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Astronomy and Astrophotography

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Gina
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Re: Astronomy and Astrophotography

Post by Gina »

Trying Registax at this moment............................ Think I need a faster computer! As a quick test to get used to it I selected just 7 moon images and went through the instructions from the website. It's currently stacking and is just sitting there with an hour-glass. It's been like that for several minutes. Now I don't know if it's crashed or still working. I took around 200 pics of the moon (and sun) each day. I see there's a batch mode. Looks like that will be useful - maybe set things going overnight!.

On my first try of Registax, XP crashed so I'm not too hopeful. Having been running Linux and Mac OS X which very rarely fall over, going back to XP is a bit painful. Mind you, Cumulus seems to run well on XP without crashing. Pity there isn't a Linux or Mac version of Registax.

Ahhh.... Something's happening on my XP machine. I'll go over and check...
Gina

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mcrossley
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Re: Astronomy and Astrophotography

Post by mcrossley »

Gina, you're not trying to stack full frames from dSLR are you? You should crop them down to just contain the subject before pushing them through Registax. There are utilities that will do that for you automatically for AVIs (the centre on a bright object in the fov), but for your limited number of frames you will have to do it manually.
Gina
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Re: Astronomy and Astrophotography

Post by Gina »

It did finish but the resulting image didn't look that much better than individual frames.

Yes, the images of the moon nearly fill the DSLR frame. Images of the sun more than fill the image area. In fact the whole image area will fit inside the sun's disc. I've read about people using Registax for full frame DSLR images of the moon but maybe they're using a much better computer. I have a box with more RAM and HD which I have XP for but the processor is the same Pentium 4 HT 2.8GHz. I'm not using it ATM - I do most of my stuff on my AMD64 X2 running Linux or MacBook Pro. Maybe I should look for a Linux or Mac equivalent of Registax.

I could crop the moon images a bit - particularly the ones less than half-moon.

Actually my single moon images are not bad - the main problem, I feel, is accurate focus. I think maybe Registax will be more useful for planets or maybe sunspots. Perhaps taking several sun images and cropping to the area of the sunspots before processing.

Watch this space :lol:
Gina

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Gina
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Re: Astronomy and Astrophotography

Post by Gina »

Neither sunspot images nor Saturn ones would stack in Registax. The Saturn images are little more than a blob and a smudge. I'm working on my motor drive. Can't do much until that's working.
Gina

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Gina
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Re: Astronomy and Astrophotography

Post by Gina »

My motor drive seems to be working - it turns the worm drive - but fog this evening has prevented me trying it for real.
Gina

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Gina
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Re: Astronomy and Astrophotography

Post by Gina »

I received the IR/UV filter I ordered today and put it on the T-adapter I'm using with my MS LifeCam sensor. Had many goes at trying to remove dust etc. from the sensor and now have just a couple of dust bunnies near one edge. Replaced the (cleaned) UV filter to (hopefully) keep any more dust out.

The IR filter has made a big difference to the LifeCam sensor. Colours are now natural and I think the image is a bit better. Tried it on the scope pointed at my test tree-top half a mile away. Tried using Cheese, the Linux webcam software but Cheese kept dropping out. So went over to Yawcam on my XP box and set that to 10 seconds capture rate. No problem with that :)

Next test was to run my motor drive and watch the image move across the screen. It would seem that my calculations may be wrong :( I had to turn up the revs of the motor to several times what I calculated, to move the image at what I've seen when watching the moon or Saturn. I can't test it properly until the weather co-operates! Cloudy tonight.

Now to Registax... Tried it with half a dozen moon images from my DSLR - alignment didn't work and I ended up with non-aligned images stacked on top of each other. It did finish though. Tried it again but with 10 tree-top images with slight movement between images and image size of 1280x800 pixels. The resultant BMP was fine but didn't show any noticeable improvement over single images. Still, at least it worked. Now to wait for a break in the weather to try it on real live celestial objects.
Gina

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Gina
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Re: Astronomy and Astrophotography

Post by Gina »

Stacked moon images :-
DSC02270.jpg
Stacked tree-top images :-
image2011-04-15_19.51.jpg
Here is a normal view (35mm focal length DSLR = 50mm SLR 35mm film) arrow points to tree :-
view-south1.JPG
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Gina

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Gina
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Re: Astronomy and Astrophotography

Post by Gina »

I rechecked my motor drive gearing calculations and the hardware and found I'd got too many gears in the train - 2 pair. So I've put that right and now have the right speed :)
Gina

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Gina
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Re: Astronomy and Astrophotography

Post by Gina »

Clear skies tonight. OK for moon shots but Saturn is a bit too close to the moon I think, particularly with the moon nearly full.

I had my motor drive connected to my bench PSU and adjusted the voltage whilst viewing the moon. The MD was able to move the RA drive at the right speed. Next job on that will be to make an automatic circuit to maintain the speed at the correct value. I will need to adjust the EQ mount alignment to get all the motion covered by RA alone.

I have an alternative idea to having a clutch on the MD. The motor is a DC 12-24v and 3-4 volts drives it at earth rotation speed (at the scope mount). So using a higher voltage will move the scope much faster and allow alignment that way. Reversing the motor voltage polarity reverses the motor direction. So fast forward or reverse can be used to align the image then it can be switched to earth rotation speed to hold the image.

Actually, I have a feeling that a slightly different speed is require to accurately track the moon. I shall look into this.
Gina

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hans
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Re: Astronomy and Astrophotography

Post by hans »

has been years since i've done this,
but the moon does have a different speed than deepsky.
the autostar had a different setting for it.
about registax,it's easier to use an avi file(about 10 seconds is enough) to make a picture,for every frame has almost the same alignment.(if your camera can make a film it's a plus)
here is a small tutorial
http://www.threebuttes.com/RegistaxTutorial.htm

i used an philips tuocam pro webcam for it,mounted instead of an eyepiece(for deepsky,for moon you can piggyback it.
Gina
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Re: Astronomy and Astrophotography

Post by Gina »

Thank you Hans :) That tutorial was using Registax 2 - a bit different from 6 :lol: Very useful though and I presume version 6 has everything 2 had and more. Lots to learn :lol:
Gina

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Gina
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Re: Astronomy and Astrophotography

Post by Gina »

I couldn't find the same functions in Registax 6 that were mentioned in the tutorial. I can see no way of seeing or determining which area of the image to use for alignment. I must read up more on Registax 6. Meanwhile, I took a batch of moon images and ran Registax 6. I reduced the number to align points to 20 and they looked in suitable places. Anyway, the alignment and stacking went quite well this time - just a small area of different tone. But the resulting image produced little if any improvement. The problem would seem to be getting accurate focus and Registax doesn't fix that.
Gina

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hans
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Re: Astronomy and Astrophotography

Post by hans »

yes,been a while :D
if i remember correctly,your focus problem could be the fact of the build in IR filter in every camera,
that focalpoint point gives a shift,.(hope you know what i mean).
with the tuocam i had removed it(which was very easy)

i mention this all from memory,so i could be wrong,will do some research on my old HD,if i can find it,should also have the registax 2 on it
Gina
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Re: Astronomy and Astrophotography

Post by Gina »

There is no IR filter in my DSLR - the image falls directly on the CCD. OTOH the webcam I modified did have an IR filter combined with the lens, which I removed. The sensor without IR filter gives a pinkish colour cast. The focus (as well as the colour) is improved by having an IR blocking filter on the T-adapter I use to mount the webcam on the scope.

Now that I have the motor drive working, I'm hoping to have another go at Saturn, but I'll probably practice with the moon first. Talking of the latter, it was a deep red colour when it rose this evening, later turning orange. I took a few dozen images with my DSLR. The brightness was very low and I had to use 0.5 sec @ ISO 800. Later when orange I was able to reduce the exposure to an eighth fo a second. Now it's covered by cloud.
Gina

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Re: Astronomy and Astrophotography

Post by hans »

http://home.hiwaay.net/~krcool/Astro/moon/moonorange/
but you already know that,
beautifull moon though,i saw the same this morning at 05.00 going to work,
only thing missing was a witch on a broomstick :P

when you have a go at saturn,don't over-magnify,it will only get more blurry.
a small sharp one(cropped) is better dan a big foggy one
with the (light)pollution in western europe it's best to take a max magnification of twice the
diameter size of your telescope (so a 140 mm,could have a magnification of 280 at best),
also dependent on focal length.
a lens scope is more for planets,moon.
a mirror scope is best for deepsky(the bigger the better,more light)

and since your with XP again.try Starry Night backyard,very pleasant and can control scopes
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