zAmbonii
super member
Reged: 01/19/08
Posts: 163
Loc: Ypsilanti, MI
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I had to take advantage of the best seeing I will probably have this summer. Turns out to have been a bonus day since Io was transiting, and the GRS was in plain view.
I started capturing .avis at 11:00 pm when Jupiter cleared the trees, and finished up at around 1:30, when (unfortunately) it went behind some more trees. I was able to capture Io just before it started the transit, but was just short of getting it finishing the transit. The animated .gif is too big to post here so I will post a link below.
Details:
Celestron C6-N
SPC900NC webcam
2x + 3x Orion Barlows stacked
.avis - 2 minute capture @ 5fps, Then 5 minutes in between captures
Processing: best 450 frames stacked in registax for each .avi (I just found the wonder of the RGB align feature, makes a world of a difference!)
Final processing in PS CS3
Click here for Io transit animation
Here is a still from the animation:
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Celestron C6-N 150mm f/5 Newt
Meade 70AZ-Z
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t.r.
member
Reged: 02/14/08
Posts: 42
Loc: Upstate NY
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Wonderful catch!!! Very inspiring for small scope owners...alot can be done as you've shown  . I have to try this with the Gran Turismo! 
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Present Stable:
Kmart 50mm(first scope @ age 8)
Jason EQ-2 60mm
C80SS
Tak Sky90II
Tec140
PST
AP130 "Gran Turismo"
EQ-2,CG-4,CG-5GoTo
Had:
C80ED
ETX90RA
WO Megrez 90
TV Genesis(used 13 years,fondest of)
Nexstar5
SPC8
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nickatnight
sage
Reged: 04/14/08
Posts: 294
Loc: Santa Clarita, CA (LA Suburbs)
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Very cool Io transit! Your animation is as sharp as my latest still image of Jupiter. Nice job!
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nickatnight
Celestron CPC 9.25" GPS
Lumicon 2" LumiBrite Diagonal
Meade s5000 18mm UWA, Meade 6.7mm UWA,
Parks G.S-5 10mm, Celestrom 40mm Plossl
Parks 2x Barlow, Meade Tele-Extender
Celestron f6.3 Focal Reducer
Lumicon UHC Filter and Deep Sky Filter
Canon Rebel XTi (prime)
Canon Powershot G9 (afocal)
Canon EOS T-Ring and Parks T-Adapter
Lumicon Univ DigiCam Adapter
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zAmbonii
super member
Reged: 01/19/08
Posts: 163
Loc: Ypsilanti, MI
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The skies here were pretty darn stable for the capture, and under "normal" conditions here I wouldn't even have given it a try. In the middle of capturing, I transferred a couple of the .avis to my processing computer and didn't like the results. I had the dreaded blue shadow up top and red shadow at the bottom after processing in registax. Poking around in the program I found the RGB align tab, and playing around with that I was like "OMG, WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL MY LIFE!"  . I hit the "estimate" and things snapped into place.
Now unsharp masking in PS gave me more detail than I have ever gotten without the aligning. I guess when the channels are 4-5 pixels off relative to each other...it is no wonder things look kinda blurry. If I had the patience to split the channels of each frame the way I believe the Iceinspce tutorial shows, I probably could get even better results. Doing that for all 24 captures would be quite time consuming. I may give it a shot with one of the captures just to see what I can come up with.
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Celestron C6-N 150mm f/5 Newt
Meade 70AZ-Z
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yock1960
member
Reged: 06/22/08
Posts: 51
Loc: SW Ohio, USA
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Very slick!
One of these days (a rainy day) when I don't have anything else to do (Ha!), I'm going to do that entire process in the IceInSpace tutorial. Right now I'm just amazed at the results that are possible. Of course if it weren't for some of the tutorials out there, I'd be lost!
Gonna have to try this with the ETX; trying to with the dob would probably be a little too much. What do you reckon your total exposure time was?
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Discovery 6" Dobsonian
ETX80 Backpack Edition
SPC900NC
Televue Powermate 2.5x
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solshaker
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 06/06/06
Posts: 1212
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great job, Z. i love shots that capture the moons as the interact with the limb and your gif really shows off the 3D nature of the jovian system.
one of these days i need to put my nose to the grind and learn how to make an animated gif.
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My Gallery
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ChazK
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 11/23/05
Posts: 1107
Loc: Melbourne, Florida
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Excellent work!! That must have been quite a lot of processing!
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Tak TOA 130mm/NJP Temma2
Canon 40D (unmodded)
Astronomik CLS
Canon EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6
www.digitalunatic.com
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N7XW
sage
Reged: 05/04/07
Posts: 212
Loc: Westport, WA
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Great imaging for sure! Got to ask - how much disk space did your avi's suck up after you were all done shooting?
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N7XW
ETX125PE with UHTC
Adventure 4.5" Reflector on GEM (surprisingly good optics!)
Philips SPC900NC
Zhumell eyepieces & filters
3 sets of good ol' binocs
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zAmbonii
super member
Reged: 01/19/08
Posts: 163
Loc: Ypsilanti, MI
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Actually processing wasn't really that hard to do. I think that it helped that the seeing was consistent over the 2 or so hours that I captured things. I just processed things in Registax the same way for each video, and when I got things into Photoshop, doing the same tweaks produced acceptable results for each frame. I didnt have to go over each image with a fine toothed comb to get the same color/brightness/contrast/etc.
But thing is that since I didnt pore over everything in fine detail, the individual frames probably could be better/sharper. As for the final count on the .avis, I had something like 22 of them taking up a total of about 9 gigs of HD space. I really need to clean up my drive because I am starting to run out of room with all of the .avis and raw photos from other astrophotographs. Never realized things could get so cluttered up so quickly.
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Celestron C6-N 150mm f/5 Newt
Meade 70AZ-Z
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FoxK
Carpal Tunnel
Reged: 11/07/07
Posts: 1538
Loc: Cape Cod, MA
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For me..the biggest pain is lining the images all up as perfect as possible for the animation...once you make an animated gif or 2..they start to come easier
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Orion 80mm ED Apochromatic Refractor
Meade 70-AZ-A 70mm Guider
LS60TCaK/B600/C
PHD on a GPUSB interface
CG-5 Advanced GT Mount
Nikon D40x with T-Adaptors
Philips SPC900NC
Imaging Source DMK 21AU04.AS
Dome=the box my mount came in so I can see my solar images in bright sun lol
- click for cloud prediction for Plymouth, MA. area
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N7XW
sage
Reged: 05/04/07
Posts: 212
Loc: Westport, WA
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I'm just getting into imaging and thinking that maybe I should have gotten a larger hard drive when I bought my laptop! Might have to get an external hard drive I guess!
Great video. Thanks for sharing!
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N7XW
ETX125PE with UHTC
Adventure 4.5" Reflector on GEM (surprisingly good optics!)
Philips SPC900NC
Zhumell eyepieces & filters
3 sets of good ol' binocs
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