Imaging Setup for Planetary Astrophotography
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 ส.ค. 2024
- In this video I detail how I went about getting together the necessary equipment to do planetary astrophotography why I chose it, assembling it all and then going over the details of how it all worked out.
I also go through the problems I encountered and how I will go about fixing them.
After watching this video Bill, I now know I will have no problem filling my nights and days after retirement. Planetary astroimaging-that's the ticket!
It made me feel like staying on an extra year 🥴
Thanks for the video. I’m just starting this hobby myself and expect to receive my first telescope tomorrow.
Just for info, the Powermates are not Barlows, but they are focus extenders, which is a more advanced type of image multipliers that doesn’t extend the eye relief.
Bill, amazing content! Everyone shares successes, but we all learn so much more from honest detailed failures. You're my hero! A huge issue from what you showed is oversampling. Huge zoom with tiny pixels. I actually have a .67 reducer/flattener in my image train too because there's no guarantee that the ROI will stay in the center of my scope, then I use a 5x powermate for a total of about 3x magnification and a camera with 2.4nm pixels. I'm oversampled and my image ends up blurry. I'm going down to a lower magnification and higher size pixels. You cannot solve with barlow and small pixels what starts with small aperture. You really need a 14" aperture or higher for detailed images of planets at a 1000x1000 pixel resulution.
Also, I use NINA and it has live stacking of last 10 frames. If it looks bad on the screen (like your planets were badly overexposed), then I know I need to fix something before I record.
Lastly... Jupiter and Saturn revolve VERY quickly. You have a window for maybe 2-3 minutes to get all exposures, otherwise your colors will be of different angles of the planet and they'll blur everything and create ugly fringes. You can program your routine to take 20-sec movies of every color, so you have a minute in total of all three. Not a bad idea to also shoot some luminance frames through a neodymium filter for contrast.
th-cam.com/video/puoh1ikzonA/w-d-xo.html
Gregory, yeah, everything you say is absolutely spot on; lessons learned. I have a .75 reducer now for the 10" RC but I never managed to get it on the scope when I had it mounted at the observatory (another set of 5 videos I put up) but I was doing galaxies etc, not planets. 2 years ago I had some success doing Mars through the 18" Obsession I have and the short exposure window works in your favor in that case because field rotation isn't the big issue it would be if you were doing deep sky. I did buy a camera rotator/de-rotator for this job but when I put it up there I couldn't reach focus unless I shortened the poles! Doh!!! looked into getting a separate set of shorter poles for photography but with the price of aluminum these days a single pole was $50!!! This is an open issue... if I solve it I'll make another video... Thanks for watching...
I use a 10" SCT at f/10 with f/32 by the time I get to camera. Also... You might want to put your EFW before the barlow or using a different adapter than the recommended one. Powermates actually change magnification based on the distance to focal plane! My 5x can become 7x if I add too much between it and camera. I once added my ADC after it. )))))) Big mistake. Couldn't even find the planet it. FOV was too tiny and dark. Another advice: try pre-focusing at daytime on a very distant subject. It won't be exact, but you'll know a good number on your focuser to start with.
One more thing... You can de-rotate in post. Using software. Don't worry about FOV rotation
Just picked up a 2" x4 powermate. Useful video thanks!
Glad you enjoyed the video. I have a 4x power mate as well but am finding it's tough to find the right situation for it. Let me know what you come up with if you've got a great application.
Bill
Great video. This answered a bunch of questions for me. 😃 Thanks!
Richard, thanks for writing; sometimes it's hard to put out a video of your failures but we do learn more from our failures than our successes, don't we? Glad you found it useful.
Try turning off your Autoguider. It's making tiny corrections in RA and DEC which could be screwing up your image and making it blurry. I would also try processing a larger number of frames. Based on your graph try stacking 50% not 10%. But definitely try without autoguiding and set the mount just to track in Sidereal
That's good advice! in order to find a star to guide on the shot time has to be so fast (cause the planet is so bright) I'm probably just chasing the seeing anyway!
Thanks for the info, unscrewing the powermate (Barlow) was useful for me, l maybe wrong, but here are a few points that l questioned when seeing the hivideo. With Mars showing in FireCapture the image looked greatly over exposed, so with messing around with gain and cutting down your exposure so you could see some surface detail even though it seems out of focus was one point, it may have been your video and it just appeared that way, focusing as you had good tracking, l suggest putting the image of Mars or any planet top left and increase magnification at the top of FC to say 200 percent and with your eyes focus the best you can, then return to 100 percent, whatever, with your ROI and that (for me anyway) says l have got the best l can get with focus, another useful baby is an ADC Atmospheric Distortion Corrector that is useful especially with low in the sky planets. Finally, shooting Jupiter, l use a colour CCD and a max exposure of 89 seconds, regardless of the number of frames, this is because Jupiter spins so quickly, after 89 sec you may be blurring, so if mono, l would consider 20 Ish sec exposures per colour filter, and that allows a few secs in-between changing the filters, if you're quick then more lol. These are my personal gut feelings, l am very much learning and maybe wrong on what l am suggesting, thanks anyway for your informative video. Cliff, Southampton, UK
That might have just been the way the iPhone camera picks up the computer screen. FireCap gives you a slider for exposure and I've had good results when I set the exposure time for each filter so that the exposure reading comes in around "70". That gives you plenty of headroom in processing but still have plenty of data to work with.
I just found out that there is a program called "WinJupos" that will do "de-rotation" allowing you to take longer image runs to maybe catch a moment of really good seeing!
It isn’t a Barlow
HI Bill. Just seen your video, but can't help but feel I arrived a little late to the party. Did you ever have a successful planetary imaging session? It looked to me as though you were over exposing your images. You may find you get better results if you under expose slightly as you tend to get fewer issues with artefacts during the sharpening process. As somebody very rightly pointed out, an atmospheric dispersion corrector will help you no end. You can also see some really nice detail if you photograph planets in the infrared. Rather than an IR cut filter, consider an IR pass filter. Infrared wavelengths are disturbed far less by atmospheric turbulence. Nice video and Good luck.
Rick, thanks for your suggestions. I did actually end up getting something that was generally successful and while not truly amazing images, they definitely fall into the category of "doesn't suck, plenty of room for improvement'. I had two good sessions with Jupiter and Saturn last year and a couple good sessions with Mars right around Opposition, including one with the 18-inch Obsession I have. I was able to verify that the procedures I was using work well enough, I just need to do a better job of all the critical things.
People have mentioned the "overexposure' issue and I think it just looks that way because I was taking the video with my iPhone of the computer screen and that's not really the strong suit of the video camera. In reality, I use the exposure time management controls in FireCaptureto get the exposure value to 70% on each of the RGB filters which seems to be plenty of data when you go to process but still have plenty of headrooom before true saturation.
I have the full line of Topaz sharpening/resizing/denoising software so my next outing I'm going to avoid the "drizzle' stuff in AutoStakkert which seems to make for pixelated images when you go to sharpen.
I've been looking at those dispersion correctors but haven't gotten around to seeing how introducing one of those will impact the backfocus in the imaging train.
I'm not sure if I can do your suggestions about the IR stuff since I think there's IR blocking on the glass in front of the sensor, at least there is in my large-format widefield cameras; I'll look into that.
@@BillGwynneTheSkyGuy HI Bill. I'm pleased you were able to enjoy a worthwhile planetary session eventually. You're right, recording a display with a phone can sometimes yield strange results. The seeing looked as though it was giving you a hard time as well though. It seems strange to have an IR cut filter on the camera window as that's why people mod DSLRs (to get rid if IR filter). The luminance filter usually cuts UV and IR then the infrared passes through the RGB filters. It may be worth you double checking your camera and to see whether an IR pass is an option for you. They're not at all expensive and the effect is awesome.
@@rv3211 I looked at the specs for my camera (QHY5-III290 Mono) and there wasn't any mention of what might or might not be going on with respect to IR so I'm not reallly sure where to go from here. Are you suggesting shoot another layer of IR in addition to RGB? How would you process that, as a luminance layer?
@@BillGwynneTheSkyGuy I think it's safe to say no mention of it is a good indication there is no IR cut filter built into the camera. You got it - The IR data is used as a lum channel and really helps bring out the detail after sharpening. For such a cheap filter, it makes the world of difference, but you don't hear of many people doing it. You'd do an IR/RGB combination. This can be done in both Photoshop and Pixinsight.
Good for you to admit the "opportunities".
So many assume they are experts and puff their chests.
I use an atmospheric dispersion corrector for planetary
Never heard of that device, expensive?
@@ChoosyMothersVideos No, about $100 or so, ZWO make one. Google ZWO ADC
Thank you for uploading. I had the chance to see a rocket launch in 2018. Incredible experience. I posted a pretty cool video of the trip to my page.
Thanks for sharing, your problem is that your exposure time was too long!
What value do you use? I set the exposure time for each filter so that they all come in at about 65% of full-well brightness. Like it says in the video, it's interesting how the green filter needs a 12ms exposure, but the red is only 4.5ms-much less than half. I'm going to be trying this again tonight and I'll see if my focus values change significantly. This time I'm not pushing the button until I'm SURE the focus and collimation is as good as I can get it.
Can't seem to get my TV 2 " Big Barlow to focus on my longer refractors
Does your focuser not go out far enough? Visual or photography? Is the star diagonal in the imaging train? Need to know these things before I might be able to help you.
@@BillGwynneTheSkyGuy Hi Bill, its a Tak FS 102, I have extensions, 2" diagonals and 1 1/4 s etc but seems to lack out focus even with added extensions IIMU the Powermate should resolve it but right now TeleVue 2 " Big Barlow seems to reach focus only on the Pronto 70 mm /480
@@JohnDoe-ze8wy If you are doing photography you should not be using any kind of diagonal in your imaging train; that will affect your focus point. For visual observing are you putting the barlow before or after the diagonal? Your owners manual should tell you the focal point of your scope. I'm finding it hard to believe that with a barlow AND extensions you can't get to focus but perhaps a call to TeleVue with your scope specs in front of you will suggest a solution.
@@BillGwynneTheSkyGuy Hi Bill I tried every combo, I did call TV and they recommended the PMate 2.5x - they did say it lends itself to shorter FLs - it may be the focal plane is ultra narrow and am racking through it - I will try again . Last night I tried OTA> Big Barlow 2"> 1 1/4 adapter > DSLR .TV did say a 1 1/4 train is usually less problematic than a 2". I will give it the ol college try again and take notes & report back so if someone else runs into this you will have more certain info - I do recall the focal plane on the Pronto with the Big B was narrow. I sincerely appreciate your prompt reply and follow up - Back in the day I had mEADE 90 MM + Barlow and it came to focus with any EP.
Did get a decent Conjunction shot + lunar shots sans Barlow at prime so we were not fully skunked.