Posts Made By: Glenn Jolly

Jupiter and Ganymede on 16 April 2006 at 8:10 UT. Elev approx 40 deg.

Seeing was fair to good. When I started setting up (2 hours after cooldown) Jupiter was at 34 deg and I had clear views at over 500x. When this image was captured seeing had worsened, and later at transit the seeing had got so bad I packed it up.

Imaged with C11 at f/25 and DMK21BF04 monochrome camera.
Captured at 30fps with approx 750 frames each in red, green and blue. Registax stacking of the best 200 or so in each color with Mitchell resampling at 1.6X, processed with wavelets in 2 layers only.

I think with better image processing more is possible than represented here. I've started looking at ways to improve with deconvolution and the preliminary results are encouraging. The trick is not to introduce artifacts which appear as if the image were painted by a pointillist.

Glenn Jolly
Arizona, USA

Brian,

You mentioned the 256 box did not quite cover the whole planet. This tells me you are working above f/20 possibly f/30. It sounds like the camera is not plugged into the barlow directly, but there is something else between them, possibly a flip mirror? I don't use a flip mirror anymore,
rather I prefer a guide scope, which at these f ratios has to be aligned every night. Flip mirrors add way to much to the path, which is OK at F10
or under, but for planets it is possible spherical aberration will be added. The SCT is well corrected for a fairly short back focus over a limited range.

Do you collimate straight through? I recommend that highly. The C11 is notoriously difficult to get collimation right on. A very slight movement will
throw it off, only visible at very high mags (I collimate way above 500x when possible). Of all Celestrons scopes, the C11 is the hardest and the C9.25 the easiest to collimate and hold. I collimate every night I use my C11, and when
the seeing is average this can take over 30 minutes after the 2 hrs this scope
needs to equillibrate.

You also mentioned that your image was 1900/2400. I could only achieve a yield that high in very good seeing, which happens maybe 7 nights a year where I live outside of Phoenix Az. At 5fps and 90 seconds, you should only have 450 images. I
recommend the Gradient estimator, and then scroll through and reject the frames that are fuzzy. If you have only 200 frames that passed your quality limit its not so hard.

Are you using the Toucam unmodified? I've used a similar camera before, the Celestron NexImage, and it operates far better in optimized color mode. Its
kind of a pain, but worth it.

I hope this helps, but of all the factors seeing is the overriding limitation. Without good seeing, collimation is difficult and focus is difficult. And no image processing is going to to help much. If possible check with your local club and find
out their experiences on seeing, when its best, which is a seasonal thing as well as
temporal.

Clear and steady skies!

Glenn Jolly

Luca,

Very nice image! I thought the Sun was on its way to minimum but this is really impressive.

When is minimum supposed to happen? Also, can you tell us what scope/filter/camera you are using? Thanks for posting!

Glenn Jolly
Gilbert, Arizona

Anthony,

That image is as close to perfection for an amateur image of Jupiter I've seen. Simply beautiful! Hopefully in a few years we up here in the northern hemisphere can match you guys results down under...

Glenn Jolly
Gilbert, Az
C11, TV102, SolarMax 90

Paul,

I know that Anacortes carries Custom Scientific Methane 889/18nm 1.25" filters. They are kind of expensive in my view, so before taking the plunge I would try to contact Don Parker or someone you know with experience in Methane imaging to ensure those would be suitable for your needs.

Glenn

Robert its tough to beat K3CCDTools for capturing. Just type that into Google and you'll find it. The author has a free 35 day trial period. Its costs $49.99. K3CCDTools will also process the avi but I still use Registax.

Glenn