Astro_south's saturn

[iceman (Mike)]

I thought it deserved a thread of its own, his shot is so good.

Here's my processing attempts.. I found there were only 4 usable photos out of the 7, and stacked 3 of them.

At full resolution the image is very noisy because of the single frame, if there were 50 or 100 more to stack, it would be an absolutely awesome Saturn image.

I found that if you scale it down a bit, it really sharpens up the image nicely.

The top left one below is the original single shot, but i've brightened it up a bit to show more detail. The 2 other large ones are from stacking attempts, as are the smaller ones, shrunken down.

The single shot shows a more crisply defined cassini division, because the stacking blurred over each other a bit because they were slightly off tilt from each other and not a close enough match. I think the stacked shots show a bit more detail on the disc.

Anyway, personal preference, i'm sure Paul can do something better than my efforts.

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

Nice work Mike. That first shot is a beauty. Excellent for handheld to a dob, Andrew. I might look at taking some afocals myself and see what I can do

[ving (David)]

you certainly have the knack for processing mike. the scaled down ones are great.

[astro_south (Andrew)]

Thanks for the efforts Mike - it shows the value of some processing knowhow. Really impressed with what you have achieved - your a legend!

I agree about detail on the globe - even some of the polar region colours are starting to come out. I quite like the second last image because of its brightness.

Next time I get a night like that I might use a camera tripod so the angle is more consistent and shoot like crazy - not sure 100 is doable, but I will give it a go

Images are on their way to Paul as I type!!

[iceman (Mike)]

Has your camera got a movie mode? You can also use movie mode to capture many more frames, although it's possible to lose a bit of detail depending on the format it saves the movie in, it might compress it too hard. Plus, if it's only 640x480 mode, the resolution will be smaller than your 2mp shot.

Thanks for the comments, but also thanks for letting me play with your great shots. I never got anything so good with my afocal shots.

[ving (David)]

if it does mpeg movies there are freeware progs that'll convert it to an avi

[astro_south (Andrew)]

Guys

The camera does have a movie mode - get about 30s and it saves it as an AVI (20 frames per second I think). The resolution is very muched reduced - 320x240!

Still might give it a go next weekend and see how it looks - never know until you try

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

Well it looks like Mike got the best of it with his shot at it. Here's my attempt.

320X240 is the default ToUcam res Andrew, so wack in a decent barlow or two and see how you go. If you can manage to track that sucker for 30 sec your doing well.

Good luck

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

And one less reduced

[rumples riot]

This is good work guys, really impressive shot to begin with and processing seems to look pretty good too. Like you said Mike more frames would have been better, still very good stuff. Congrats Andrew on a fine shot.

[astro_south (Andrew)]

Thanks Paul and Paul

The next opportunity I have, I will have a go with the avi - might come a knocking again for some processing advice

This doesn't mean I'm into astrophotography though!!! .....not that there is anything wrong with that - I'm still an observational astronomer at heart........

.........Now where's Mel Bartel's site on motorising a dob...