Posts Made By: Mike Wirths

8O 8O Good grief Eric thats an amazing Saturn!
How in the world did you get such amazing band detail and with so little noise? Are you a wavelets fan or did you use some kind of noise reduction post processing? I notice on your previous image that the crepe is much more evident, I think this may be down to transparency. The crepe visually seems only to be readily visisble on those nights with great seeing and transparency.

thanks and congrats

Mike W

Hi all,

Looks like Chuck is up and running again! Theres a cool SMART image today!

--Mike W

Hi all,

I found a video of Saturn from the night of the 31st, it was much higher in the sky but the seeing was not as good, but less wildly variable. Still I like this one better, it shows the Cassini much cleaner around the entire ring, and its less noisy, also I processed it to look not as greenish. Is it just me or is the trend to process Saturn with a greenish tinge? I know in my 30" Starmaster which will pick up subtle colour like crazy I never notice anything but a creamy yellow with maybe a hint of red on the globe. Guess thats down to personal preference.
Image: Stack of 550/2750, no enlargement
Starmaster 18" working at 11000mm fl (5X's powermate) Toucam 740. I tried what Tom Leech suggested which was to place the Reg 2 algnment curser on the globe not the rings which made for a more uniform sharpness--thanks Tom 8)
Another thing I've been noticing is in the larger aperture Sat pic cassini looks much wider than in the 8-9.25 scopes, why is this, just the slight edge in resolving power? Or did I oversharpen? I just used wavelets, no deconvolve, or unsharp mask..let me know you won't hurt my feelings we're here to learn from each other right? 8)

thanks

Mike Wirths

Ok

Never posted this pic before, its from the night where I shot a bunch of lunar pics (the 18th) but this one never turned out cause gusty wind made keeping it centered a task.
So inspired by Kirk and Wes's mosaics to sharpen up images, I decided to try it myself. I restacked the avi using 4 reference points and then recombined them (not very smoothly either) in Images Plus software (is there a "best" mosaic sofware out there?).
Go easy on me Guys this is my 1st mosaic I know theres lines in it. Sure did work to get it a fair bit sharper though!!

cheers

Hi all,

Tried the Vanden/Higgins mosaic method on Arzachel, this time I split it into six slightly overlaping areas. Pretty time consuming since I had to restack in Reg 2 for each of the six areas, but it seems to have made the image uniformly sharp across the whole image. About a 10% increase in detail. At least I'm getting in some mosaic practice... can you tell its cloudy here? :S

--cheers

Mike Wirths

Hi all,

Since we all know that seeing is 95% of the equation in getting awesome images, I've been tossing around the idea to have a get-together/starparty this fall say around Oct 25-Nov 3 for the Mars opposition. The location would be perhaps near the Everglades 30 minutes from Naples Fla.
This forum seems to have the most interested and passionate imagers so would'nt it be great to put faces to names finally and learn a crapload of stuff from each other AND have a blast doing it?
I'm willing to frego TSP this year to do this, I'll load up my dobs and drive down from Canada...
Who else is into this idea? If we start to plan now maybe we can make it a reality!

Mike Wirths

Hi all,

Since we all know that seeing is a huge part of the equation in getting a great image why not go to the place in N. America where the seeing is best? I've been tossing around the idea to have a lunar/planetary imaging starparty this fall say around the time of Mars opposition (maybe from the 25th of Oct to say around the 3rd of Nov).
The location that has some of the best seeing in Fla and dark skies is the everglades area 30 minutes form Naples. It would be great to finally put faces to names and learn a crapload of stuff from each other firsthand. I'm sure we would all have a blast doing it in the process!
I'm willing to forego TSP this spring to do this, besides Fla is only a 2 day drive for me. Hell if the seeings crap I'll have my 30" Starmaster with me and we can do deepsky!!
Who thinks this is a good idea? If we start to plan for it now maybe we can make it a reality!

Mike Wirths

Hi all,

Well it was clear tonight but the seeing went south soon after dark and by the time I had everything set to go it was a solid 4-5/10 seeing. The only thing that salvaged the videos to some degree was the IR passband filter (I suspect the better the seeing gets the less they are needed and with really good seeing are probably a hinderence). I also dropped back to just a 3X's barlow.
The ray structure around Messier did turn out nicely.
Stack of about 250/1200
18" Starmaster

--Mike W

Heres Petavius, same details as with messier. I think I captured it a bit too brightly. Always did love the look of this cool crater!! Its 2 days after being on the terminater, so the shadows are almost gone.


--Mike W

Hi,

I did a quick comparison shot of the Rheita valley a few nights back during fairly poor seeing. I shot one video with a Schular 850nm passband filter and then quickly took it out and shot another one without. here is the comparison, the image on the right (the really crappy one)was shot without, I had trouble even getting a proper alignment because the frames were so distorted, the one on the left was with the filter and its not half bad. I'm pretty sold on IR passband filters, the only drawback is they eat up a lot of light, at least the Schular one does, I ordered the Baader 670 a while back I'll let you know which one seems better!

cheers

Mike Wirths