Showing posts with label 2009. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2009. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Mars 2009 - 2010 FINISHED!

I had taken it upon myself to go out as often as possible for this apparition.  As long as it was clear, I was out imaging.  Most nights were mostly poor as is frequent in the winter around here.  This was the 1st time using a 5x PowerMate in my C8i.  I long planned to get a large aperture, fast f-ratio Newtonian, and now do.  Having this plan in my mind it seemed fitting to use it this season on a bright, but small planet in Mars.  Here's some highlights that haven't seen the light of day in the past year...



My attempt at getting Phobos and Deimos using an obscuring bar made from aluminum foil.  I only got Deimos...next apparition, both with animation and a 14"!




and one more

I do apologize that some of my orientations are N-up and some are S-up.  Worse than that, some are just plainly mislabeled!!!

Friday, May 14, 2010

Happy 6th Birthday Jacob!

"Hey dad, guess what?"
"Chicken Butt?"
No Jacob's 6 years old today!

Left to Right:

Top: Birth, 5/14/2004 - 1YO 2005, 2YO 2006, 3YO 2007
Bottom: 4YO 2008, 5YO 2009, 6YO 2010, Birth, 5/14/2004

Saturday, May 1, 2010

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

The missing Jupiter from Oct '09


I kept good logs of this night, but forgot to process it!

Single best of the set....

yea to me for finding it!


Friday, January 1, 2010

Recent Deep-Sky Astronomy work

4 nights in December, most of which had bad seeing.  2 of them, I started with the CGE aligned and the white, 6" Schmidt-Newt on top and changed it out at midnight or later, in freezing temps (20*F) for the Orange 8" SCT.  Phew.  It wasn't very fruitful, but felt good to be able to field switch as the single armed fork C8i mount was still in the shop.

Ok, here's the totals:

4 nights
6 hr and 29 minutes of *Stacked* images represented here.  Some were thrown away and or not processed yet!
I also got my dad some time on M31 with his Canon 50d at ISO 3200  :)  - too bad the tracking wasn't better for ya dad!

M34:





M1:






M45:



Horsehead and Flame Nebulae - at a whopping 3.2 hours of stacked data!  I'd like to add more to reduce the noise!  Any tricks?!  Lots of varied subs, but perhaps too long or too high an ISO?

I like it and it's perhaps my longest yet...



Thanks for looking and please post a response here telling me where you found this entry?  Multiply inbox, rss, twitter, facebook etc...

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Late season Jupiter with the kids


My kids, 5 and 3, could usually take or leave my hobby. Sometimes they just want to do what dad does and this was one of those nights. Perhaps it was all the recent rain and clouds we've had from Hurricane Ida but they we're ready to go. Conditions weren't the best, but some good views on the computer via the DMK and some eyepiece views got them pretty excited. That is until they got cold and didn't see any meteors from the shower. Ok, enough rambling. Here's my view that the kids helped capture!!

Mike


Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Michael A. Phillips' Planetary Processing Routine version 8.1

Was this tutorial helpful?

Yes, thanks very much!
 
 8

I think I like the v7 better.
 
 0

Yes, but I'd like additional information and will post in the comments below.
 
 0

No thanks, I like my own routine.
 
 3

No, I have something I'd like to add in the comments below.
 
 0















HINT: To download this tutorial as a Microsoft Word Doc, click here - http://www.mediafire.com/?yj4em1omomn




Introduction

1. This is by no means a replacement to the tutorials I learned the most from such as Mike Salway's (http://www.mikesalway.com.au/2008/08/26/planetary-imaging-and-image-processing) or Paul Haese's (http://paulhaese.net/planetaryprocessing.html). I am simply tuning, tweaking and automating some of the steps to suit my own taste and hope you find some ideas here to use for yourself!


    1. Incorporating a large portion of the v7 tutorial (seen here), I was able to skip the Registax application altogether. The advantage here is the I now stack in Iris direct from Ninox and Iris has a very robust scripting engine to automate stacking and saving of raw files.


    1. All the routines in this HowTo use applications running on Linux, even the windows only software packages run under Wine (http://www.winehq.org) running under Linux. All of the video screencasts are recorded and produced using applications running on Linux. I am confident that all software and processes detailed in this HowTo can be run on MS Windows with one exception. The capture software I use, Coriander, will run only on Linux. Even some of the bash scripts may be run under Cygwin (http://www.cygwin.com/) although I've not tried myself. Never fear, the main method of this HowTo still applies to users running on MS Windows.


    1. OK, HERE'S the SHORT METHOD!

All videos are best viewed in HD (click the button in the lower right) and full screen!!

      1. Acquisition: Using Anthony Wesley's custom coriander 1.0.0. This works well for me as I have a firewire camera and motorized TruTek Color Filter Wheel with PC control cable. - Part 1 Video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IF70aenFIq4)


      1. Sorting by quality, rescaling, centering and cropping in ninox: (http://acquerra.com.au/astro/software/ninox/ - A tool for processing planetary images by Anthony Wesley) – Part 2 Video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWZ7Gc8kmTM)


      1. Stacking in Iris: Major change in this version 8, is the absence or skipping of Registax for stacking. Move Ninox sorted and cropped images into Iris for stacking.


Stacking ninox sorted data right into Iris - Part 3 Video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjPwY5NQYnw)


      1. Processing in Iris: RGB combine, whitebalance, black point, sharpening and processing. - Part 4 Video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKlshHH3Zhg)




  1. Acquisition

      1. My equipment consists of

        1. I use a Celestron C8i SE (orange tube)

        2. Lenovo T61 laptop running Ubuntu 9.04 Linux and custom coriander (for firewire cameras – Thanks Anthony Wesley! )

        3. DMK 21AF04 (Firewire)

        4. 2.5x PowerMate

        5. Astronomik LRGB filters

        6. True Tek Color Filter Wheel with visu diag and PC serial cable (USB-to-Serial)

        7. Homemade Hand Controller extender or PC mount control for drift corrections

        8. some shots here:























http://picasaweb.google.com/maphilli14/MichaelAPhillipsAstronomyEquipment#5244213374458800210





























http://picasaweb.google.com/maphilli14/MichaelAPhillipsAstronomyEquipment#5244213381800624706



      1. Once everything is connected up I follow the 'custom coriander 1.0.0' modified by Anthony Wesley (aka Bird - http://acquerra.com.au/astro/software/coriander/ ).

      2. Before beginning capture, I suggest you get some basics covered - Michael A. Phillips' Astronomy Lesson on Seeing, Collimation and Focusing (http://maphilli14.multiply.com/journal/item/70/)

      3. Here is a screencast that demonstrates a regular capture routine that I follow for Jupiter. - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IF70aenFIq4

      4. After completing your captures you may move onto the next section that moves data from 'transit' to 'sorted'. It is important to note that this coriander outputs a static image stream of .fit files not a .avi or video file. This saves me a step extracting the movie to images later on!






Sorting by quality, rescaling, centering and cropping in ninox

      1. I prepare all captured source images that are really .fit files by passing it through ninox (http://acquerra.com.au/astro/software/ninox/) to sort and crop the images and then output to a new subdirectory called 'sorted'

      2. An optional, short getting started video on downloading, installing and using ninox - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpOJQxzyTnw

      3. Additional changes to the version 8 routine include batch processing of all the nights images in a single command as well as upscaling to 200% or 300% of raw images before stacking.

      4. The full script is a bash script and can be found here:

        1. Generate list of nights captures - http://www.mediafire.com/file/nfyimywxnny/MAPgenplanetlist.sh.zip


Execute looping ninox:

        1. In version 8 of my routine, I now have a simple loop that reads all the nights captures and allows you to selectively run Ninox against all or some of the captures. This script that will read the capture directories and use them to create all the sorted, Ninox folders. Per these guidelines (http://maphilli14.blogspot.com/2008/01/tips-on-organizing-your-computer.html).

      1. The key ninox syntax is:

        1. ninox -width=300 -height=300 -cutx=300 -cuty=300 -qestimator -qrenumber -outdir=Astronomy/Sorted/2-Scratch/Jupiter-$1/$2 /Astronomy/Transit/1-Corianders/$1/$2

          • This, “-width=300 -height=300 -cutx=300 -cuty=300” crops the images to a square 300x300 pixel size

          • This “-qestimator -qrenumber” sorts the data and renumbers the images based on quality

          • This “-outdir=Astronomy/Sorted/2-Scratch/Jupiter-$1/$2” allows me to specify a new folder in a sorted (not transit) folder for safer keeping. The $1 and $2 are the arguments passed to the script at runtime in which $1 is the ISO date that coriander writes ( IE 20081122) and $2 is the UTC time (IE 001122UTC).

          • There is another path following the outdir, /Astronomy/Transit/1-Corianders/$1/$2 this specifies the source files if not in the current directory.

          • Upscaling is in the format of -resample=3/1 scales all the subframes to 300% the original size after cropping. A tip from Anthony Wesley citing that it helps to remove artifacts made me want to try for myself and it in fact does work quite well on good data!! I've gotten fantastic results running a raw stacked, 3/1 upscaled image through AstraImage, which is part of my long routine, v8.2





Stacking in Iris: notes on skipping Registax and how to get 'Iris-ready'

      1. Why skip Registax? Only because I can automate stacking and saving of Red, Green and Blue with a single click!

      2. Skipping Registax is a two step process. First ensure the proper naming of files. Second, use the command window or Iris script to automate the stacking.

      3. The key to taking Ninox sorted data straight to Iris is in the naming. Iris has a fairly rigid naming scheme for any sequences of data that it works with. In particular if you are going to stack a series of raw monochrome data in the red channel it will NEED the numbering to appear as follows, as this is how Iris requires the images to be numbered, IE no leading zeros.

      • R1.fit

      • R2.fit

      • R10.fit

      • R99.fit

      • R100.fit

      • and so on...

This is not the same scheme that most image capture programs work with and I was able to solve this with the Linux package for batch copy / move called 'mmv' (mmv is a program to move/copy/ append/link multiple files according to a set of wildcard patterns)

In a nutshell your files need to get renamed from:

xxxx-yyy-q001999.fit → R1999.fit

or

xxxx-yyy-q00239.fit → xxxx-yyy-R239.fit

where all all leading 0's get stripped off as Iris does not like that.

I've not tested yet but for windows users this suggestion came across the Yahoo Group for Iris Software via Christian Viladrich:

The numbering rule in Iris is :
1, 2, ..., 10, 11, ..., 100, 101,

So, if you have a numbering such as :
0001, 0002, etc
you have to renumber your files.

You may renumber your files with "remultfile" software:
http://www.ptorris.com/windows.php

This is a French software, but very easy to understand.”” - Christian Viladrich



The fun part is starting the automated stacking and walking away for something more exiting!

Once the files are in the right format you may use this Iris script (http://www.mediafire.com/file/xzy3ihqamwt/MAPPlanet81.pgm.zip)
to convert and or stack the raw images in a manner similar to Registax's stacking scheme. Before using, test with one or both of these commands:



Non-FIT users need to convert to fit first! (For BMP users, use PIC settings not FIT settings)

BMP2PIC red redpic $1


add_norm red $1

Where $1 is simply the number of frames 'located in the iris working directory' that are to be stacked.

Some notes about the final image. First it is a After stacking you may find the brightness to be clipped or oversaturated. This is actually not the case and you should notice that Iris works in 48-bit space so you may fix this issue by using the following command:

mult $2

Where $2 is a number less than 1 to which all pixels are multiplied by. If you save the raw stack you may reload at anytime before you find the final desired brightness.







  • This image was a normal brightness image which I used mult 1.5 several times to give the over exposed view on, but using mult 0.8 or mult 0.5 a few times will bring it back to this. If it does NOT bring it back then you have gone beyond the 48-bit max value point and I've never encountered this before with my 8-bit camera and anywhere between 500-600 frame stacks.


























Processing in Iris

Flow – I like to follow a framework of a routine, that worked for me in the past under varying conditions. Here's my flow that I load from a text file and then paste into the Iris command window.















>run mapplanet81 500



>load r0



>--processing / wavelets-- 1,5,10,3,1



>unsharp 3 2 1



>save r81



>load g0



>save g81



>load b0



>save b81



>--view / rgb-- x81--



>white



>black



>save rgb81a



>scale 2 0.67 0.67



>--processing / wavelets-- 1.1,1.9,1.7,1,1



>save rgb81b



>--Saturation 1.3--



>gauss 0.5



>--processing / blur filter--



>visu 25000 200



>save rgb8a



>run rgb8a



>load rgb8a



>scale 2 0.75 0.75



>



Anything with a > is the 'prompt' and not a command

Anything with a >-- is just a note to find that in the menu system as it's not a command (not that I can see)







Step by Step Explanation:



stack per step 3 above with Iris script

Load each raw file (EG R0)

apply wavelets to taste

apply unsharp mask (optional and mixed success)

save as new filename (EG R81)

repeat for Green and Blue

RGB combine (EG Trichro – located in View RGB) - GREAT explanation of Whitebalance and black point by Sebastien Leboutte http://www.skyimaging.com/filter-wheel.php

whitepoint “

blackpoint “

save 'backup'

scale down to intermediate step (EG from 3x to 2x)

more wavelets

save new 'backup'

saturation increase to 1.3x

smooth with gauss

smooth with blur (again to taste)

adjust levels with visu

save as final

this final gets picked up by next iris script which saves as a variety of formats to get copied by bash script

At this point you're done and you can use Gimp or Photoshop or other similar editor to brush up and put in stats, logos etc...



Some additional Iris resources are found here:



Sebastien Leboutte - http://www.skyimaging.com/tutorials.php

and of course Christian Buil, author of Iris! - http://www.astrosurf.com/buil/us/iris/iris.htm (Scroll past halfway to find the TUTORIAL section)



TO DO's:



Include more MS Windows automation

Add Astra Image per my v8.2 routine.

Figure out how to use Deconvolution in Iris, in lieu of AstraImage.



HTH!



Mike




Monday, October 5, 2009

Jupiter 20091002



Yes, my C8i SE Single Armed Fork decided to take a break.  Ironically just after I got the CGE mount back!  The power wasn't getting to the hand controller just at the end of this session and the mount is on it's way to Celestron from out of warranty repair.  :(
Good news is the seeing was pretty good.
Not much else going on other than the Z-shaped / Zorro in the upper left!

Wish my mount a speedy recovery, The OTA will ride the CGE for a while... *sob* *sob* I'll have to one scope it for a while!  :)

Saturday, October 3, 2009

Waxing Gibbous Moon from 20090929

After my Pluto shots, I tried for the moon.  I've never really gotten a good full disk photo of the moon before.  Not one I liked at least.  I was even able to load the Canon raws (.CR2) into Registax 5 and stack 12 of the best ones.  AstraImaged for most of the detail and some touches in Iris and Gimp.  Hope you enjoy!


Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Pluto on three nigts in Sept 2009

I had to make a correction to the original finding based on 3 nights (Sept 12th, 21st and 29th, 2009. 

Here you'll see the positions of Pluto marked with small lines.  The animation will change the current position's line blue and then rotate back through.

I used...
Optics: Meade LXD55 6" Schmidt Newtonian OTA
Mount: CGE mount on JMI Wheely Bars
Camera: Canon XTi with Hutech LP Filter (LPS-P2-FF)
Focusing Aid: STI focuser
Shutter control: Hap Griffin long exposure cable
Software: MaximDL
Guiding: DMK21AF04 with a piggybacked 4" SkyWatcher via PHD and ASCOM drivers
Operating System: WinXP Lenovo T61
Pre-Processing: Iris per automated Jim Solomon's Cookbook
Post-Processing: Gimp

Animation made with Gimp.

I also found it interesting that Pluto at magnitude 14 is pretty bright (other stars are 15-16 or fainter).  Pluto is over 4.7 Billion Kilometers away or nearly 3 Billion Miles.

I wish I could find a way to balance the background across the varying nights conditions.  The last night I fought the tree tops!

Cropped


FULL

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Messier 17 - Omega Nebula

  I think I could have benefited greatly from more subs on this one.  I ended up getting all .fits instead of raws on the 1st night.  The second night, MaximDL hung on downloading one of the raws, then the trees took over and I lost the autoguiding star.  I will try to add more sometime this season.  This nebula grabbed my interest simply because it was near Pluto (more on that object later).  I really like it.  Despite only 4 subs for a total of 14 min I think it came out well.

Stats

Optics: Meade LXD55 6" Schmidt Newtonian OTA
Mount: CGE mount on JMI Wheely Bars
Camera: Canon XTi with Hutech LP Filter (LPS-P2-FF)
Focusing Aid: STI focuser
Shutter control: Hap Griffin long exposure cable
Software: MaximDL
Guiding: DMK21AF04 with a piggybacked 4" SkyWatcher via PHD and ASCOM drivers
Operating System: WinXP Lenovo T61
Subs: Canon Raw 3x 180s @ ISO 1600 and 1x 300s @ ISO 800
Pre-Processing: Iris per automated Jim Solomon's Cookbook
Post-Processing: Levels, curves, selective gauss in Gimp alone.

Some additional subject details on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messier_17

Thanks,

Mike

Friday, September 18, 2009

I got my CGE back!!!!

I was very excited to get my CGE back from repair at Celestron and as luck would have I got a good 3 nights out of 4 of clear skies and an old moon!

I was tough getting back into the swing of things, but I'm happy to have it back.  The last night I split my time between the C8i SE (Orange tube on your Left) and the CGE with the DSO rig (White scopes on your Right).

As the haze and clouds began to build this last night I took off my DLSR from the white, DSO setup and had to pose as I was so excited to have both out and running at the same time.

I was sitting in an observing chair that I won from the SCT User Contest 2008 (http://www.darkatmospheres.com/contest/2008/).  It's actually a great chair!!

Now to process all my data!  :)

Mike

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Jupiter-20090822 - finally a break!



I got burned by lying, hiding clouds a week ago and a week before that was poor seeing.  So it has been 3 weeks since my last good night on Jupiter.

Finally a break in clouds and good seeing too!  I'd say the whole night's seeing was 6-8/10 and 3/5 transparency.  Rare indeed!

I wasn't diligent enough to catch the Io occultation of Europa.  I missed it by less than 30minutes!  :(   I did get setup and imaged this fine one before the clouds rolled back in.

I missed the occultation but didn't realize until after that the Wesley Impact Spot 2009 was nearing the CM.  I'm not sure I see it....  Is that it in the lower right???  It's nearly gone if I got it at all...

Thanks,

Mike

Saturday, August 15, 2009

2009 - June - Skeet




My dad, brother and his girlfriend all came to the DCWC for some skeet before heading to the beach the next day. Hey, better late than never, this was from June. My dad took video that I'll post later!

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Jupiter 20090804 - GRS and Wesley Impact Spot



It would have been nice to have the seeing hold as Jupiter dropped in altitude towards the time of the Wesley Impact Spot, but it did not.

The image seems a bit crowded to me, but I thought it would be nice to have a dual view with 3 channel RGB all for comparison.

The spot is REALLY spreading out!

Sunday, July 26, 2009

My July 25th, GRS, Wesley Strike and Io Transit

Does it seem like Jupiter season is in full swing yet? :)

Thanks to Anthony for discovering the impact strike, which I will faithfully call the Wesley Strike of '09 (he'll find more).

Seems to me yesterday morning was magical, something special in the air even drew out my son at 5:30.  He woke on his own I swear!  I did dress him quickly and dragged him outside for some help capturing this one and gave him some stellar 8/10 seeing views of Jupiter.  Seeing was a bit better just before he woke up... more on those later.  For now, here is his and my image!  He pressed the start capture button and drove the scope around!  ;)



Rest of the night and full 2009 season is here: http://maphilli14.multiply.com/photos/album/75/Astronomy_-_Planetary_-_Jupiter_2009

Mike

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