Jupiter 5th Feb from tassie - s900nc comparisons

davidpretorius · #1 05-02-2006, 09:50 PM

OK, have finally finished the comparisons in great seeing (8/10) of:

raw mode @ 5fps and other frame rates
10fps & 20 fps comparisons
sharpness (picture quality) on and off

The sharpness control is new to the S900NC software. I do not believe it will be of any use to us imagers as it seems not to have increased effect and also plays a bit of havoc with registax. the quality estimate did not seem to enjoy the enhancements that were being produced by this setting, so i will not be using it anymore

The other feature of the 900nc is the yuy2 codec which increase the amount of data the toucam captures. The 20fps images benefit from the extra frames over the 90 seconds, but the 10fps look sharper to me.

I believe that if the seeing is great, raw mode will be the best betl, then standard 5fps, 10fps and so on, but as the seeing worsens, then flicking over to 900NC emulation and then capturinig at 15 or 20 fps will produce the better results as you will have more frames to choose from for the goodies

Have a look anyway, ask any questions, but at the end of the day I believe it to be a useful tool for imagers using the toucam.

Ok, now off to do some serious processing of those raw videos to see if I can improve them!

asimov (John) · #2 05-02-2006, 10:07 PM

Hi Dave.

nice, VERY nice! my favorites: 5.21 yuy2 & 6.06 raw mode!

Dennis · #3 05-02-2006, 10:12 PM

Mate - I take my hat off to you! What a labour of love; a Herculean effort! Thanks for all the obvious hard work that you have put into this project, and for sharing the results.

Cheers

Dennis

iceman (Mike) · #4 06-02-2006, 06:48 AM

Nice work Dave.. the Sharpening On in the 900nc driver is definitely not the way to go. Any sort of sharpening is throwing away data, something which we definitely do not want.. the whole idea of raw mode and slow frame rates is to preserve as much data as possible during capture.. we can decide during processing what to throw away and what to keep.

The raw mode vs normal 900nc mode is pretty close.. hard to say which is better but there's great detail in both. More experimentation needed I think.

I think 20fps is just too much for the ToUcam, even in 900nc mode.. there's some pretty nasty artifacts showing in those 20fps images.

Great comparison. Thanks for the effort.

I loaded the 900nc drivers/firmware on my ToUcam this morning - will see how it goes next run.

davidpretorius · #5 06-02-2006, 08:04 AM

yes 10fps and maybe 15fps, and if you need to go to 5fps, then you can always go raw mode

Robert_T · #6 06-02-2006, 02:28 PM

Many Thanks for this DP, saves the rest of us a lot of time. I'm still to be convinced of the value of raw mode even in good seeing over standard 5fps or even 10fps. It should be better, but I just haven't seen it... certainly not enough difference from my little experience to warrant all the extra fussing about with raw.

what you reckon?

cheers,

ving (David) · #7 06-02-2006, 02:31 PM

dave, you are a little work-a-holic!!
so much put into that! its great!!!

davidpretorius · #8 06-02-2006, 03:34 PM

rob,

In theory it should be better and I believe that 6:06 is the best image and for only 300 odd frames, offers the best method of capturing if the seeing is great. Even when there is a time limit ie jupiters rotation hence 90seconds tops!

It is not a huge difference as the 5:21 at 10fps is still a fine image, but where i can, i want the best at my finger tips. I would say if you look really closely at the bands, i would say 5% better.

In all honesty, there is no hassle. the program wrmac sits on the desktop. I plug in the toucam, line up guide scope, focus and then review the quality of the "seeing" on screen. If it is looking good, within 30 seconds, i have switched to raw mode and adjusted gamma / saturation / exposure and gain. If i want to, i switch back.

To me that 30 seconds is nothing, I spend more time aligning the finder and star testing and keeping the mirror temp cooler.

So if 30 seconds to switch to raw mode to capture an avi and then 30 seconds to convert the avi to normal avi means that i can get an increase in quality from 6:06 compared to 5:21, then it is well worth it!

The only planet I have not got this raw mode working for is saturn, I may need to try an IR/UV filter?