image quality too much?

But thanks to you all (Laurie, Mark, Rowland, Peter & John) for the encouragement you have given me!

I think I know where I went wrong and why I was so critical (de-valuing) my images. I was trying to compare apples with oranges!!

Alot of the images that I looked at on the IIS website which make mine pale in comparison have been done with much larger apetures or better optics (i.e. 127mm APO's or 12" SCT's etc).

But you know what this means. I need to get a bigger telescope!!!!

Can't wait to get out there again, just need the time!

Thanks again

Gavin

[gavcol (G)]

Hi Again

Well here is my second attempt ever at imaging!

I managed to get a couple of hours outside last evening, I can't help it now I am addicted!

Well most of the time was spent playing around with a couple of telescopes I borrowed. The SW 10" Newt was my first attempt but I could not get it to focus (either with webcam or eyepiece) for the life of me. This meant I had to pull it all down off the mount in the dark which was something I was not planning . Does this sound like a collimation issue? The focuser seemed very short and did not have a lot of backward focus. Any advice?

I then managed to get the SW 6" Achro on the mount and had a little more luck. The stock focuser on this scope was very stiff and difficult to focus, nowhere near as pleasant as the SW ED80 stock focuser.

So by the time I managed to get the scopes sorted out I only managed to get a couple of avi's of a minute or two, first sequence was only 633mb and the other 809mb. So not very large captures at all. I had big problems keeping the Giant in the FOV as it kept drifting across the screen in about 10 seconds or less. This meant I had to to keep pausing the capture and then realign and re-start. This impacted Registax capacity to keep the planet in the alignment box and I think this resulted in many frames not being used by Registax in the final image. But not sure if this is how it works! Any advice or further information?

Well I have only been able to work on the 633mb capture so far and I have attached a copy of my first images from it. Quality of the detail seems a little less than the ED80 but overall not bad for an Achro I feel. I just can't seem to get the natural colour that is associated with Jupiter. But this may also be a result of the Orion V Block filter I was using! Any advice?

The images attached are as follows: the yellow looking Jupiter is straight from Registax with no real colour alteration the second cropped image is after playing with it a little in MS Photo Editor/Manager. I tried to use GIMP several times but I can't get it to load at all on my Win 7 laptop.

To be honest still a little disappointed, I long for images of the quality seen in many of the images on this website. Am I kidding myself by thinking I can get these results with the setup I have (i.e. refractor 3 - 6" with an SPC900NC webcam). Or is it going to come down to some real investment of money (i.e. 12" SCT and a DMK etc)?

I still have a couple of unanswered questions on my last entry if someone is able to advise on them as well please.

Setup Used:

SW 150 Achro Telescope
Philips SPC900NC Webcam
Orion V Block Filter (for Achro CA reduction etc)
Cheap 2x Meade Telenegative Barlow
Cheap Meade Diagnol (Do I really need this for imaging?????)

Thanks for looking

Gavin

[big_dav_2001 (Davin)]

Wow, great images there Gavin, and a great improvement on the first ones (and even they were great for a first attempt)... Far better than anything I've turned out yet, and I've got a 12" dob with a DBK618. Goes to show, good gear doesn't necessarily mean good pics. I'm mainly a visual observer, but on the odd occasion I do give some pics a try, I still struggle to turn out anything as good as your second ones...

Needless to say, Im in no position to offer advice, just praise... Well done, keep em coming

Cheers
Davin (with a D )

[Poita (Peter)]

One of the $200 ZWO cameras would certainly improve things, as would an 8" scope, but persist until you solve your processing questions.

These images are way better than a lot of people's first images from far more expensive equipment.

What software do you use to capture, can you view histograms before capturing to set the RGB levels? You need to get them a bit more balanced and possibly set more towards over-exposure, the images are a little dark.

But take heart, planetary is a difficult business and you are doing better than a lot of people do a year in with better gear.

[Poita (Peter)]

For example, this is doing nothing other than adjusting the histograms to be equal. It is closer to the salmony colours that are in most images.
You would be much better off doing this as much as possible whilst capturing though.


I think the main problem is just underexposure during capture though, the attached image is yours overexposed and with the histograms equalised.
If you can balance the histograms before capture and up the exposure a bit, they will look a lot better than this.

[Poita (Peter)]

Oh, and remove the diagonal for imaging, it will only degrade things.

[Sebbie (Sebastian)]

Hi Gavin, focusing is another critical consideration when imaging at high F ratios. I am using Bathinov mask with my SCT which helps a lot. Try to double effective magnification and increase camera exposure setting next time.

[gavcol (G)]

Thanks for the replies everyone and your supporting comments, they are really appreciated.

I think I will have to get me one of those ASI cameras, just looked at Eric's recent images and they look amazing!

Will take everybody's points on and will try them out on my next imaging run.

Cheers

Gavin