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Posts Made By: Gianluca Valentini

August 12, 2003 12:44 AM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Solar System

My 1st attempt at Mars: need some help!

Posted By Gianluca Valentini
Hello everyone,
at last I was able to set up hunting for Mars. I took a couple of avis even if the seeing was bad. After processing the avis I obtained images that show a very evident blue halo on the lower right hand side of the planet and around the polar cap. All my movies produced similar results (I enclosed the best).
Can anyone tell me how to try to avoid this blue halo effect?
However it was obtained with a Nexstar 11 @ F25+Toucam Pro 250 stacked frames (out of 1200 to attain an 80% stacking quality!) exposure 1/33, 10fps.

Thanks for any help.

Ciao
Luca

August 28, 2003 03:51 PM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Solar System

Mars: 2nd attempt

Posted By Gianluca Valentini
I tried to tame a very wobbling Mars (seing is definitely not cooperating): here is the 1st result. I'm still processing some of the avis I took, so expect some more.

NS 11 @ F25; 1/33 exposure, 10fps; 600 out of 1200 in Registax 2; some wavelet processing in Registax and a little color adjustment and unsharp masking in Paint Shop Pro. All comments will be welcome.

Thanks guys.

Luca

September 5, 2003 03:48 PM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Solar System

Help with Vega 1.2.2

Posted By Gianluca Valentini
Hi guys,
I have some problems with Vega. It seems like a very good image capturing sw, but I cannot seem to find a way to adjust my display in order to show the icons on the top right hand side of the screen (above the three dials. Without these icons I can't use the bloody thing!

Thanks for any help you can provide.

Ciao
Luca

December 15, 2003 04:16 PM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Solar System

Collimation with a webcam??

Posted By Gianluca Valentini
Hello guys,

I remember I read once on this forum that somebody used a webcam image on the pc screen to collimate his scope. It sounded very easy since you don't have to go back and forth from the screws in front to the eyepiece in the back and can check the effects of your adjustments "live" on your pc screen. However, it sounds too easy: can anyone tell me if this is a sound procedure or not? And, if not, why it won't work.

It would be indeed a great step towards facilitating a procedure that, on some scopes, proves to be very hard to perform. If you have a scope like the Nexstar 11 GPS, the whole system is too long for anybody that doesn't have the arm reach of a large primate, to be able to carry out the operations necessary to understand which screw to turn in order to adjust collimation. I wonder how people shorter than me (I'm approximately 5'11") can collimate a large SCT without a collimator!

Thanks for any help you can provide.

Gianluca

December 20, 2003 10:10 PM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Solar System

Saturn: 2nd attempt

Posted By Gianluca Valentini
Hello guys,

last night I decided to set up at 1 a.m. I did not think much about conditions, + the temperature was approx. 0° celsius, but I had to do something after a long time waiting for ANY opening in the clouds!
Eventually, I stopped imaging at about 6 a.m. and was in bed by 7.15. It is my first total night (I'm a novice) and I must admit it took a toll on me (I'm 42 yrs old). Some of my equipment had a little frost on by the end of the session and that was certainly a new experience for me!

However, this is the first result on Saturn.
NXS 11" @F25 (TV Powermate),
Toucam Pro+IR cut
400/1200frames
10fps. 1/33 exp.

First result just out of Registax with a little wavelet and unsharp mask in Astroart.

Comments greatly appreciated!

December 24, 2003 02:55 AM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Solar System

Another Saturn.

Posted By Gianluca Valentini
Hello everyone,

I'm still slowly processing the many avis I took a few nights ago of both the gas giants. So far it seems that Jupiter won't come out good at all. But I have another Saturn image that I judge not as good as the one in the previous post, but I'll post it anyway. I have a doubt regarding Registax processing. When choosing a feature for alignment on Saturn I chose the Cassini division: is it a correct choice or is there a better one?

I'd love the usual feedback from anyone who'll want to take the time to comment.


Thanks everybody

Luca

December 29, 2003 03:00 AM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Solar System

Again the Lord of the Rings

Posted By Gianluca Valentini
I took the change of good transparency in bitter cold (-2°/-5°C) to capture some new avis of my favourite prey.

This image has been obtained by adding the result images of 2 separate stacking both of approx 700 frames (out of 1200 captured @ 10fps at F25). I guess this is then a 1400 frame stack: not so good for so much signal! For a brief moment, I thought I'd captured a hint of the Encke division (top left side fo the image), but then, mercifully, laughter intervened and I realized it could be just a problem of image alignement in one of the 2 stacking.

Thanks for comments, if any.

Happy new year to all from rainy/snowy Italy.

Luca

January 3, 2004 02:17 AM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Solar System

DSLR Fuji S2: 10 sec. on M42 @800 ISO

Posted By Gianluca Valentini
I was trying out a Stiletto focuser for my fuji s2 and I was strongly adviced not to use any focal reducer to get accustomed to the Ronchi screen focusing. So, since I was using a DSLR that has a built in 1.5 focal multiplier on my 11" at F10, I was imaging at F15 in altazimuth! At F15 I could not afford more than 10sec exposures at 800 ISO and this is the raw frame unprocessed. I would love some opinion on focus, mostly. This image is 33% of the original. I was not able to capture to many images (I am an absolute beginner and it took some time to test new stuff!) I will try to stack them and see what comes out.

Ciao

Luca

January 20, 2004 01:57 PM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Solar System

Newbie with DSLR: M42 1st attempt.

Posted By Gianluca Valentini
I know it sounds like a cocktail for disaster (newbie+dslr), but I wanted to post it anyhow. This is a sum of 20 10sec exposures @ ISO 800 with a Fuji Finepix S2. Unfortunately this is an F15 unguided with an alt-az mount (nexstar 11 GPS), but I consider it satisfactory as a test image. I applied dark frames and cleaned up the image in Neat Image (used it for the 1st time, so I don't know what kind of job I did). Some sharpening, deconvolution and touch up in Astroart.

I hope it'll be better when imaging at slower F ratios!

Any suggestions is well appreciated.

Thanks and ciao to all.

Luca

January 26, 2004 12:15 AM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Solar System

Old avi re-processed: Saturn

Posted By Gianluca Valentini
I re-processed an old avi that seemed particularly good for my standards. I reprocessed using a different alignment feature and re-aligned the stack with the processed image.
This is the result.

Thanks for any comment.

Luca

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