First Jupiter from this morning

[John K]

My first attempt at Jupiter despite really bad seeing conditions this morning, but the image scale is encouraging for better results over the comming months.

Using a 12.5" f/5 with Torus Optics and NexImage web cam, my settings were Gain 40%, Gamma 15%, Brightness 50%, 1/20 exposure and 10 FPS

In all the excitement of my fist imaging session on the giant planet the image was somewhat overprocessed in Wavelets (a bad habit of mine!) before I used AstraImage. Progression as follows:

RAW IMAGE PROCESSED IN REGISTAX AND WAVELETS
http://www-us.flickr.com/photos/johnkazanas/88311063/

THEN PROCESSED IN ASTRAIMAGE USING ME DECOVOLUTION
http://www-us.flickr.com/photos/johnkazanas/88311064/

THEN UNSHARP MASKING
http://www-us.flickr.com/photos/johnkazanas/88311065/

(click on (+) all sizes for the original sizes which are slightly larger)


Comments and advice welcome!

John.

[iceman (Mike)]

Definitely very encouraging John, looking great. Nice image scale!

The ringing effect that you're getting, especially on the 3rd link, is due to underexposure. Try increasing gain, gamma or brightness to bring the levels up while capturing.

If you'd like, I can have a go at processing it if you want to shoot me a CD/DVD with your avi(s) on it?

[acropolite (Phil)]

Good work John, I have been thinking of getting a neximage rather than toucam, the results achievable seem to be identical. Does the Neximage have a raw image output capability??

[iceman (Mike)]

With the firmware patch, yes it does Phil. Same as the ToUcam.

[davidpretorius]

well done John.

i am also having trouble getting the rings away. i have got a few methods to try out next viewing session.

different gammas, gain and also a few aperture masks to see if i can get the setting right

[Robert_T]

heaps of good detail here John, well done

as well as upping gain, gamma, saturation etc, you can run at 1/10th sec exposure at 10fps with good result (or drop to 5fps at this exposure if seeing is really good). I know a lot of the guys are advocating very high gain settings, but 40% that you're using is as high (or higher) as I'd be comfortable with using on the neximage - esp for Jupiter. Grain and focussing become far too problematic unless you can stack a heap of frames (>1000), and with Jupiter as you're limited to ~90sec before rotational effects kick in at 10fps you only have a max 900 frames to start with.

cheers,

[ving (David)]

well done john
expecting big things of juptier and saturn this year!

[h0ughy (David)]

very nice john

[John K]

thanks everyone,

good feedback and info for me to work with.

Jupiter is just an awsome planet and one of the reasons I stayed in touch with astronomy after a few years off. Last time I observed the planet it was hand drawing king of stuff with my 10" Dob (long sold now).

- Mike I will get you a DVD of one of my AVI's - always like the great improvement you make

- Phil still only new to this and have not been following the threads on RAW image capture. What are the benefits? and (Mike?) how do I do this with a NexImage webcam?

[rumples riot]

Nice detail there John, well done. Jupiter is coming and soon I will be imaging every night of the week. Excellent.

[matt]

Firmware patch, Mike?

Anyone got details how this works and how I'd go about installing it?

Why would you choose to shoot it raw?

Thanks

[Robert_T]

Originally Posted by John K

still only new to this and have not been following the threads on RAW image capture. What are the benefits? and (Mike?) how do I do this with a NexImage webcam?

John, follow the link attached to instructions of advanced settings for the Neximage including Raw Mode http://www.celestron.com/neximage/advanced.htm

I tried this for a while, but have gone back to standard mode. You can only run at a max 5fps and the screen only shows B&W which you have to convert to colour before processing in registax. I would have persisted, but I just didn't find the results any better (sometimes worse).

cheers,