Non-tracking Jupiter - 24/02/2005

imported_iceman · #1 (**permalink**) 24-February-2005, 03:50 AM

Hi all.

Had a great morning this morning imaging Jupiter, GRS transitting, and at 3:30am when I got up, Europa and it's shadow were on the disc too. I got a few avi's with the shadow visible, however my image scale just isn't large enough to see Europa itself. It's probably just 1 of the lighter coloured pixels

I had about 70 separate avi's, grouped into bunches of 3 or avi's with slightly different capture settings in each, trying to find the optimal for my setup. Each 'group' of avi's lasts about 60 seconds or so (around 8-13 seconds per avi).

I've just used Virtual Dub to join them together and save them as bmp's, and used Anthony Wesley's ppmcentre program to centre them all within the frame.

I didn't delete the bad frames from Virtual Dub, the seeing was quite good and it was difficult to find the bad frames, plus I didn't have the patience.

I tried imaging at 1/50s and 1/100s mainly, to try and freeze the image before the earths rotation blurred it as it zipped across my preview screen. I tried various gamma settings, and found the best result during my very last capture, and that was with no gamma. The colours were much more natural. Wish I'd tried zero gamma earlier, as it was clear right away that it looked better

The last few avi's were taken with the 2x barlow pulled out of the barrel a way, and the ToUcam pulled out of the barlow a little way. This gave me a slightly longer focal length and therefore a slightly larger image. Not much, but i'll take all the scale I can get

These images were also taken with my new ES IR filter, my first images taken with the filter. I'm yet to do with/without IR filter comparison, i'll do that next time out.

Details:
- 10" dob no tracking @ 2500mm FL (f/10 with 2x barlow)
- ToUcam, taken at 5fps
- Approx 90 frames out of ~200 stacked
- The images on the left are raw out of registax, the images on the right are processed in AstraImage (split/LR deconvolution/recombine RGB)

Comments, suggestions are welcome.

These are my best Jupiter to date, got some detail in and around the GRS, the top shot shows Europa's shadow. Europa is on the disc somewhere in all 4 images below, good luck finding it

seeker372011 · #2 (**permalink**) 24-February-2005, 10:06 PM

Great stuff...
boldly going where no dob has gone before

imported_iceman · #3 (**permalink**) 24-February-2005, 11:26 PM

Thanks Seeker

Here's a version I reprocessed this morning, went a bit lighter on the wavelets to give it a more natural look, while still trying to bring out as much detail as possible.

Z28Jerry · #4 (**permalink**) 25-February-2005, 11:49 PM

Very inspiring. Your hard work is paying off great.

You photos, like many others on here, make me want to give up before I even try.

Perhaphs you guys can show some crappy shots so average mortals like myself can relate?

Jerry

Betelgeuse · #5 (**permalink**) 26-February-2005, 09:13 AM

Really brilliant, iceman. The detail is impecable!

astronomy2004 · #6 (**permalink**) 26-February-2005, 02:44 PM

very nice job.

imported_iceman · #7 (**permalink**) 28-February-2005, 06:44 PM

Hi jerry.

I've done plenty of bad shots, don't you worry about that

Here is my first "proper" jupiter, in december last year.

And here is my very first jupiter with an older webcam that didn't have enough controls to limit the exposure.

So just don't give up!

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