1st light ASI462MC - Jupiter 29 Sept 2022

[geoflewis]

I purchased this colour camera back in August just too late for Saturn's opposition, but expecting to get the run up towards and the opposition of Jupiter, but life and poor weather put paid to that. However, I finally got out with a couple of nights ago when the sky unexpectedly cleared around 10pm. It took me a while to set up the camera, get an image on the sensor with the C14 and start focusing, not least because the seeing was dreadful early on.  It also took a long time for me to dial in the capture and colour balance settings settings in FireCapture, as it's 6+ years since I used a colour camera. I made a bunch of mistakes, but gradually got the hang of it, then fortunatlely after a few hours of thrashing around (me as well as the Jupiter image), the seeing significantly improved for about 30 minutes, around 2am (BST), as the GRS was rotating into view.

This image is a de-rotated stack of 2x3 mins SER videos, each individually processed in AS3!, before taking them into WinJupos to de-rotate and stack. The combined image was sharpened with wavelets in Registax6, followed by a satuartion/vibrancy boost and levels adjustments in Affinity Photo.

 

 

Thanks for looking comments and critique welcomed.

 

[TerryMcK]

Excellent image Geof. The big red spot is looking fantastic. All the rest of the cloud formations/bands are very clear and I like how you have got the minor storm in the south too (probably swallow up several earth size planets in that one!)

[geoflewis]

2 minutes ago, TerryMcK said:

Excellent image Geof. The big red spot is looking fantastic. All the reset of the cloud formations/bands are very clear and I like how you have got the minor storm in the south too (probably swallow up several earth size planets in that one!)

Thanks Terry, yes it was fortunate that the seeing improved just as the GRS rotated into view.

[Carastro]

Lovely image and detail Geof.

 

Carole 

[geoflewis]

Thanks Carole

[geoflewis]

Sorry, but here's yet another version of my Jupiter from a couple of nights ago.

 

 

I've been learning some new processing tools and techniques to use with the colour camera, hence the different versions. For this version I ran the 2x3min SERs through WinJupos (WJ) to derotate all frames, before processing in AS3!, then further derotated the 2 best 5% AS3! graded stacks in WJ. Next I applied wavelet sharpening in Registax 6, with final levels and saturation boost in Affinity Photo.

This method seems to better preserve any detail captured, so I think I'm close to where I want to be, so this will likely be my go to methodology in future; always subject to tweaks of course.

I also applied a bit more saturation and vibrancy in this version to enhance Jupiter's lovely cloud colours.

Please let me know what you think.