Nice detail in the clouds over the volcanoes. I managed to get something as well last night but am still in the throes of processing them. I would have stayed up all night processing the Mars and Saturn data except that I had work to go to this morning!!
Really lovely work as usual John.
Any chance of a rough overview of your Mars processing regime? I do okay with the other planets, but fine detail on Mars always eludes me, I'd like to know if it is my capture or my processing that I need to improve.
Really lovely work as usual John.
Any chance of a rough overview of your Mars processing regime? I do okay with the other planets, but fine detail on Mars always eludes me, I'd like to know if it is my capture or my processing that I need to improve.
Thanks Peter. At capture time, I'll preview a lot at different scales until I think it's about right for the seeing. In most cases it's usually safe enough to capture @ F30 minimum with the F10 11" SCT. Lately, I've been getting jetstream interaction but it's been fairly mild, as well as usual mid level disturbance but combine those 2 & you get what I'd call 'average' seeing. It's therefore manditory for me to jump to 60FPS & fast exposure to try to freeze this seeing. The trade off there is you have to really stick the gain to it to get a nice histogram fill, & so that's where as many frames as possible are paramount. I'll capture for 5.5 mins but stack on average 20-25% of these.
Nothing special re: processing. Stacked in AS!2 > Waveletts added in Registax > little bit of playing around in Paint.net. I don't use any deconvolution these days. That went out the window 4 years ago with me. In essence, most of it happens at capture time. I figure I only have one chance to get it right in this respect on every AVI so I like to get that part of the sequence as near to perfect as I can.
Oh, I must mention collimation here. I spend a lot of time doing this lately. The C11 has held wonderfully the last few years but lately every time I look, it's been out a tad, so I suspect something going on/wrong in the secondary holder somewhere..
Anyway the point is, that MUST be on the money before any fine features can hope to be captured, especially in less than nice seeing. I always collimate on the nearest brightest star closest to my target. I always use the camera to collimate with, at my image scale I'm going to be working the target at.
Oh, I must mention collimation here. I spend a lot of time doing this lately. The C11 has held wonderfully the last few years but lately every time I look, it's been out a tad, so I suspect something going on/wrong in the secondary holder somewhere..
Anyway the point is, that MUST be on the money before any fine features can hope to be captured, especially in less than nice seeing. I always collimate on the nearest brightest star closest to my target. I always use the camera to collimate with, at my image scale I'm going to be working the target at.
WOW - i like the results.
would one defocus and use the rings with something like ALs Collimation Aid? I suspect that my collimation could be out - i often wondered if the front corrector slops or moves when the scope slews around? it was cleaned and redone be a optical slave in Bintel and then collimated once i got it. i noticed a little spacer thingy had fallen out in transit
Thanks for the info.
I really really noticed the difference between well collimated and really well collimated in my own images. Even a slight bit out and the detail goes out the window. The C9.25 seems to hold it rock solid though at the moment.
I may have to upgrade my camera to get a consistent 60fps as my seeing is rarely above average.
Do you know what the wavelets settings were for that image. I know it changes all the time depending on what you capture, but I'd be interested to have a reference for Mars.
It's no problem to redo the image (probably won't be the same as this one posted though) along with a wavelett screenshot, Peter. Later, as it's my turn to cook dinner lol.
Sorry David, didn't see your post. Doubt it's the corrector moving, but would pay to check the secondary housing for slop in the corrector. Long as it doesn't move with gentle finger pressure. Be careful though, you don't WANT to move it, just check. Sounds like primary mirror flop to me, perhaps as it crosses the meridian..
No worries JJJ. Yes clear again! I was just discussing that with someone at the house here, that I'm not supposed to be imaging this time of year - Last year I imaged for almost exactly 1 month & then the seeing went away. This year I've imaged solidly for 2 whole months, wooo-hoooo!
Here you go Peter. This is roughly the same waveletts as I used on the original. A 160% upsize box included.
I can't thank you enough, I've gone through some old data and it has improved considerably with a similar wavelet setting.
I really don't understand wavelets well enough and can spend hours dicking around with them. I never tried a setting close to this before, and it has made a big difference. Thanks!!
If you ever get bored and want to share one for Saturn too, I'm ready to steal, erm, learn from it as well.
I suspect that my collimation could be out - i often wondered if the front corrector slops or moves when the scope slews around? it was cleaned and redone be a optical slave in Bintel
and then collimated once i got it. i noticed a little spacer thingy had fallen out in transit
- Last year I imaged for almost exactly 1 month & then the seeing went away. This year I've imaged solidly for 2 whole months, wooo-hoooo!
