Hi all

It's been a while but I've finally had a chance to write another article about planetary imaging - this time, it's about RGB Planetary Imaging with a Monochrome Camera.

It covers the reasons for choosing a monochrome camera, the hardware and software you need for monochrome RGB imaging, and most importantly, how to recombine your monochrome images back into a colour image. There's also a tutorial for LRGB combinations, tips for focusing and more.

My thanks go to Anthony Wesley (bird), arguably Australia's best planetary imager, for his review and contributions to the article.

You can read the article on the IceInSpace Articles page, or by clicking on the link below:

RGB Planetary Imaging with a Monochrome Camera

I hope beginner and intermediate level planetary imagers get something from the article and help you to make that next leap forward to produce better images.

Thanks

Attached Images

titleimage.jpg (68.4 KB, 18 views)

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Mike
. IceInSpace - The Australian Amateur Astronomy Community
. My Bio | My Jupiter 2007 Gallery | My Image Gallery

Hi Mike, A very Excellent article very informative and open for all to learn. Mike my hat off to you. You were very instrumental in my learning stages of planetary imaging with a monochrome imager and still learning a never ending hobby. Thanks again and Clear Skies.

my hat off to you too mike, i havent read it yet but i will, i did read your last article and found it very informative too, great job mike.!

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Nice write-up, but one point needs to be corrected. Your "Subjective Comparison" notes that the planets, other than Venus, are typically too dim for frame rates beyond 30fps. Which leads you too the conclusion that the USB2 or firewire cams considered are essentially equal.

Mars, near opposition, as it was for us this winter, has a high surface brightness. Enough so, that lum exposures, even at an effective FL of 10m, are less than 10ms, allowing 100+fps. The cameras that allow ROI, or selectable frame sizes, such as the Skynyx, can therefore be advantageously used to capture clean frames at almost twice the frame rate that other cameras allow. In the case of photography through a turbulent atmosphere, speed does matter.

Venus, in white light can, as you pointed out, benefit from frame rates greater than 30fps, much greater than 30fps, but most serious Venus imagers are using UV filters that limit actual record rate to 15-30fps. Therefore, Venus doesn't really offer much of a testbed for comparison of these cameras.

Robert

Mike
Thanks for the article, I will print and read. Any learning tools are very much appreciated

Gina

Hi Mike,

Thanks for the excellent article, maybe this will help me with my Planetary Processing with my Monochrome DMK camera, now all I need is some good seeing!

Thanks, it was very well written and illustrated!

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Best Regards,
John Chumack
The Chumack Observatories
MPC 838 Dayton Research Station
MPC H66 Yellow Springs Research Station
www.galacticimages.com

Thanks Mike, I read your article 'An Evolution in High Resolution Planetary Imaging' in Astronomy 2008 Australia as well. Both very informative for all levels. Even though my f/4 light bucket will never do for planetary work even with a 5x Televue, much of your advice can be applied to DSOs as well.

Kind regards
Matt