Our Beautiful Universe - Photos and Videos

[collinsmark]

October is sure starting out as a comparatively good Month for 2020. Sometimes good things come together: clear skies, excellent atmospheric seeing, good collimation, good focus [and unrelated things not necessarily mentioned here]. San Diego has had a particularly good stint of good atmospheric seeing. I hope the good seeing lasts at least into next week as Mars reaches closest approach on Oct. 6, and opposition on Oct 13th.

This image of Mars is from early morning of Oct. 1. Clearly visible in this image, slightly left of center, is "The Eye of Mars," but to me it looks more like a giant footprint. I might start calling it "The Footprint of Mars," but that's just me.

Acquisition and processing details below.

Midpoint timestamp: 2020-10-01 09:24.6 UT

Sky peeper: Meade 10" LX200-ACF mounted on an equatorial wedge
Camera: ZWO ASI290MM
Tele Vue 4x Powermate
ZWO Atmospheric Dispersion Corrector (ADC)
Astronomik Deep-Sky RGB filters

Summary:
13.5 minute total integration time.

Acquisition Details:
In the several hours of darkness I had before Mars rose above my house's roof, I made sure properly collimate the sky peeper. Good collimation is important for planetary astrophotograhy.

Seeing was excellent that night. Excellent atmospheric seeing is not to be confused with clear skies; they are different things. In planetary astrophotography, seeing is king. It is perhaps the single-most important factor in getting a good planetary image. That night was one of the rare nights of both excellent seeing and cloudless skies.

(Conditions this good are quite rare. [From https://telescopius.com/weather])

Firecapture was used for acquisition. Each set consisted of nine, 1.5 minute videos (uncompressed .SER format), 3 for red, 3 for green, and 3 for blue, in the order of RGBRGBRGB. 12 sets were captured, but only one was used for the final image. Refocusing and rotation of the Atmospheric Dispersion Corrector (ADC) was performed between sets.

The ADC was used, although the adjustment levers were just barely above nothing. Mars was high enough in the sky such that very little ADC correction was necessary.

The 4x Powermate was used instead of the 2x Powermate, because, well, I suppose I just prefer the larger image. It doesn't really bring any extra detail though.

Exposure times were about 7 or 8 milliseconds, allowing frame rates to exceed 100 fps. By the end, I filled up over 800 GB of data on the laptop's SSD. That's equivalent to well over a half million floppy disks. Jaysus.

Processing Details:
Each video was processed using Autostakkert!. As usual, 50% of the frames were kept. For each video, Autostakkert! produces two TIFF image files: one for subsequent processing, and the other with a little bit of sharpening applied for quick evaluation. You can use the images with a little bit of sharpening applied to determine which sets you want to keep, moving forward. Other than that, the sharpened images are not meant to be used for subsequent processing. Anyway, with that, the best set was chosen. In this case, it was set 8.

Registax was used for Wavelet sharpening. The noise was low enough allowing me to be pretty aggressive with the wavelet sharpening.

WinJUPOS "De-rotation of Images" tool was used for de-rotation. It was used three times, once for each color. The 3 red images were combined to produce 1 combined red image. The 3 green images were combined to produce 1 combined green image, and so on.

GIMP's healing brush tool was used to remove de-rotation artifacts. Gimp was also used to combine the red, green, and blue images into their respective channels, making an actual color image. Finally, Gimp was used to adjust the color, contrast and saturation.

Special bonus image:

Here's an image from the previous night, that also had excellent seeing conditions. The image was captured just before the sky peeper's corrector plate dewed up. The dew came out of nowhere, and I was not prepared. The following night I was sure to strap on the dew heaters and dew shield.

It's the same basic acquisition and processing as above, except this time I used the 2x Powermate instead of the 4x (and different color choices).

Midpoint timestamp: 2020-09-30 08:39.2 UT

 

[Quarkman1]

Thanks for the link @collinsmark -- that looks excellent! I am checking that out now!

 

[chemisttree]

Exposure times were about 7 or 8 milliseconds, allowing frame rates to exceed 100 fps.

Great images! Do you mind my asking what was the histogram levels were for using both the 2X and 4X barlows? About 20%?

 

[collinsmark]

Great images! Do you mind my asking what was the histogram levels were for using both the 2X and 4X barlows? About 20%?

The peak [right edge in the main lobe] in the histogram was [extended to] closer to around 60%. And that is regardless of which Barlow is used. Allow me to elaborate. [Edit: Or maybe a better way to put it: The right side of main lobe in the histogram extended to around 60% -- maybe a little higher like 70%, but dropped off to zero before the right edge of the histogram.]

When using the 4x Barlow, of course the signal level per pixel decreases compared to when using the 2x Barlow, but I counteract that by increasing the camera gain. That brings the histogram levels back to around 60% or so roughly.

Here's the general rule of thumb: Don't saturate the data (i.e., don't let any part of the histogram consistently reach the right side), but get get kinda close. If you saturate the data, that's data you can't get back. In terrestrial photography, that's called "blown highlights." That's information that's gone forever. But..., you also want to have as much signal as possible represented in the histogram -- just not so much as to cause saturation.

Unlike planetary astrophotography, in deep-sky astrophotography, the stars are what gets saturated first. It's best not to saturate the stars if you want them to retain any color in the final image. But the real goodies that you're trying to image are the really dim stuff hidden in the near darkness (nebula, galaxies, etc). So the idea is to keep the peaks caused by the nebula or galaxies near the noise floor, way to the left in the histogram (maybe around 20%), just so you don't saturate the stars (the stars make up a very small part of the image area and don't contribute very much to the histogram's largest peak, yet they are toward the right side of the histogram).

Planetary astrophotgrahy is different. The planet itself is the brightest thing in the image. There are no stars to saturate. [And the planet is a considerable part of the image's area, thus it contributes considerably to the histogram.] The main peak in the histogram is the brightest thing you need to worry about. "Don't saturate the main lobe" is all the concern you need. So I adjust the gain to bring the lobe's right edge towards 60% or so, roughly (giving me about 30-40% wiggle room). Just keep an eye on the right side of the lobe and make sure none of it is getting pushed over the right edge. It needs to fall to pretty much zero well below the right side of the histogram.

The only thing I really worried about for these Mars images is saturating the South Polar Cap. As long as I can keep that from getting saturated, I'm good.

 

[Andy Resnick]

I hope the good seeing lasts at least into next week as Mars reaches closest approach on Oct. 6, and opposition on Oct 13th.

Thanks for the heads- up; we had clear skies last night (10/6), here's what I captured @800/5.6:

Definitely some visible surface details, but I was hoping for a glimpse of the polar cap.

 

[bruha]

Hello, this I got when apply magic wand selection and shadow correct. on Mars image by Bresser eyepiece camera (unfortunately by mistake in B/W mode)

 

[bruha]

Hello, it is my Sun attempt through green filter.-not sure what is relly imaged but it is really different compare
image 2 without filter

 

[chemisttree]

Hello, it is my Sun attempt through green filter.-not sure what is relly imaged but it is really different compare
image 2 without filter

Is the green filter a thin film interference filter?

 

[davenn]

Hello, it is my Sun attempt through green filter.-not sure what is relly imaged but it is really different compare
image 2 without filter

I see you still haven't got rid of the dust out of your camera optics

 

[bruha]

Hi, it is this one, with maximal transmision on 540 nm and solar folie.
FILTR BAADER 2458390 SOLAR CONTINUUM 1.25”
Image without filter is already old...

 

[bruha]

Hello, this is yesterday Mars image by dark yellow filter 15 bresser eyepiece camera and Gimp processed..

 

[collinsmark]

Here's an image I took in the very early morning of Oct. 6th, just a few hours before closest approach.

Midpoint timestamp: 2020-10-06-09:20.4 UT

The acquisition and processing were essentially the same as the last post, so I won't bore you with the details again here (Summary: 10" LX200-ACF, 4x Powermate, ADC, ASI290MM, 13.5 min of total integration time, 90 sec videos using FireCapture, RGBRGBRGB, Autostakkert 50% frames kept, WinJUPOS, Gimp).

There were scattered, hazy clouds that night. And while there were spurts of excellent seeing, they were intermixed with spurts of less than excellent seeing. I did manage to capture this image when Mars was fairly close to the meridian.

Since that night we've had cloudy skies and/or bad seeing in San Diego. But the forecast looks fantastic for nights near opposition. I hope to try again then.

 

[bruha]

Hello, my last Mars image by Bresser eyepiece camera and dark yellow filter 15.. I think at top could be polar cap...
Have nice observing

 

[bruha]

Hi, here is next Mars Gimp processed image...

 

[Andy Resnick]

Hasn't been a post around here of our moon lately- had to get up early for these: JPGs straight off the camera.

 

[DennisN]

I got this link from a friend yesterday, and I thought it was a pretty cool startup project, even though it may not be intended for folks as picky as us in this thread :), and I haven't checked the specifications) :

Dwarf Telescope

 

[bruha]

Hello, I send sun image with green filter Baader 2458390...
Do you have somebody experience with this filter?
Hi and thank you...

 

[bruha]

Hello, Mars from yesterday, these is with mobile camera. I have problem with focusing beacouse it is too
small on display to see it properly. Next problem is with stabilisation -short time delay is not enough stabilised
and with long time delay image move out of display...
Hi

 

[collinsmark]

Hello, Mars from yesterday, these is with mobile camera. I have problem with focusing beacouse it is too
small on display to see it properly. Next problem is with stabilisation -short time delay is not enough stabilised
and with long time delay image move out of display...
Hi

One of the more fundamental pieces of equipment used for astrophotography is some sort of mechanism that tracks the movement of the sky. Or, to put it more precisely: a piece of equipment which counteracts the Earth's rotation, keeping the telescope/camera pointed in the same direction as the Earth rotates underneath it.

When purchasing a telescope mount, at the very least you'll want to consider a motorized "equatorial" mount that automatically tracks on the right-ascension axis (the right-ascension axis [as opposed to the declination axis] is the one that needs to move to track the Earth's rotation), if you plan on doing astrophotograhy.

If you're not interested in an entire telescope, but just want a camera mount that tracks on the right-ascension axis, there are products called "Camera Trackers," or sometimes called "Sky Trackers," to which you can attach your camera and lens, without having a dedicated telescope.

Neither solution is inexpensive. Astrophotography can be a pretty expensive hobby. But at the minimum $$ end of the spectrum, some form of tracking mechanism fits in there.

Also, any mechanism that tracks the rotation of the Earth will require polar alignment. So you'll have to learn what that entails. Of course though, learning is nothing to scoff at. That's a big reason why we're in this hobby in the first place: to learn.

(There is one other option that doesn't require an equatorial mount or equatorial sky tracker, and that is an expensive computerized telescope on an alt-azimuth mount, with motors on both axes, combined with a field rotator. This is neither a particularly graceful solution nor is it inexpensive. I would not recommend this solution, but I thought I would list it here because it is a possibility.)

(More detailed discussion on this topic might warrant a brand new thread.)

 

[collinsmark]

Here's an image of Mars taken last Thursday night, roughly a day after opposition. (I tried to image Mars the night before too, closer to opposition, but ran into some trouble. Horror story below).

Midpoint timestamp: 2020-10-16 07:55.2 UT
Summary: 13.5 minutes total acquisition time.

---------------------------------
Details (skip if you're not interested in the details):

Equipment:
Meade 10" LX200-ACF mounted on an equatorial wedge
ZWO ASI290MM monochrome camera
Tele Vue 4x Powermate
ZWO Atmospheric Dispersion Corrector (ADC)
ZWO Electronic Filter Wheel with Astronomik Deep Sky RGB filters

Acquisition:
Seeing conditions were quite good, perhaps on the lower side of excellent, but still excellent. And the good seeing lasted through most of the imaging session.

Before imaging started, I made sure to collimate the telescope while I was waiting for Mars to rise above the building.

FireCapture was used to capture sequences, where each sequences is comprised of nine, 90 second videos, while alternating filters in the order of RGBRGBRGB. The Region of Interest (ROI), camera gain and the exposure time was set to keep the frame rate pretty high -- at about 125 fps or so. This corresponds to exposure times of about 7 or 8 ms or so. Refocusing and rotation of the ADC was done in-between sequences. This went on for about 4 hours, before during and after Mars crossed the meridian.

Processing:
Each video was processed with Autostakkert! using lucky imaging techniques. For each video, approximately 70 APs were used, and 50% of the frames were kept. This processing not only outputs images for further processing, but also produces roughly sharpened image to use for evaluation in deciding which images should be used, moving forward.

I was like a kid in a candy store. Many of the sequences had beautiful data. Usually, I feel fortunate if I end up with a single sequence that isn't garbage, but this night I found one good sequence after another. I chose sequence 6 for the image above, but it was just a coin flip. There were other sequences that were just as good.

Of course I had to delete most of the raw data, because, well, "terabyte." But I'll keep the processed data and maybe make a time-lapse video out of them if I can find the time.

Each image was then processed with Registax wavelet sharpening.

The Registax sharpened images were then combined using WinJUPOS: Three images captured with the Red filter to produce one combined Red image, and so on with the Green and Blue filtered images.

Gimp was used to place the combined images in their respective color channels. Then Gimp was used for curve adjustments, contrast adjustments, and saturation adjustments.
-----------------------------

Horror Story: I also tried to image the night before, just a handful of hours after opposition.

It was a dark and dewy night. The neighbors had long retired for their evening slumber. It was just me and the telescope sitting alone in the eerie silence. A chill was in the air. Mars finally rose over the dank rooftops, beckoning me. No, not beckoning -- goading me. Goading me to capture an image. Mars laughed at me as I centered the planet on the capture screen. A drop of dew fell from the rain gutter.

I twisted the focus knob. A strange apparition appeared on the screen. It was Mars, but it wasn't Mars. Something else was there: an apparition of some kind. "What in the world?" I asked myself. "That's too big for a dust mote." I clicked the button on FireCapture to change the filter from L to R, just to make sure. Nothing changed; the apparition was still there. It was like something was blocking my view of Mars. A ghostly something was in-between Mars and myself. I hit the button again, this time G. Still no difference. A sound -- a murmur -- whispered out. "What is that sound!?" B. "Mrraww" came from somewhere. Nothing else. It was a hushed, cagily whine. The apparition remained. "Good god," I squealed. "My filter wheel."

A couple of turns on some thumbscrews and I rushed my camera and filterwheel inside the house. I grabbed a precision screwdriver set that I had handy and tore open the filter wheel enclosure right there on the kitchen counter. Sure enough, the belt that drives the wheel had come partially off its tracks and was sort of jamming things up. The apparition was nothing more than the partition between filters and possibly a little bit of belt. "Well, that's easy enough to fix," I told myself as I rolled the belt back on its tracks and reassembled the enclosure.

Back outside I slid the camera and filterwheel assembly back into the ADC. No sooner than I turned to the laptop did I hear a loud clang. The camera and filter wheel had fallen out onto the concrete. "Ahhh, Gad, Jaysus <redacted> <redacted> dammit," I cried as I picked up the assembly off the cold, hard ground. "What Have I done?!" I pleaded for mercy to the stars and planets. "What. Have. I. Done. Guaaah!" Porchlights illuminated. Heads came out of windows.

I re-plugged the assembly back into the ADC, this time making damned sure the thumbscrews were quite tight. Dustmotes galore. If I thought that apparition before was bad, this was godawful.

They say that you only get to drop sensitive astronomical equipment on the concrete twice: once on the concrete and once in the trash. "Guaaahh," I yelped.

Back into the kitchen. I disassembled the filter wheel a second time. 'Removed the camera. I Grabbed the handheld air blower and blew air all around every nook and cranny for about 5 minutes. I put everything back together, not knowing what to expect next.

I reattached everything back to the telescope (paying extra attention to the thumbscrews, of course). R. The filter wheel changed position. No dust motes. "Oh, thank god." G. It seemed to work. B. Yep.

I recalibrated the filter wheel positions, just to be sure, and everything seemed OK. I don't know how it survived, but yet there we were, fully functional.

Mars was still laughing.

I suppose that's not much of an ending to this story, but I'll take it!

 

[bruha]

Hi and thank you for information and advise collinsmark.. I will check these and thinking over...
your Mars is beautiful

 

[DennisN]

@collinsmark , funny horror story!

 

[chemisttree]

Hello, I send sun image with green filter Baader 2458390...
Do you have somebody experience with this filter?
Hi and thank you...

Is the red fringing the concern for you? If so, it is well known that faster scopes have this problem with thin film interference filters. You get rainbow colors unless the light rays are very parallel just like thin film soap bubbles produce a rainbow of color. Very parallel usually means large f-numbers. Try converting your f4.5 scope into an f9 or f13.5 with a 2X or 3x Barlow and see what you get. Put the filter after the Barlow, on your eyepiece.

Google “constructive destructive interference thin film” for more background.

 

[bruha]

Hi and thank you for advise.. . (in fact my f number is 600/100=6), but I understand, I will try it.

 

[Andy Resnick]

Cygnus @ 105mm, approximately 4x a single 35mm FOV:

The original is about 13k pixels on a side. You can clearly see the North American Nebula, Veil nebula, and the large-scale dust/gas distribution here, and as the image scales back up to 1:1, the Pelican, Crescent, and Tulip nebulae are clear. Near the Tulip nebula is Cygnus X-1, but it's not visible :)

The rainbow-y color banding is an artifact and eventually averages out- that's why it's predominantly along the edges, where there are fewer images.

With this one, I now have a set of printable images of Cygnus: this one and 3 @400mm centered on the three major features (North American, Veil, and IC 1318 nebulae) that I already posted here. Wall art!

 

[bruha]

Hi, next Mars attempt by mobile camera..

 

[chemisttree]

Yahoo Groups is going away on December 15 this year. Kind of sad to see some of the groups I frequent turned off, especially the Lunar Observers Group. Right now the Lunar Observers Group is dormant so you can't use it but you can still post to it and members will see the post.

Christian Viladrich has posted some very, very fine images of the Moon using his C-14 Schmidt-Cassegrain.

Here are the links to Clavius, Stofler, Tries, Ariadaeus, Hadley, Cassini, Exodus, Lacus-Mortis, Plato and Plato again.

I'll post just one so you can see... Clavius! (like I've never seen it)

Yeah, that was taken from Earth!

Just... WOW!

If you are interested in why he chose to image these using a green filter, see for yourself the spot diagrams of his OSLO simulation at 550 nm (0.55 μm).

 

[DennisN]

@bruha & @chemisttree and others who are using mobile phones as cameras:

I just learned that there are bluetooth remote controls (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07Y8MTW76/?tag=pfamazon01-20) that can control the camera on mobile phones. And e.g. OpenCamera for Android supports remote controls. I will try to get a suitable remote control, so I don't have to use the delay function anymore to remove vibrations.

 

[chemisttree]

@bruha & @chemisttree and others who are using mobile phones as cameras:

I just learned that there are bluetooth remote controls (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07Y8MTW76/?tag=pfamazon01-20) that can control the camera on mobile phones. And e.g. OpenCamera for Android supports remote controls. I will try to get a suitable remote control, so I don't have to use the delay function anymore to remove vibrations.

That’s really going to help! I wonder if it will work with ProCamera?

I just finished building a 5” f9.4 refractor and I can’t get any decent images from it with the iPhone due to vibrations and the speed of the image racing across the field of view. Definitely need to break out the Atlas for it.

 

[collinsmark]

Here's an image of Uranus. Uranus is at opposition on 2020, October 31st.

Uranus facts:

Although I've been taking a lot of images of Mars lately, Uranus is much farther away. Uranus is much, much bigger than Mars. It's the third largest planet in the solar system. Yes, Uranus is very big (63 Earths big).

Uranus is full of gas. Uranus is a gas giant, meaning it doesn't have a solid surface until very deep down. It's comprised mostly of icy/gaseous water, methane, and ammonia, with a little hydrogen and helium. Uranus is very gassy.

Uranus gets its cold, blue-green color from all the methane.

Hydrogen sulfide has been discovered in Uranus' upper atmosphere. That's what gives farts and rotten eggs their characteristic smell. Yes, that together with all the methane and ammonia, we can be sure that Uranus is very smelly.

Although Uranus is not the most windy planet in the solar system (that record goes to Neptune), its winds are quite formidable, up to 560 miles per hour. Uranus produces a lot of wind.

------

Image taken from my back patio at 2020-10-30 08:16.1 UT.