Saturday, March 28, 2009

Hi Res Ceres (Minor Planet / Asteroid)

Link

I was inspired by Fabio Plocostomos and Chris Go's work on Ceres at high res and decided to go for it myself near opposition or good seeing. So that single 2 day break in rain and clouds a week ago yielded some good Venus and Saturn images and also this great view of Ceres.

I had a hard time finding some good ephemeris data for angular size so calculated it myself as follows:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angular_diameter

δ = d / D, where δ is the angular size, d is visual diameter and D is the distance to the object.

So using the WRONG units I get:

1.64AU distance to Ceres and 950km diameter of Ceres gives 0.798".

I hope to not have overexposed the object which would have caused bloat or bloom in the data. I stretched in post processing and resized to 200%

Enjoy!

Mike


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Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Titan Transit Teaser 20090224

Observation logs




I think there's a name for titles like that, but at 25*F and early in the AM my brain's not so straight.

Bad seeing too.. looked like the whole continental US had bad jetstream. I hope someone west of here got better as it was fairly low on the horizon here.

I forgot about the time delay in stellarium but that was OK as I overslept a bit anyway. Most of the frames are washed out by the trees but you can make out the shadow in the final 3 or so frames. I also caught Dione in a few frames riding the upper left ring, long before it's transit. So no quad transit, but I was able to get something and that still counts! Lucky me, the sky was clear.

Animation from 1018 to 1114UT:


Object: Saturn and Titan

Planet
Origin:ObservationManager - SolarSystem Catalog 1.0
ObserverMichael A. Phillips Mr.
SiteHome
Begin2009-02-24 um 04:00:00-05:00
End2009-02-24 um 04:10:00-05:00
OpticsC8i on CGE
EyepiecePowerMate (V=812.8)
FilterAstronomik LRGB Color
CameraDMK21AF04
Sitzung2009-02-24 um 04:00:00-05:00
Visual impression

  • Titan transit!

References

Sessions: 2009-02-24 um 04:00:00-05:00

Begin:2009-02-24 um 04:00:00-05:00
End:2009-02-24 um 06:20:00-05:00
Weather:Poor seeing Great transparency FREEZING 25*F
Equipment:I used: Ubuntu 8.04 Linux and custom coriander CGE mounted 8" Celestron C8i SCT Lymax Cat Cooler DMK 21AF04 2.5x PowerMate Astronomik LRGB filters True Tek Color Filter Wheel with visu diag
Comments:Didn't leave the scope out overnight and it may have impacted some but little of the conditions. I miss timed the Titan Transit becuase of the time delay / light propogation issues with Stellarium. I fixed that now1
>> Observations <<

Observer: Michael A. Phillips Mr.

>> Observations <<

Site: Home

Longitude:35.682°
Latitude:-78.743°
Timezone:UT-300 min
>> Observations <<

Optics: C8i on CGE

Type:SCT
Vendor:Celestron
Aperture:203.0 mm
Focal length:2032.0 mm
>> Observations <<

Eyepiece: PowerMate

Vendor:TeleVue
Focal length:2.5 mm
>> Observations <<

Filter: Astronomik LRGB

Typ:Color
>> Observations <<

CCD Camera: DMK21AF04

Vendor:The Image Source
Pixel:640x480

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Saturday, February 07, 2009

Great seeing on Saturn 2009-02-07


Best seeing I've seen since early September! I used the lymax cat cooler extensively, for 30-45 minutes at times. Re-collimated and ran some tests on the moon. Starting imaging long before Saturn hit the meridian and just before I got too tired to stay awake I tried a monster 5min per channel LRGB session. The CGE was up to the task and I had to do very little corrections. This is the result. My best of the season! I managed to catch at least two moons that I'll have to process seperatley and post later.

I was happy to see such steady seeing after an average start. Some things that I payed close attention to while processing: Shadow of rings on globe, shadow of globe on rings on lower right, Cassini division on both sides and growing gap between the rings.

Also, to all you youngin's out there (Hey, I'm a stark 33 stil!), when the seeing's good make sure you spend some time soaking the light of the object into your eyes. It's all to easy to get wrapped up imaging. I smiled big for the views on my screen but even more to see it sitting still in my 4mm and 9mm eyepieces!

Steady Skies,

Mike

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Friday, February 06, 2009

*My* 1st light with the new setup - M81/M82

Begin:2009-02-04 um 20:08:01-05:00
End:2009-02-04 um 23:59:00-05:00
Weather:S:? T: 3?/5 Clear, cold and WINDY!
Equipment:Optics: Meade LXD55 Mount: CGE mount on JMI Wheely Bars Focusing Aid: STI focuser Shutter control: Hap Griffin long exposure cable Software: MaximDL Operating System: WinXP Lenovo T43 driven via RDP from inside the house
Comments:*MY* 1st light of the Meade LXD55 and CGE!!! What a pleasure to wheel the whole rig out of the garage into the driveway! Used my Celestron knowledge to get a rough align and was able to get fair results of 90sec+ exposures. At f/5 and ISO800 there is a LOT of LP Setup on M81 / M82 to get lots of subs, staying warm inside now as the outside temps dropped into the upper 20's Align was in the double digit of minutes error after a 2x iterative align. No PEC, no polar scope, no guiding, no drift align.


Details of the new setup here: http://maphilli14.multiply.com/photos/album/48/Astronomy_-_Equipment_-_DSO_Setup


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Sunday, February 01, 2009

"Near" the Apollo 11 Landing Site

I think the forecast for the night was better than it actually was by a long shot. After checking the collimation I would have guessed it was 5-6/10, but looking at the focus/collimation test on Castor (great double BTW), it was a mere 4/10. I setup to grab Venus and the moon before a longish night on Saturn. One of my music buddies, John, suggested that the Apollo 11 landing site was in prime view and that I should try imaging it. I did and was happy to have a fresh target even though the seeing was poor, thanks John!

First a clean image:


















Then one marked for reference:


















I actually found the google moon maps useful, have a look and see if I got it or not!
http://www.google.com/moon/#lat=0.769019&lon=22.532958&zoom=7&apollo=

Mike

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Friday, January 23, 2009

2008 Solary System Review



I recall seeing a flurry of these 'composite' shots last year but not so many this year. I was keen on getting better Icy Giants and went after Uranus and Neptune with as much precision as I could. In all my hasty planning, I let Pluto slip away. It's still a planet in my book so I'll have to give it just desserts next year! I had some photos of the sun shining on the trees in my front yard and thought I'd add that to round it out, but you might find those on my homepage just as easily and I thought it would mess with the 'flow' of the sequence.

Hope you enjoy! Looking forward to 2009!

Mike

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Thursday, January 22, 2009

New home...

I've tried to cross post interesting articles over here, but the bulk of my 'home' is now here:

http://maphilli14.multiply.com/

Mike
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Thursday, January 01, 2009

Michael A. Phillips' Planetary Processing Routine v7

ORIGINAL WITH EDITS IS HERE: http://maphilli14.multiply.com/journal/item/37/Michael_A._Phillips_Planetary_Processing_Routine_version_7.0










    1. Introduction

    2. This is by no means a replacement to the tutorials I learned the most from such as Mike Salway's (http://www.mikesalway.com.au/2008/08/26/planetary-imaging-and-image-processing) or Paul Haese's (http://paulhaese.net/planetaryprocessing.html). I am simply tuning, tweaking and automating some of the steps to suit my own taste and hope you find some ideas here to use for yourself!


    1. Living document, I do plan in incorporating changes and suggestions over time and will reversion and date accordingly so please send feedback. Please critique, that's how we all get better!


    1. All the routines in this HowTo use applications running on Linux, even the windows only software packages run under Wine (http://www.winehq.org) running under Linux. All of the video screencasts are recorded and produced using applications running on Linux. I am confident that all software and processes detailed in this HowTo can be run on MS Windows with one exception. The capture software I use, Coriander, will run only on Linux. Even some of the bash scripts may be run under Cygwin (http://www.cygwin.com/) although I've not tried myself. Never fear, the main method of this HowTo still applies to users running on MS Windows.


    1. OK, HERE'S the SHORT METHOD!


      1. Run your Planetary captures through ninox (http://acquerra.com.au/astro/software/ppmcentre/)


      1. Move ninox sorted data through Registax


      1. Move Registax stacked data to Iris for RGB Combine and processing.

          Video Tutorials:



    1. Acquisition

      1. My equipment consists of

        1. I use a Celestron C8i SE (orange tube)

        2. Ubuntu 8.04 Linux and custom coriander (for firewire cameras)

        3. DMK 21AF04 (Firewire)

        4. 2.5x PowerMate

        5. Astronomik LRGB filters

        6. True Tek Color Filter Wheel with visu diag and PC serial cable (USB-to-Serial)

        7. some shots here:




















http://picasaweb.google.com/maphilli14/MichaelAPhillipsAstronomyEquipment#5244213374458800210

























http://picasaweb.google.com/maphilli14/MichaelAPhillipsAstronomyEquipment#5244213381800624706



      1. Once everything is connected up I follow the 'custom coriander 1.0.0' modified by Anthony Wesley (aka Bird - http://acquerra.com.au/astro/software/coriander/ ). This document is a work in progress and you may email me for a preview!

      2. After completing your captures you may move onto the next section that moves data from 'transit' to 'sorted'. It is important to note that this coriander outputs a static image stream not a .avi or video file. This saves me a step extracting the movie to images later on!






    1. Ninox

      1. I prepare all captured source images that are really .fit files by passing it through ninox (http://acquerra.com.au/astro/software/ppmcentre/) to sort and crop the images and then output to a new subdirectory called 'sorted' The full script is a bash script and can be found here:

      2. http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=2c029c78ccec6d383eb48d43a6cb8a62606ebfa4f4a2d337

        1. I'm working on a newer version of this script that will read the capture directories and use them to create all the sorted, ninox folders. Per these guidelines (http://maphilli14.blogspot.com/2008/01/tips-on-organizing-your-computer.html). When done I will revise this blog per v7.1 :)

      3. The key ninox syntax is:

        1. ninox -width=300 -height=300 -cutx=300 -cuty=300 -qestimator -qrenumber -outdir=Astronomy/Sorted/2-Scratch/Jupiter-$1/$2 /Astronomy/Transit/1-Corianders/$1/$2

          • This, “-width=300 -height=300 -cutx=300 -cuty=300” crops the images to a square 300x300 pixel size

          • This “-qestimator -qrenumber” sorts the data and renumbers the images based on quality

          • This “-outdir=Astronomy/Sorted/2-Scratch/Jupiter-$1/$2 /Astronomy/Transit/1-Corianders/$1/$2” allows me to specify a new folder in a sorted (not transit) folder for safer keeping. The $1 and $2 are the arguments passed to the script at runtime in which $1 is the ISO date that coriander writes ( IE 20081122) and $2 is the UTC time (IE 001122UTC).





    1. Registax

      • NOTE at as of 2008.12.12 - I was unable to get AviStack to load the .fit files that I work with. A shame too as the batch mode looks VERY promising!

      1. Double Click for widescreen video or press the links below


        1. Widescreen version on YouTube is here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrFcvwTjdbI

        2. Full Resolution AVI (DivX 1280 x 768) version can be found here - http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=2c029c78ccec6d383eb48d43a6cb8a62606ebfa4f4a2d337

      3. Drag & Drop into Registax

      4. Switch align mode from “Default (single)” to none. No align, no reference.

        1. Locate a good cutoff point by moving the frame slider at the bottom left and right. Good frames are on the left and bad frames on the right. For example I typically stack the good frames on the 'left', typically 500 of the total 1500.

        2. Now hit the limit button to trim out the bad frames on the 'right' that will not be stacked.

      5. Notice that after hitting the limit button you will skip the Optimize tab and go directly to the stack tab. At the stack tab simply hit the stack button. Ninox has already sorted and aligned the data so there is no reason to have registax do it again. Some folks believe that ninox's alignment is actually better and or more efficient than registax's.

      6. After stacking you are at the wavelet phase. I typically apply 3 schemes much like a Small, Medium and Large drink sizing.

        1. No wavelets or a raw stack. This is my small wavelets scheme, denoted as R0.tif (Where R is the color, like R,G or B)

        2. Mike Salway's scheme (http://www.mikesalway.com.au/2008/08/26/planetary-imaging-and-image-processing) This is my medium wavelets scheme, denoted as R7.tif

          • 3 @ 10.5, 4 @ 15.2, 5 @ 16.5.

        3. And something I call Ice 150% Which is basically about 50% more than the medium scheme listed above. This is my v7 (large) wavelets scheme, denoted as R71.tif

          • 3 @ 15.2, 4 @ 22.6, 5 @ 24.6.























      1. Net net is that you've got to find a sweet spot for your optics, conditions and taste.

      2. If you save the files to the hhmmssUTC name (Up one folder when hitting the save button and has the numbered filter subdirectories under it), with the x7.tif filenames then you can use this bash script (http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=2c029c78ccec6d383eb48d43a6cb8a62606ebfa4f4a2d337) to slide the Registax files into Iris and back again in a pretty cool manner. When using this script, first verify the directory locations agree with your Registax and Iris working directories. This step is an optimization when working with many files and not completely necessary, as you can move the files manually.





    1. RGB combining in Iris.

      1. Download Iris (http://www.astrosurf.com/buil/us/iris/iris.htm) and set the Iris scripts and working path locations.

        1. File → Settings:


















        1. File Type to PIC

        2. Working Folder → “YOUR FOLDER” (such as C:\astronomy\temp\irisscratch 2000-01-01\)

      1. Loading a test file, File → Open. Find a file processed in Registax .tif format

      2. Load each channel into Iris

        1. Adjust visu levels via the thresholds

          • Move the top slider right towards 30,000+

        2. Set mono








        1. adjust wavelets (slight)

          • Processing → Wavelet...

        2. Save as new, R7.PIC in Iris' Working Folder location (C:\astronomy\temp\irisscratch 2000-01-01\)

      1. Iris LRGB (trichro) function to assemble as RGB

        1. View LRGB and set channels to:

          • Red: R7

          • Green: G7

          • Blue: B7

        2. APPLY! COOL!

        3. The section with video below details how to fine tune the alignment of the channels.

      2. Now lets look at how to automate this

        1. PART 1 Introduction

        2. PART 2 RGB Combine Options

        3. PART 3 Post Processing Options

        4. Set the Iris scripts and working path locations.

          • File → Settings:


















          • File Type to PIC

          • Script Path → “YOUR FOLDER” (such as C:\astronomy\permanent\scripts\iris\)

          • Place the planet.pgm (http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=2c029c78ccec6d383eb48d43a6cb8a62606ebfa4f4a2d337) file here C:\astronomy\permanent\scripts\iris\

          • Working Folder → “YOUR FOLDER” (such as C:\astronomy\temp\irisscratch 2000-01-01\)

          • Copy the file names R7.tif (Red Channel), G7.tif (Green Channel) and B7.tif (Blue Channel) to the Iris “Working Path” folder

        1. Bring up an Iris command prompt by clicking this button












        1. Now type the command, “run planet” VIOLA!!!

      1. Fine tuning of the separate RGB channel alignment:

        1. View LRGB and set channels to:

          • Red: R7

          • Green: G7

          • Blue: B7

        2. Apply

        3. Now set the step to 10

        4. Set the channel you wish to move via the radio button


















        1. Use the arrows in the upper right to move the channel around relative to the other channels.

        2. Change the Step value to something smaller or larger based on your needs

        3. When done, click OK

        4. Save as the format you like.





    1. Processing in Iris

      1. Wavelets

        1. Processing → Wavelets...

        2. Typically I apply a very small scheme such as....
















      1. Unsharp mask

        1. Processing → Unsharp Mask

        2. This can make the data over processed quickly so be careful. You will have an opportunity to remove noise or oversharpening in the next step













      1. Blur

        1. Processing → Blur Filter...

        2. Sometimes I add the full amount in the 1st run and have to run it again iteratively.







      1. Iris resize and or final visu levels - save as .bmp for sending to gimp (anyone know any gimp/iris compatible formats, let me know!) and .jpg for web

      2. There is a great whitebalance option available by using the mouse to select a portion of the image that 'should be' white. Then in the command window type 'white'. You may also tweak via the "View -> White Balance Adjustment". The same can be done for setting a black background. The video shows this well!

        1. I have another Iris script that runs here to save as a variety of formats. These then get picked up by the bash script waiting for us. The data then returns to the 4-TempStacked folder.

          • Run iris7 (savejpg “name” 1) etc...

    ENJOY and PLEASE COMMENT!!!






      MS Windows Addendum:

    Carried forward from my v5 routine.

        Batch .avi to .bmp conversion:

    Use VirtualDub to convert/extract the .avi video to .bmp still images:

    Download script here for windows: http://www.ericphelps.com/scripting/samples/VirtualDub/index.html

    Load job in Vdub

    Now back to Ninox Sorting in section 3

    all the Red, Green and Blue files are mixed in the same directory. Here's an example script to sort into subdirectories. My IC Capture filenames might not match yours, but have a look.

    Sort by rgb capture via bash script

    Bash script that sorts LRGB image series into sub-folders for organization and processing - http://www.mediafire.com/?2jmfkmxmnxe

    To be honest, I hate looking at the script now to figure out how to explain what it does.

    I recall chaning directories into the mess of RGB files and running this with the variables described in the top of the script!

    ENJOY and PLEASE COMMENT!!!

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NGC 891

I keep pushing my mostly stock C8i SE. A few nights ago I actually managed to get decent tracking for over 3 hours. I was able to salvage ~170 x 60s subs for a not so bad shot.

Hope you like my humble attempt, I was pretty impressed as I think galaxies are on the harder side to capture, unguided on an unmodded DSLR?!

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