Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Jupiter and moons

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • devilgas
    replied
    Re: Jupiter and moons

    Originally posted by devilgas View Post
    choose an align box size that is sufficient to get all of jupiter within it. on clicking, registax will then probably choose a specific point on jupiter. it will also reject poor quality frames.

    if i get chance, i'll take a single frame grab from the video and post that as a 1 v many example.
    here's a screen grab of what i use for the alignment process. the little green circle in the centre of jupiter is added by registax AFTER choosing the alignment area. the white box is the alignment area and corresponds to the alignbox size as per the left panel.

    you can see how bad a single frame of video actually is. compare that to the image posted above and it becomes quite clear what reigstax does and why it needs LOTS of images to work with....

    Leave a comment:


  • devilgas
    replied
    Re: Jupiter and moons

    choose an align box size that is sufficient to get all of jupiter within it. on clicking, registax will then probably choose a specific point on jupiter. it will also reject poor quality frames.

    file formats - the above image was produced from video. there were a fair amount of dust specs on the webcam sensor / ir filter, however as it was windy when i shot the video, there was a bit of wobble with the image. the aligning and stacking process did a brilliant job of getting rid of ALL of the dust mites.

    so, as previously said, a super-high quality file isn't important, but the number of images is. the more frames you have, the better the end image will be. if i get chance, i'll take a single frame grab from the video and post that as a 1 v many example.
    high ISO is not a problem as the stacking etc gets rid of most of the noise, however shooting a blurred image to begin with is a problem.
    my latest jupiter above is lacking in sharpness as using the 4x barlow has softened the image a bit.

    focus is also critical. you'd think you can dial in infinity and be done with it, but that's not necessarily the case. if i'm shooting through the 200 2.8L then getting the correct focus is still quite difficult. i make my life easy by using something called a bahtinov mask. i've got a 70mm one for the camera glass and a 200mm one for the scope. getting bang on focus then becomes simple.

    finally, if you want to get a decent exposure of jupiter and see the moons, then combine 2 shots. 1 exposed for the moons (jupiter will be massively over-exposed) and the other for jupiter (moons probably hidden). the jupiter one needs to come from a stack though

    Leave a comment:


  • Ian
    replied
    Re: Jupiter and moons

    Ah - OK, it probably means my images were not good enough to align automatically - which is no surprse!

    Ian

    Leave a comment:


  • devilgas
    replied
    Re: Jupiter and moons

    Originally posted by Ian View Post
    I think my problem wit registax is aligning the layers?

    Ian
    for the image above, i simply picked an align box size of 250px x 250px and plonked jupiter in the middle. it then aligned all the frames of the video perfectly, even getting rid of the dust on the webcam sensor / IR filter. as your images are smaller, then you can reduce the align box size accordingly.

    processing individual images is the same. when you open the source file, simply select all of the relevant images and it imports each individual frame - i do this with the solar shots.

    most settings you can leave on default. the only stuff i tend to fiddle with is the wavelets settings and the align box size.

    hth!

    Leave a comment:


  • Ian
    replied
    Re: Jupiter and moons

    I think my problem wit registax is aligning the layers?

    Ian

    Leave a comment:


  • devilgas
    replied
    Re: Jupiter and moons

    not sure what happened with the colour in this, but this was from monday evening. the great red spot is a little drab



    it's 500 frames of vga video stacked in registax. shot using a 1100mm telescope with a 4x barlow lens - this made it quite a challenge to find jupiter on the computer screen as a small movement of the scope results in the image flying across the screen.
    quite pleased with the detail i've managed to get from the clouds, and it was also my first capture of the GRS (great red spot). just a shame i didn't capture the colours

    Leave a comment:


  • devilgas
    replied
    Re: Jupiter and moons

    did you have much joy with the above hints in registax ian?

    it's my intention to get out this evening and do some more webcam captures of jupiter. might even get up early tomorrow and try some of saturn as well, but that depends how late a night it'll be on black ops 2

    and just checked the times & elevations for saturn, and i think it may be a bit too low in the sky for my particular viewing location
    Last edited by devilgas; 07-12-12, 12:31 PM.

    Leave a comment:


  • devilgas
    replied
    Re: Jupiter and moons

    Originally posted by Ian View Post
    I'm sure Registax is powerful but it sure has a rubbish UI!

    Anyone care to point me in the right direction? I have ten TIFFs to align and stack...

    Ian
    how far have you got with it?

    it's set into multiple stages. the first is to get the images in and aligned. depending which version you downloaded (a lot of folks prefer the v5 over v6). the most important step is the last one where you apply the wavelet sharpening. this is where you tease out the detail.

    i've just re-worked through a jupiter video and my workflow was this...
    1 - open file
    2 - [align stage] click on jupiter to set the align point
    3 - click ALIGN
    4 - click LIMIT
    5 - [optimize stage] click OPTIMIZE & STACK
    6 - [wavelet stage] play about with the sliders to see what effect each has. it's difficult to describe what each does, however i use the following as a starting point


    7 - click DO ALL, then save the image

    i then get something like this....

    however this was from 500 frames in an AVI file.

    if anything, machine gun in JPG as the number of images is more important than the file type. the compression in the jpg file will be largely negated by the stacking process, so shooting high quality files isn't strictly necessary.

    hth.

    Leave a comment:


  • Ian
    replied
    Re: Jupiter and moons

    Originally posted by crimbo View Post
    Okay Ian....now take several of Jupiter and use Registax to up the detail. The blend with the image with the moons....
    I'm sure Registax is powerful but it sure has a rubbish UI!

    Anyone care to point me in the right direction? I have ten TIFFs to align and stack...

    Ian

    Leave a comment:


  • Ian
    replied
    Re: Jupiter and moons

    The skies cleared

    Not tried any stacking yet (not sure there is enough quality anyway) but here is tonight's shot:



    This time I used the EC-20 2x converter. Below is yesterday's shot with the EC-14 1.4x converter:



    Both are 1:1 (1 image pixel to 1 display pixel).

    Ian

    Leave a comment:


  • andym
    replied
    Re: Jupiter and moons

    Saw the conjunction last night.I didn't think of trying any pics.Might have to get the 500mm and teleconverter out later if its clear.

    Leave a comment:


  • Ian
    replied
    Re: Jupiter and moons

    Not looking good tonight - have had blue skies all day but it's cloudy now

    Ian

    Leave a comment:


  • ekkl
    replied
    Re: Jupiter and moons

    I have tried but not very good at shots like this.

    Am looking forward to seeing your pictures with the x2 converter later Ian

    Leave a comment:


  • devilgas
    replied
    Re: Jupiter and moons

    Originally posted by Ian View Post
    Of course the experts like Dave (devilgas) can do this
    ha! if only!

    i had thought about getting out last night, but black ops 2 was calling louder

    pretty much the only way to get decent detail from planets is to shoot video through a webcam attached to a telescope and stack in registax. shooting with stills cameras isn't impossible, but the optics required to get much more than a dot are daunting, so webcam's are the generally accepted solution for planetary imaging. any glass between the photons from your target and the sensor degrade quality aswell. with my webcam setup, there are 2 pieces of glass (excluding the mirrors in the reflector scope) between jupiter and the sensor - the IR blocking filter and the barlow lens. even those 2 bits of glass degrade the IQ, so registax processing is very much required

    as crimbo says, using registax and stacking a number of images (50+) will tease out a bit more detail but getting decent scale is difficult.

    Leave a comment:


  • Ian
    replied
    Re: Jupiter and moons

    I might try again tonight with the 2x converter. This will make it equivalent to a 1200mm full frame lens.

    If (and it's a very big if!) there is any extra detail, I'll try stacking several shots.

    Ian

    Leave a comment:

Working...
X