A couple of nights with above average seeing allowed me to acquire these two images of Mars. These are about a month past this years very favorable opposition so I'm pretty pleased with the results. Camera used: ASI178MC with Meade 2X Barlow and Celestron 8/AVX. Each image was stacked and wavelet sharpened from the best 20% of 3000 frames acquired at 60 fps. Frame size was 1024x768. Each image is labeled with date and time.
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| Mars.11072020.21_55_01 |
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| Mars.11102020.21_46_49 |
The following are several images of Jupiter acquired in October and the beginning of November. ASI178MC was used to acquire 2000 frames at 60 fps at a capture area of 1024x768. A Meade 2X Barlow was used to magnify the image. The best 20% of frames were stacked and averaged using Autostakkert! and wavelet sharpened in Paintshop Pro 2021 using unsharp masking scripts written by the author. Jupiter's low altitude and mediocre early evening Northeast seeing have made imaging Jupiter a real challenge.
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| Jupiter.11042020.17_30_02 |
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| .Jupiter.10312020.18_45_56 |
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| Jupiter.10232020.19_15_17 |
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| Jupiter.10062020.19_42_30 |
These older closeup images of luner craters were taken using the Celestron NexImager 5 coupled with a Meade 2X Barlow
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| Cleomedes |
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| Langrenus |
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| Petavius |
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| Vendelinus |
I don't usually operate from my tree blocked, light polluted patio. However this particular evening there was a short clear sky window where Jupiter was clear of trees. Over a period of about 20 minutes I acquired eleven stills that I stitched into the Jupiter rotation video below. Celestron 8 and Meade 2X barlow were used for acquisition.
NOTE: video has been removed but might be restored in the near future.
Each still was averaged from 2000 frame videos processed with Autostakkert! and Paintshop Pro. Seeing was mediocre. None the less details of Jupiter's dynamic atmosphere could be brought out using un-sharp mask scripts I have been experimenting with.
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| Jupiter+Io 10/23/2020 @ 19:08 EDT |
Until recently I stacked solar system images with Autostakkert!3 and sharpened using wavelet sharpening with Registax. I don't like depending on Registax since it's no longer supported. I decided to experiment with multiple application of un-sharp masks to wavelet sharpen. This approach was inspired by an article "How Unsharp Masking and Laplacian Sharpening Work" by Keith Wiley
A series of Paintshop Pro commands can be saved as an editable Python Script. I saved and modified such a script with a for loop that performs un-sharp mask repetitions. Number of cycles, radius and strength are settable parameters. A medium denoise it applied after the un-sharp mask cycles. After the script I applied chromatic aberration correction.
Before and after sharpening images of the Copernicus crater appear below. These images were acquired on a night with the moon just below the celestial equator and with average to below average seeing.
Ten cycles of un-sharp masking with radius 2.0 and strength 35 were applied followed by a median denoise with aperture 1. Close examination of the post script image suggests using the PaintShop Pro built in chromatic aberration removal tool.
Scripts have also been created for Jupiter and Saturn. More on these in the future as I'm still experimenting with settings.
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| Unsharpened |
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| Wavelet Sharpened |
Back in MA from MD it sucks that I have to quarantine for 14 days but that's life in the era of the Covid-19 virus. I can't get to my favorite local park site with Jupiter and Saturn in prime time. At least I can catch a few imaging glimpses during the short window when the gas giants are between increasingly view blocking trees in front of my apartment terrace. Below is an image of Jupiter taken just after midnight 08/09/2020.
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| Jupiter with Europa |
