Friday 28 December 2007

Christmas Moon with the G600 RGB and Greyscale versions



Here is another image that i think is better. One is RGB and the other is the Greyscale version of the same image.

Christmas Moon with the G600










Had a gap in the clouds Christmas night and got some handheld images of the moon with my G600 mobile phone. Did get some avi's with the webcam but it seemed to drop alot of frames so gave up there. The 2 nearly full moons were taken with my Celestron, 26mm ep, 50%ish zoom and ISO200. The 3rd, Mare Crisium, was a 9mm ep with 100% zoom. All run through Gimp quickly.

Saturday 15 December 2007

Problems with images....

I have had problems with my computer and all the images look fine through the desktop until i look at them on another computer when they look terrible. I will try and see if i can re process them and see if any improvements can be made. On a desktop the background looks nice and black and the details seem to come out but not when i look on a laptop. Asking for some advice through some friends and hopefully will get this sorted.

Friday 14 December 2007

Getting there


Re-stacked one of the avi's i got Tuesday night but this time i found some other functions that seemed to make a big difference. 599 frames stacked in registax4 then instead of arguing with Gimp and these RGB split images i played about with RGB in registax. Was amazed at how much more detail came out before i even got round to running it through Gimp. Slowly but surely i'm getting better, just need to sort out the focusing problem and get a 3x barlow to enlarge the image some more. I'm very pleased with this one, more so when i compare it to the others i have done.

Thursday 13 December 2007

Getting better(I think!!)


Had another go at Mars last night(12th) and took 605 frames of which 600 were stacked. Focusing is still a problem so when i can i will try imaging Mars with my Skywatcher and see if that makes a difference. Can't get the hang of this RGB split in processing, keep getting either a very red or blue Mars?!?! Practice and some reading up should help there(with a little help from my lovely friends)

Sunday 9 December 2007

Another Mars


Had a go through some of the avi's and practiced a bit more with the processing in Gimp. This is the finished result, a lot better i think than the others. More detail seems to be coming through and the redness doesn't seem to be so overpowering. I used the updated version of Gimp which does have some extra features and found a tool that allows you to put different filters on. I'm sure this has made a big difference.

First go at Mars



Managed to actually get outside the last 2 nights, not for long but hey, i'm not complaining, better than nothing. Gave Mars a go for the first time Friday night . Took a little while for me to find it on the ccd chip and got 5 avi's before the cloud rolled in. Wasn't very happy with the first results as Mars seemed very orange and i couldn't work out why!?! Last night i gave it another go and noticed a setting i had missed on my webcam. Changed it slightly and presto, not so orange. Still think it needs a bit more toning down but still a massive improvement. Took 8 avi's at 450 frames each with my Celestron before the wind got too bad and then attempted to process in Gimp. Not quite the same as processing the Moon so lots more practice needed but i'm very happy with the end result for a first go.
The larger image and more orange colour was my first attempt last night at processing which i don't think is too bad but the smaller image i think is much better. More detail coming through and not so orange. Think the focusing is better in that one as well.
One thing i don't like about this Celestron is the focusing, very difficult to get focus and once you do have focus you have no way of marking where you reached it. Think a crayford focuser is needed!!