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Patryk567 In reply to T-Ann-Photography [2018-09-07 18:12:30 +0000 UTC]

Thanks!

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T-Ann-Photography In reply to Patryk567 [2018-09-11 03:41:39 +0000 UTC]

^^ Welcome!

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Patryk567 In reply to HeartsOfStone [2018-08-02 18:54:02 +0000 UTC]

Thank You!

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Patryk567 In reply to zeexto [2018-07-30 17:24:12 +0000 UTC]

Sadly the diameter of my telescope is really not enough to see much detail on Mars.
And on top of that DSLR's are pretty bad for planetary imaging - the sensors don't have enough pixel density to provide enough magnification so you need to use a barlow instead - but mine is just 2x and it has terrible quality.
Also for planetary it's best to take thousands of pictures which is really difficult for a DSLR - the best I can do is take ~1 picture per second while a dedicated astrophotography camera could do 30 or even 60FPS and with less noise. Now I could get one, they're not THAT expensive, but it would be a waste of money because the scope is the most limiting factor here and any improvement would be probably minimal.

Because of this the best picture of Mars that I have right now is a 50px orange dot with no detail at all.

However I did take images of Jupiter and Saturn that are at least recognizable.
Here you can see them: Jupiter Saturn

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zeexto In reply to Patryk567 [2018-07-30 18:53:11 +0000 UTC]

That's interesting, but why does it need high frame rate? is there a post processing software that is needed?

I also barely got an orange dot with my Sony RX10M3, but Jupiter and Saturn pictures look nice and clean, they are 50X as well correct?

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Patryk567 In reply to zeexto [2018-07-30 19:56:59 +0000 UTC]

Yes, usually you need to take thousands of pictures, choose the best ones and stack them together to get cleaner image with more details. Those last two steps are handled by software - RegiStax, AutoStakkert!3 and AviStack are pretty popular for planetary processing.

When it comes to magnification you need to divide the focal length of the telescope (or lens) by the diagonal length of camera's sensor.
In my case the focal length is 1500mm (750mm * 2x Barlow) and the sensor is 28,3452mm so as it turns out my setup is around 53x magnification.

I'd actually like to see your pictures of Jupiter and Saturn. Your camera actually has two advantages over my telescope + dslr setup:
-the sensor in your camera is much more advanced and has better low light performance than my old D5100 - so even with much less light hitting the sensor you still can get good pictures.
-the diameter of your lens is much smaller than that of my telescope, but at that magnification it's an advantage because you're not as affected by bad "seeing". Bad seeing is when the atmosphere is very turbulent, hot air currents bend light causing the image to shimmer and wobble. That's also why you need thousands of frames so that you can choose only those least affected by this.

I did order a 5x barlow that's higher quality than my current one so maybe with that I can do better than this.
It should give me 132x magnification but I'm worried that the image will be to dim for my camera then.
I guess I'll know in a couple of days.

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zeexto In reply to Patryk567 [2018-07-30 22:47:22 +0000 UTC]

I think you're giving my camera way too much credit, If I take pictures of Saturn I'll show you what I mean.

When you get the 5x barlow I'd like to see your trials as well.

Finally thanks for the information.

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Patryk567 In reply to zeexto [2018-08-15 20:25:57 +0000 UTC]

I managed to capture some detail on Mars thanks to the barlow.
Here's the image: i.imgur.com/1uXhbZf.png
There's also Saturn: i.imgur.com/QSJtn2z.png

Both images consist of roughly 18,000 frames stacked together.

Though as I feared the amount of light at that magnification with such a small (6" or 15cm) scope was really really, really small - I had to shoot Saturn at ISO 4000 and it was still only faintly visible.
It was much better with Mars because it was so much brighter so ISO 1600 was enough to see it well.

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zeexto In reply to Patryk567 [2018-08-20 09:43:43 +0000 UTC]

Again, those are really good.
So how long did it take for Mars for example? I mean you took around 9000 frames over that span of 2 hours or more?

Here is the blip that is Mars: imgur.com/a/0T9N9Kz
And I believe this is Jupiter: imgur.com/a/zActZXP and imgur.com/a/yOwVQ7S

I think that now you can better appreciate your setup  

I'd love to see a shot of the Moon with your new barlow, when you get the chance.

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Patryk567 In reply to zeexto [2018-08-20 19:24:05 +0000 UTC]

Thanks!

Actually no, each of them consist of 18,000 frames that were taken over the span of 10 minutes - for Mars any more than that and it's rotation would be too significant to stack.

And those are not 18,000 photos, those are video frames - my D5100 does 1080p30fps . Sure the resolution is not as great when doing photos (4928x3264) but it doesn't matter - the limit here is still the quality of the optics and "seeing" so 1080p is enough for my setup and the increased number of frames is a huge advantage.

Your pictures are cool but you made the same mistake that I did way before I got my telescope - you completely overexposed the planets. The upside of that is that you can see the moons, but the downside is that you can't see any surface detail. And I'm pretty certain that you will be able to see surface detail on Jupiter if you nail the exposure and focus.
Look at my single frame of Mars - i.imgur.com/Ga6UWyI.png - notice how dim the planet is and also notice how blurry it is. This is what you should aim for.

Now try to do that yourself (with Jupiter):
First of all set the camera to manual if it's not already, then set the shutter speed to be 1/60s and increase the ISO until the planet is as bright as in my image. You really don't want to go lower than 1/60s but you can go higher - 1/80, 1/100 and more, the higher the better, but watch out for noise too.

Note that you probably won't see much detail on the planet - it will be blurry either way, but try to focus as best as you can so it's the least blurry
Then try to capture as many photos as you can in ~10 minutes. Oh and don't hold the camera even if it's on a tripod, use an intervalometer or a shutter release - if you don't have a wired one, use an Android app called "Timelapse - Sony Camera" or IOS app "IntervalCam". Though remember to adjust the camera every once in a while otherwise Jupiter will leave the frame

You can also try to shoot video but I don't know if you'll have enough resolution to work with, still worth a try!

Once you have lots of photos you'll want to process them.

I use four pieces of software:
-AutoStakkert!3 - I use this one for stacking my frames into one picture. Remember to save the results as a 16bit TIF.

-RegiStax - I use this one for sharpening the picture that came out of AutoStakkert!3. Also remember to save as a 16bit TIF.

-PIPP - Planetary Imaging PreProcessor - I use this one for converting .MOV files from my camera to uncompressed AVI that AutoStakkert can use. It also has a very useful function of finding the planet, centering it and cropping the background around it so all that is left is a 300x300px AVI video file with the planet in the middle. It will also accept photos from your camera so it's very useful, you don't want to insert 20MP images straight into AutoStakkert - the processing would take forever, just use this to cut away the unnecessary background.

-Photoshop (GIMP will also do) - Load the resulting 16bit TIF and play with levels, curves and hue/saturation to get the final final image.

Well that's it! I hope you will try this and succeed!

So yeah, I do appreciate my setup but that camera you own actually costs more than my whole setup including the DSLR, telescope with the mount, the barlow and the filters so don't dismiss it right away yourself. People have done some wonderful astrophotography with just a camera and a good lens and you have that already. All you need now is skill, dark sky and a tracking mount - you can start with making a DIY barndoor tracker or just skip that and buy something like a iOptron SkyGuider Pro if you have the money.

www.reddit.com/r/astrophotogra… - Here you can see what someone was able to do with a DIY barndoor tracker and a 200mm lens on a DSLR.


With that you will be able to do better deep sky astrophotography than I can, I'm not even kidding here.

Oh and I will try the Moon with the barlow in a month, that's when it will be visible from my balcony.

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zeexto In reply to Patryk567 [2019-03-21 19:38:16 +0000 UTC]

Hi again! Sorry for the delayed response, I was on a very long field job far from my PC and civilization! just came back yesterday, and I totally missed the blood moon which was in January I think. 

I remember trying your tips before going but only wanted to reply when I had a result. sadly I wasn't able to get any. and it's due to the fact that I haven't read any tutorial on the suggested softwares yet. I tried shooting a 1080p 60fps video but I think it was too much for AutoStakkert even after converting it to an uncompressed video with PIPP which also gave me a weird ufo version of Mars!

Anyway, I just wanted to say thank you very much for your detailed reply.

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Patryk567 In reply to zeexto [2019-03-22 11:31:58 +0000 UTC]

Well I hope you get another chance at Mars or Jupiter. Also try reprocessing the previous thing - you might get a better result this time

As for the blood Moon I missed this one as well - it was raining at the time :/

In fact I haven't been able to do any astrophotography this winter due to constant bad weather - there were probably like ~10 clear nights in the past 4 months or so and all of them were at a bad time when I had to go get up to work in the morning or was too tired to stay up long enough.

What's really sad is that there was supposed to be a pretty bright comet visible from my balcony in December and January and there was not a single clear night through that time so I missed it completely.

And I did try shooting a moon mosaic through a 5x barlow and sadly it was a complete failure - it was a ton of work shooting, then sorting the images, processing each area separately, stitching them up together.

And in the end it ended up being more blurry than regular photos taken straight through the telescope. What added insult to injury was the fact that while I was shooting through a barlow a plane flew right across the moon but I was not able to capture it at all because I was so tightly cropped (seeing only like 1/10 of the moon in frame). That would've been such an amazing photo if I was shooting straight through the telescope

But that's okay - failure is a part of the process - that's how we learn. And I'm not giving up - I'm looking forward to spring and summer for some clear nights.

Also I might finally be able to see Jupiter from my balcony in the next few months.

Oh and I don't know if I ever linked my AstroBin gallery but here it is: www.astrobin.com/users/Undy/

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