Our Beautiful Universe - Photos and Videos

[Drakkith]

18x300s (1.5 hrs) of HA data from tonight.
Image has been calibrated and histogram stretched.

 

[sandy stone]

That is a spectacular photo. If you don't mind a totally naive question, how many pixels are there horizontally and vertically, and how many grayscale levels?

 

[Keith_McClary]

naive question

And are there differences in the cameras' specs that account for the improvement (I haven't tried to lookitup)?

 

[Drakkith]

That is a spectacular photo. If you don't mind a totally naive question, how many pixels are there horizontally and vertically, and how many grayscale levels?

Resolution is 1688 x 1350, but the camera has been binned 2x2, meaning that the maximum resolution I could get is roughly twice that. The sensor has a 3380 x 2704 native resolution. It's a 16 bit camera, so the grayscale runs from 0 to 65,535.

And are there differences in the cameras' specs that account for the improvement (I haven't tried to lookitup)?

The improvements between the images I posted above? Absolutely. For starters, the manufacturers given sensitivity for the new camera is just over twice what my old camera has (in the hydrogen alpha wavelength), but my own rough measurements were placing it possibly somewhere closer to 3x. The new camera also has less readout noise and much less dark current.

 

[collinsmark]

It's Mars season! This image was captured from my back patio last Saturday night, before most of the fires, back when the sky was normal. Mars was in conjunction with the gibbous Moon that night, but as you can see, that wasn't a problem.

Mars will reach its closest approach to Earth on October 6, and will be at opposition on October 13. I hope to post a few more images from now through that time, weather, seeing conditions, fires, and unforeseen yet impending apocalypses allowing.

Acquisition details below.

Midpoint time-stamp: 2020-09-06 11:19.4 UT

Equipment:
Meade 10" LX200-ACF telescope mounted on an equatorial wedge
TeleVue 2x Powermate to bring optical system to f/20, focal length 5000 mm
ZWO Electronic Filter Wheel with Astromomik Deep Sky RGB filter set
ZWO ASI290MM monochrome camera
(Note: Mars was high enough in the sky such that an atmospheric dispersion corrector was not needed or used)

FireCapture software was used to take a series of nine, 2 minute videos at about 111 frames per second, alternating between the red, green, and blue filters for each run (RGBRGBRGB). Re-focusing was done between runs. A total of 8 runs were performed, but not all runs had good seeing conditions. And, due to laziness, on more than one occasion, Mars drifted into the edge of the frame because I stepped away from my laptop instead of babysitting the capture (I really aught to update the LX200-ACF's PEC calibration). As a matter of fact, there really wasn't any run that was quite suitable for WinJUPOS de-rotation, so I didn't bother. But there was one run where there was pretty sharp seeing conditions in a contiguous RGB set (in this case, run 6, XXXXXBRGX). So I just used those without bothering with de-rotation.

Autostackkert! was used for stacking. As usual, 50% of frames were stacked as part of the "Lucky Imaging."

Registax was used for its wavelet sharpening.

Finally, Gimp was used for combining the RGB channels, color/contrast adjustments and cropping.

 

[bruha]

Hello, I added JUpiter images from yesterday with mobile phone adapter (Huawei 11) using yellow filter 8 (but not sure if through mobile camera filter effect working good..) +I have some problem with sharpening..
Your Mars is great ... I looked on Mars yesterday as well and I thing that filter 8 highlights grey areas...

Lot of succes

 

[bruha]

Hello, it is Altair by Bresser eyepiece camera.

 

[DennisN]

It's Mars season! This image was captured from my back patio last Saturday night, before most of the fires, back when the sky was normal. Mars was in conjunction with the gibbous Moon that night, but as you can see, that wasn't a problem.

Beautiful! Congratulations!

 

[collinsmark]

Here's this week's Mars image (as we await closest approach on Oct. 6, opposition on Oct. 13). This image was captured from my back patio on the night of 2020, Sept. 18th.

The South Polar Cap can be seen at the bottom.

The dark band spanning from left center to right center is is called the Mare Cimmerium starting at the left side, becoming the Mare Sirenum at the right side.

Olympus Mons, the largest volcano in our solar system, is visible at the upper right, near the edge. If, in the image, you start at the very right side at the equator, and then follow the edge North to about 20 deg. N latitude, you can make out a little dimple near the edge. That dimple is Olympus Mons.

The weird halo-like effect along the left and bottom edge is not a feature of the planet itself, but rather is primarily caused by diffraction in my telescope, exacerbated a little by some sharpening I did in post processing. There's some interesting physics going on there, if you like diffraction theory. I'm pushing my telescope's magnification to its limits here. The only real, reliable way to reduce the effect without sacrificing focus is to get a bigger telescope, or to wait until other conditions cause the boundary between Mars and space to appear less abruptly.

Acquisition and processing details below.

Midpoint timestamp: 2020-09-19 10:21.3 UT

Equipment:
Meade LX200-ACF 10", fork mounted on an equatorial wedge.
Tele Vue 4x Powermate (this is the item's first light, btw) to bring optical system to f/40, focal length of 10,000 mm. Sweet, fancy Moses. That's 10 meters. Ten. Meters. Good lordy.
ZWO EFW electronic filter wheel.
Astronomik Deep Sky RGB filter set.
ZWO ASI290MM monochrome camera.

The reason I chose the 4x Powermate instead of the 2x Powermate was not to increase resolution -- I'm already past the diffraction limitations of my optics given the camera's pixel size, even with the 2x PowerMate. Rather my goal with the 4x Powermate was to use my camera's internal 2x2 software binning feature to quadruple the full sensor frame rate over the USB, making it comparable to the 2x Powermate with a smaller region of interest (ROI), all while effectively doubling the signal to noise ratio (SNR). Unfortunately, FireCapture, the acquisition software that I'm using, doesn't seem to recognize the camera's internal 2x2 binning feature (FireCapture can do 2x2 software binning after the data transfer, but that defeats the point entirely). So, in the end, I skipped any 2x2 binning altogether and decided to just work with the larger image of Mars since I had it, faster framerate and beter SNR be damned.

Acquisition and processing:
Red: Exposure = 10.4 ms, Gain = 331, Framerate = 96 fps
Green: Exposure = 10.4 ms, Gain = 387, Framerate = 96 fps
Blue: Exposure = 9.6 ms, Gain 439, Framerate = 104 fps
Approximately 12,000 frames captured, per 2 minute video, per color.
Nine videos were stacked using Lucky Imaging process (18 minutes of integration time).

FireCapture was used to take data in the form of a series of 2-minute uncompressed video (.SER files), alternating between red, green, and blue filters for 9 videos per set (RGBRGBRGB, 18 minutes of capture time per set). Refocusing was performed between sets. Nine sets were captured but not all were used. (Btw, on a side note, I filled up an entire terabyte [that's 1000 GB] on my hard drive that night. Jaysus.)

Autostackkert! was used to evaluate and process each video into an image. The sharpest data came at the end of one set and the beginning of the next (specifically, Set6:xxxRGBRGB and Set7:RGBxxxxxx) -- but still, three contiguous groups of RGB data. That data was kept.

Registax wavelet sharping was used individually for each of the 9 images.

WinJUPOS was used to derotate and combine each of the color channels individually (beginning with 3 images for Red, 3, images for Green, and 3 images for Blue), producing a combined Red image, a combined Blue image, and a combined Green image.

Gimp's healing brush was used to repair derotation artifacts. Gimp was also used to combine the Red, Green, and Blue images into their respective color channels (i.e., combine into a single, color image), and finally to perform some color curves adjustments, saturation adjustments and contrast adjustments.

 

[Andy Resnick]

Completed mosaic of the North American Nebula, pretty happy with the results:

The original is approximately 10k x 10k pixels, so I should be able to print this 4' x 4'. Printing at "display resolution" would be 8' x 8', for comparison. In the end, I decided to leave in all (about 20) the airplane tracks, I think they add an element of interest.

 

[DennisN]

Completed mosaic of the North American Nebula, pretty happy with the results:

Amazing and very nice colors! How many photos is it stitched from approximately?
(disregarding number of stacked photos, if you used stacking)

 

[DennisN]

I'm pushing my telescope's magnification to its limits here. The only real, reliable way to reduce the effect without sacrificing focus is to get a bigger telescope, or to wait until other conditions cause the boundary between Mars and space to appear less abruptly.

Hubble Space Telescope, beware of @collinsmark , he's on a roll now!

 

[Andy Resnick]

Amazing and very nice colors! How many photos is it stitched from approximately?
(disregarding number of stacked photos, if you used stacking)

Thanks! All in all, I mosaic'ed together 15 stacks taken during the past 2 years; each stack consists of about 200 images.

 

[bruha]

Hello, Mars by mobile phone Huawei Y6 (Hyperion 8mm) . I have always problem with sharpening , not sure
if image colour shape can reflect real situation... have nice nights..

 

[DennisN]

Hello, Mars by mobile phone Huawei Y6

Better then what I have managed to do with Mars. I got so much abberation that it looked like three planets with different colors. (yes, really, I'm not joking)

 

[bruha]

O, thanks, ... I am sorry about it, which gear you use?

 

[bruha]

Hi here is still one Mars image . This is with filter yellow 8 and seems to me more real collours comparing
original Mars image but...

 

[Quarkman1]

This one is a favorite of mine, the star Eta Carinae and the Homunculus Nebula. When this star goes (if it hasn't already) the show is going to be spectacular!

 

[bruha]

Hi this is Jupiter image by sony compact small camera, I think by phone camera it is better...

 

[Andy Resnick]

Andromeda galaxy (M31) just barely fits in a 35mm format frame using an 800mm lens- 5 hr observation time @ ISO640:

Previously, I imaged this at 400mm for two reasons, one good (faster lens = easier to image) and one bad (stacking software limitation). With DSS, I could only get really good background subtraction in the central region of the field. Now, with APP, I can iteratively correct across the full frame.

In terms of 'resolution', even though the point spread function increases when I convert a f/2.8 lens to a f/5.6, the increase is more than compensated for by the increase in magnification- 2X magnification beats a 1.6X increase in PSF (2.5 pixels to 4). Here's a 1:1 crop:

 

[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.