My first planetary image. Jupiter
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Please upload large images to photo sharing sites (flickr, etc) rather than trying to upload them as forum attachments.
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Please upload large images to photo sharing sites (flickr, etc) rather than trying to upload them as forum attachments.
Please share the equipment used and if possible camera settings to help others.
My first planetary image. Jupiter
I am trying to delete this image, for I made a really rookie mistake in posting it. Turns out I got files mixed up and the file I used was not mine. So sorry for the confusion. I will keep learning and trying.
Last edited by SC_Astro on Sat Jan 11, 2025 11:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: My first planetary image. Jupiter
Hi,
wow, that's come out really nicely for a first go - well done!
There are really only two minor things to change for next time I think
1) the middle of the planet is over-exposed - that's probably coming from some or all of the input frames from the camera being overexposed, so just have the gain/exposure a bit lower the next time around. I tend to flick back to the unprocessed frames view from time to time (check the box to view unprocessed frames) to see what the mini histogram looks like for the frames from the camera. The very latest version of SharpCap will also show a little warning if it thinks the camera frames are over (or under) exposed.
2) (and this might be due to 1) - the colour balance seems a bit odd - perhaps the over-exposed nature has confused the auto colour balance code if you were using that.
It would be interesting if you have any feedback on the things that didn't seem obvious when you used this for the first time - they are maybe things that I need to change to make it more easily used by newcomers.
cheers,
Robin
wow, that's come out really nicely for a first go - well done!
There are really only two minor things to change for next time I think
1) the middle of the planet is over-exposed - that's probably coming from some or all of the input frames from the camera being overexposed, so just have the gain/exposure a bit lower the next time around. I tend to flick back to the unprocessed frames view from time to time (check the box to view unprocessed frames) to see what the mini histogram looks like for the frames from the camera. The very latest version of SharpCap will also show a little warning if it thinks the camera frames are over (or under) exposed.
2) (and this might be due to 1) - the colour balance seems a bit odd - perhaps the over-exposed nature has confused the auto colour balance code if you were using that.
It would be interesting if you have any feedback on the things that didn't seem obvious when you used this for the first time - they are maybe things that I need to change to make it more easily used by newcomers.
cheers,
Robin
Re: My first planetary image. Jupiter
Turns out my capture was pretty good but not the original one shown. Somehow I used the wrong SER file. My mistake. Robin, but since you asked here are a few things I encountered on my first planetary image session.
I did not know if flats or darks were needed. I used neither.
I thought that a SER file would be saved for each planetary capture. I now see no evidence of that. I do see SER files saved when I used the Capture on main menu.
I was unsure of correct exposure to use. Should use the brain ?
The rest were pretty intuitive after reading manual.
Thanks for creating such a wonderful product.
I did not know if flats or darks were needed. I used neither.
I thought that a SER file would be saved for each planetary capture. I now see no evidence of that. I do see SER files saved when I used the Capture on main menu.
I was unsure of correct exposure to use. Should use the brain ?
The rest were pretty intuitive after reading manual.
Thanks for creating such a wonderful product.
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admin
- Site Admin
- Posts: 17378
- Joined: Sat Feb 11, 2017 3:52 pm
- Location: Vale of the White Horse, UK
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Re: My first planetary image. Jupiter
Hi,
OK, here goes...
You do *not* need darks for planetary imaging. Flats are only needed if you have bad dust shadows on the sensor and cannot avoid them (usually you can just move the planet to a non-dusty bit - that's good for planets, but no good for solar/lunar).
SER files get saved if you do the normal Start Capture/Quick Capture from the toolbar/menu - Planetary Live Stacking *doesn't* save SER videos for you - it does all the processing that you would usually do in AS!3/Registax/etc in SharpCap and you then save a processed image using one of the save buttons in the botton left. You can also tell it to save a timelapse. Note that you can (if you want) run normal SER captures while planetary stacking is active - those will record the raw frames from the camera to SER that you can later reprocess in a more traditional way.
Don't use the brain for exposure - that's designed for deep sky. Jupiter seems to work fairly well if you start at about 15ms (60fps or so) and then adjust gain to get a decent brightness level (brightest parts between 60 and 80% max level).
Hope this helps,
Robin
OK, here goes...
You do *not* need darks for planetary imaging. Flats are only needed if you have bad dust shadows on the sensor and cannot avoid them (usually you can just move the planet to a non-dusty bit - that's good for planets, but no good for solar/lunar).
SER files get saved if you do the normal Start Capture/Quick Capture from the toolbar/menu - Planetary Live Stacking *doesn't* save SER videos for you - it does all the processing that you would usually do in AS!3/Registax/etc in SharpCap and you then save a processed image using one of the save buttons in the botton left. You can also tell it to save a timelapse. Note that you can (if you want) run normal SER captures while planetary stacking is active - those will record the raw frames from the camera to SER that you can later reprocess in a more traditional way.
Don't use the brain for exposure - that's designed for deep sky. Jupiter seems to work fairly well if you start at about 15ms (60fps or so) and then adjust gain to get a decent brightness level (brightest parts between 60 and 80% max level).
Hope this helps,
Robin