I'm an idiot

[davidpretorius]

All the usuals, scope out early, fridge packs on the mirror cell, fan sucking away.

The night looked better than a few nights ago so maybe 6 or 7 /10.

I have been having horrendous problems reinstalling windows xp and norton anti virus and visual studio and office and all the astronomy software and all the data. Anyway after 12 attempts and 4 days later, we were back with a nice clean install. So installed my toucam and qfocus and iris, and went out to play at 3.30am.

Gee the sky was nice.

So take some video 6 in all, saturn in varying gain settings and a couple of jupiter, gee the image is hardly moving, and the cassini division is better than a few nights ago.

Anyway, mirror starts to dew up and i trot inside full of happiness that i have some great data to play with.

Pre processing.............hmmmmm gee the files aren't big, usually they are up around 1gb for 2400 odd frames......hmmmmmm did i change over the default 320 x 200 to 640 x 480.......................aaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggg ggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh


No i had not. I had on system reinstall 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,19 & 11, but not 12.

Bugger it, go through the motions and process and see what comes out.......

So, moral of the story, check everything DAVO!

You ****** idiot!

[davidpretorius]

at least the processing time is quick!!!!

here are the 25% gain of jupiter 1700 frames

[davidpretorius]

75% gain at 15 fps and 2500 ood images, i think the toucam jumped by itself back to 1/33?? not sure

[iceman (Mike)]

Looks great Dave.. the first one is a bit overexposed in the centre, but the second one looks nice (a little blue, perhaps).

You're cranking out great images now!

[acropolite (Phil)]

Images are improving Dave, last night was the first decent night for months, good results; you've come a long way from your first attempts.

[Dennis]

Okay Dave, I'll fess up too!

How about this - I forgot to remove the Celestron f6.3 focal reducer prior to plugging in the TeleVue x2.5 PowerMate and couldn't figure out why Saturn looked so small on the Notebook screen. I spent a frustrating 10 mins hunting down every setting I could in K3CCDTools and the Philips software to see what I had done wrong before I checked the imaging train.......Talk about push-pull!

There, I feel better now.

Cheers

Dennis

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

Dave, what's the usual length of time you take to capture each avi of Jupiter? Are you aware that over about 90 sec the rotation of Jupiter starts to come in to play as a factor in reducing your ability to bring out sharp detail.

[ving (David)]

great pics dave

not what i thought your story was leading to tho. I thought you were going to say you left the dust cap on

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

I thought it was going to be a poll ving


Dave, what do you mean when you say you had your laptop set on "reinstall 1, 2,.....etc"

[Dennis]

Originally Posted by [1ponders]

I thought it was going to be a poll ving


Dave, what do you mean when you say you had your laptop set on "reinstall 1, 2,.....etc"

Just guessing here Paul, but I took it to mean how many times he has re-installed his OS and apps...looks like Dave does it each Lunation

[Miaplacidus (Brian)]

Never mind, Dave, you got some great images all the same. (The dumbest thing I ever did was make myself a Gravox cake. Mistook it for cocoa!)

Cheers,

Brian.

[RAJAH235]

Mmmmmm, roast chicken & gravox cake..... What a dish. L.
ps. I also have left the 'cap on'! After 1/2 hr of drift align too.

[beren]

Nice images there Dav some nights are interesting in the last week ive left the dust cap on my 80mm scope while imaging and getting nothing on the screen and as usal it was the last thing i checked

[asimov (John)]

Very nice! "as you sail into the sunset on your motorized dob, spare a thought for asi & his refractor bobbing up & down in your wake yelling, wait...wait for meeee!!!" You have surpassed me with your setup & skills...about time!

[davidpretorius]

Originally Posted by asimov

Very nice! "as you sail into the sunset on your motorized dob, spare a thought for asi & his refractor bobbing up & down in your wake yelling, wait...wait for meeee!!!" You have surpassed me with your setup & skills...about time!

i wouldn't say that, i believe your kodak jupiter is still better!

big blue is also still to make an appearance.

skills, computer yes, but experience and those "gut feel" skills ie focus, seeing etc---> no ways man!!!

Sometimes I believe that eventually, we will all have peltier cooled scopes, auto processing and it will be who has the best seeing conditions on the night, but I think that at the end if the day, like mozart, you need to live it and breathe it, not just follow the recipe. The images will show this in the end!

Anyway, there is no rushing ahead from anyone that belongs to this excellent forum, when someone cracks a beauty, we all learn from it, which means we all move forward together!!!

[ballaratdragons (Ken)]

Even with my crummy pics so far, I'm having a ball! And that's all that matters!!!!

[asimov (John)]

Oh ok...I'll just crack a beauty shortly & you can all come along for the ride then!

[danielsun]

Nice pics Dave!!Cant wait to see your motorised dob set up at Snake Valley!!
i,ve been taking pics with my new 350d but i think tracking is a must for me!!!!

[davidpretorius]

thanks daniel, yes, i want to have a look at one of these 350d in the flesh. you can whack it on my scope at prime focus and see how she goes!!!

[danielsun]

Thanks Dave that would be great!!!! It takes great pics without tracking but as you know exposures have to be kept fairly short. with tracking i think the results will be fantastic!!!!