Hey all were stoked here in Broken Hill as our fellow IIS member Trevor Barry (aka Quark) has captured images of a massive storm on Saturn whilst imaging and has been recognised by the cassini team.The Cassini team has named Trevor in there latest press release, so from me well done Trevor maybe you,ll post the images http://ciclops.org/view.php?id=4963
Hey all were stoked here in Broken Hill as our fellow IIS member Trevor Barry (aka Quark) has captured images of a massive storm on Saturn whilst imaging and has been recognised by the cassini team.The Cassini team has named Trevor in there latest press release, so from me well done Trevor maybe you,ll post the images http://ciclops.org/view.php?id=4963
Hi Kev,
Thanks, it was very kind of the Cassini RPWS team to recognise the contribution of amateurs to their project. I have attached a GIF animation representing 57 minutes of the rotation of the planet, storm and moons.
North is on top and East is to the right. From the bottom of frame the moons are Titan, Rhea and Tethys.
This was my first attempt at RGB imaging with the DMK monochrome CCD and I need some practice to get the colour balance right. All of my previous work on this project was with my ToUcam. My main focus has been on maximising the contrast between the storm and the atmosphere as the morphology of the storm is what Georg is interested in, not pretty pictures, although my aim is to provide both after I have more experience with this setup.
Didn't realise it but Dione is also in the GIF way out on the far right.
Regards
Trevor
Last edited by Quark; 01-05-2008 at 07:01 PM.
Reason: Didnt realise Dione was also in the GIF
Could you please post what equipment you used to capture these images.
Thanks
Hi Matty,
I have my own private observatory, the western most in NSW.
The images were taken through a highly modified Meade 16" F4.5 Newtonian Reflector. The scope is on a German Equatorial mount, designed and made by me. The mount is fitted with an Anssen Technologies dual axis drive and drive corrector from Peter Melander.
I have an Orion manual filter wheel with Astronomic LRGB filters and the camera was a DMK 21AU from the Imaging Source.
I have attached an image of my scope in the top floor of my observatory.
Well, serves me right for not sticking to my word after getting your pm with this news at 2pm yesterday Trevor - I know I said "1 hour" and I'll post it on IIS if you don't, but left it till about midnight and blow me down, your mate Kev beat me to the punch!!!
And I posted it in the "Astronomy Science" section of IIS without even noticing Kev's post here!
Oh well, at least I can still bathe in the warmth of thinking I was (maybe?) the first to know, and that you did honour me with that pm yesterday.....
CONGRATULATIONS once again brother, this is some of the stuff of dreams for us AA's, you should be very proud of your achievements and involvment! Perhaps, as you can see the responses to Kev's post, I can reiterate that there are many, many, fine people on IIS, the overwhelming majority in fact: and news about, and from, members such as yourself, is an important part of what it's all about!
On a more sombre note Trevor, I received a very offensive pm from that very same particularly sad person very early this morning on IIS: my immediate reaction was to report him to Mike and the moderators, but decided upon taking the same advice that I gave you about said person: ie, ignore him, there are obviously some very deep-seated issues for him.
IIS members who are interested, may like to check out my thread on Trevor and his achievements in the Astronomy Science section of IIS: in it I have detailed a small cameo of Trevor's background that only makes his achievements more amazing in their context - once again, congratulations brother!
This was my first attempt at RGB imaging with the DMK monochrome CCD and I need some practice to get the colour balance right. All of my previous work on this project was with my ToUcam. My main focus has been on maximising the contrast between the storm and the atmosphere as the morphology of the storm is what Georg is interested in, not pretty pictures, although my aim is to provide both after I have more experience with this setup.
Didn't realise it but Dione is also in the GIF way out on the far right.
Regards
Trevor
Hi again Trevor, in reading your post again I was wondering whether there are any special tips, tools or other knowledge you've used in regard to your above comments re maximizing this (or any other) elements of atmospheric surface detail....?
Hi again Trevor, in reading your post again I was wondering whether there are any special tips, tools or other knowledge you've used in regard to your above comments re maximizing this (or any other) elements of atmospheric surface detail....?
Regards, Darryl.
Hi Darryl,
This RGB processing is all new to me. I am sure there are literally dozens of ISS people who have mastered the DMK CCD and RGB processing. Since I have been in this forum I have had a bit a look around the imaging section and there are many producing excellent work.
I would think they would be the ones to offer tips and hints on RGB processing. I notice that Mike has a couple of excellent articles on the subject on ISS.
When I say I try to maximise the contrast between the storm and the atmosphere I am referring to trial and error adjustments in Astra Image 3.0 Pro with its deconvolution filter plus the many other processing tools within this excellent software. All the adjustments I make are to enhance the storm.
That said with the DMK CCD, the one and only time I used it on Saturn, I could see the storm on the individual frames of the RGB channels. With the ToUcam I only new if I had the storm after all of the frames were staked.
I have never done anything in half measures in my life so I am sure I will work out a processing technique that works for me, it will just take some time.
Hi Darryl,
This RGB processing is all new to me. I am sure there are literally dozens of ISS people who have mastered the DMK CCD and RGB processing. Since I have been in this forum I have had a bit a look around the imaging section and there are many producing excellent work.
I would think they would be the ones to offer tips and hints on RGB processing. I notice that Mike has a couple of excellent articles on the subject on ISS.
When I say I try to maximise the contrast between the storm and the atmosphere I am referring to trial and error adjustments in Astra Image 3.0 Pro with its deconvolution filter plus the many other processing tools within this excellent software. All the adjustments I make are to enhance the storm.
That said with the DMK CCD, the one and only time I used it on Saturn, I could see the storm on the individual frames of the RGB channels. With the ToUcam I only new if I had the storm after all of the frames were staked.
I have never done anything in half measures in my life so I am sure I will work out a processing technique that works for me, it will just take some time.
Regards
Trevor
Trevor, what you want to do is goto somewhere like Abbey's Bookshop or Bintel and checkout their books on image processing. Actually, I think Bintel has one on special, called "Photoshop Astronomy". Might be worth looking at.
Trevor, what you want to do is goto somewhere like Abbey's Bookshop or Bintel and checkout their books on image processing. Actually, I think Bintel has one on special, called "Photoshop Astronomy". Might be worth looking at.
Hi renormalised,
Thanks, a good text on the subject would definitely help to cut through the trial and error of my current approach, that said the experience you gain along the way is quite handy.
I have an extensive library of astronomy texts including, "Introduction to Digital Astrophotography" by Robert Reeves, which is excellent and helped a great deal with my ToUcam imaging. It is also excellent for SLR Digital photography but it does not cover monochrome RGB photography.
Yeah, I read the blurb at Bintel about it...looks like a good book to get. There's a couple of others I wouldn't mind getting as well, but that'll have to wait until I get enough money!!!.
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