Capturing and Processing Planetary Images. Petros Pissias Eumetsat Astronomy Club 11/06/2015

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1 Capturing and Processing Planetary Images Petros Pissias Eumetsat Astronomy Club 11/06/2015

2 Agenda Introduction Basic Equipment Preparation Acquisition Processing Quick demo Petros Pissias Eumetsat Astronomy Club 11/06/2015 Slide 2

3 Agenda Introduction Basic Equipment Preparation Acquisition Processing Quick demo Petros Pissias Eumetsat Astronomy Club 11/06/2015 Slide 3

4 Astrophotography AstroPhotography : recording light coming outside of our planet Astro star Photography Photo light Graphy drawing 2 basic types of astrophotography Deep Sky Dealing with objects outside our solar system Planetary Dealing with objects inside our solar system Moon(s), Planets Each type has different equipment and techniques. We will focus on planetary astrophotography Petros Pissias Eumetsat Astronomy Club 11/06/2015 Slide 4

5 Agenda Introduction Basic Equipment Preparation Acquisition Processing Quick demo Petros Pissias Eumetsat Astronomy Club 11/06/2015 Slide 5

6 Basic Equipment Usually Newtonian Reflectors, also Schmidt Cassegrain. Price, Performance, Handling Petros Pissias Eumetsat Astronomy Club 11/06/2015 Slide 6

7 Basic Equipment Astronomy Cameras split into 2 categories: deep space and planetary. CCD or CMOS dedicated astronomy cameras, selected webcams. Record Video Petros Pissias Eumetsat Astronomy Club 11/06/2015 Slide 7

8 Basic Equipment Focal length of the system: Telescope FL, Barlow (focal length multiplier) Magnification: related to camera pixel size and focal length FL Targets ~ mm (small telescope) Wide lunar shots ~ mm (medium / large telescope) High Magnification lunar shots, craters, planets Petros Pissias Eumetsat Astronomy Club 11/06/2015 Slide 8

9 Basic Equipment Mono vs Bayer (colour) camera Mono advantages Better useful resolution Color advantages Simplicity (no filter wheel, re-focusing, ) Petros Pissias Eumetsat Astronomy Club 11/06/2015 Slide 9

10 Basic Equipment Mount capable of tracking Equatorial vs alt/az Petros Pissias Eumetsat Astronomy Club 11/06/2015 Slide 10

11 Examples Petros Pissias Eumetsat Astronomy Club 11/06/2015 Slide 11

12 Examples Petros Pissias Eumetsat Astronomy Club 11/06/2015 Slide 12

13 Petros Pissias Eumetsat Astronomy Club 11/06/2015 Slide 13

14 Examples Damian Peach Petros Pissias Eumetsat Astronomy Club 11/06/2015 Slide 14

15 Petros Pissias Eumetsat Astronomy Club 11/06/2015 Slide 15

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19 Petros Pissias Eumetsat Astronomy Club 11/06/2015 Slide 19

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22 Petros Pissias Eumetsat Astronomy Club 11/06/2015 Slide 22

23 Image scale Petros Pissias Eumetsat Astronomy Club 11/06/2015 Slide 23

24 Agenda Introduction Basic Equipment Preparation Acquisition Processing Quick demo Petros Pissias Eumetsat Astronomy Club 11/06/2015 Slide 24

25 Preparation Telescope / cameras / mount / barlow / filter / laptop / cable connections, etc. Test everything beforehand to make sure everything works (software and hardware)! Choose a target above 45 degrees (less atmosphere) Cool the telescope. Leave it out for some time (depending on tis size and in/out temperature) to reach the environment temperature. Collimation Align the optics of the telescope More frequently on Newtonians, but also needed on Schmidt Cassegrains. Petros Pissias Eumetsat Astronomy Club 11/06/2015 Slide 25

26 Preparation Targets are usually really bright and easily identifiable. Light pollution is not a problem Point and shoot! Petros Pissias Eumetsat Astronomy Club 11/06/2015 Slide 26

27 Agenda Introduction Basic Equipment Preparation Acquisition Processing Quick demo Petros Pissias Eumetsat Astronomy Club 11/06/2015 Slide 27

28 Acquisition Start capturing data Also have manual control alignment will not be perfect, need to manually guide. Capturing Software Camera provided software sometimes awful Firecapture: Petros Pissias Eumetsat Astronomy Club 11/06/2015 Slide 28

29 Acquisition Pointing Not trivial at high magnification Use eyepiece, center target in eyepiece and then put camera without moving the telescope. Focusing Not trivial in case the telescope moves at high magnification (Newtonians). Not easy to judge where is the best focus Tools to help: Bahtinov mask, Motor focus Petros Pissias Eumetsat Astronomy Club 11/06/2015 Slide 29

30 Acquisition Histogram Classic Rule = fill 2/3 of the pixel max value Not accidentally saturate, use a lot of dynamic range (bits of information per light intensity) This guy used 1/2 Petros Pissias Eumetsat Astronomy Club 11/06/2015 Slide 30

31 Acquisition FPS How many frames per second? As much as possible (unless exposure too dark usually not the case) We want to capture as may frames as possible Exposure vs Gain Right balance must be found per case Usually: smallest possible exposure with lowest gain (increase gain as long as noise is not too much) i.e. lowest exposure filling 2/3 of the histogram with gain in the middle. Petros Pissias Eumetsat Astronomy Club 11/06/2015 Slide 31

32 Acquisition Seeing Seeing is king Filters Typically Lunar images are shot through a filter Lower visible light frequencies (greater wavelength) near IR are less distorted by seeing Use IR filter to battle seeing IR pass filter also gives a nice aesthetic effect to lunar images Telescope optics performance (Resolution) is better towards blue in perfect seeing typically a RED filter is used Petros Pissias Eumetsat Astronomy Club 11/06/2015 Slide 32

33 Acquisition Make sure you will capture an uncompressed video (8 or 16 bit per pixel) Start capturing data Capture multiple videos frames each Avoid capturing more than 1-2 minutes per video Petros Pissias Eumetsat Astronomy Club 11/06/2015 Slide 33

34 Agenda Introduction Basic Equipment Preparation Acquisition Processing Quick demo Petros Pissias Eumetsat Astronomy Club 11/06/2015 Slide 34

35 Processing We have captured (gigabytes of) data as video files. We need to process them. Some theory: Aligning and Stacking Each picture now contains some "noise Take the best of the pictures and combine (align and stack) them with specialized software. If the noise (geometricdistortion of the image) is random, then combining many images will reduce it. "True" information increases more rapidly at the same point than random noise. Petros Pissias Eumetsat Astronomy Club 11/06/2015 Slide 35

36 Processing Stacking: We are increasing the dynamic range (i.e. produce a 16 bit per color image). After stacking the image looks a bit blurry, as it also contains the atmospheric distortion averaged Post Stacking: Laplacian Sharpening (wavelets) is a sharpening technique that works very well in this kind of images. Also various deconvolution techniques are used Petros Pissias Eumetsat Astronomy Club 11/06/2015 Slide 36

37 Processing Align and stacking (and sharpening) software (my personal choices) Avistack 2 Slowest but usually the best for lunar images Registax 6 Used to be the only one and best one. Now I use it for sharpening (wavelets) -it is the best in sharpening- and some times for planets. AutoStakkert! 2 (AS!2) Newest of the 3. I like it very much, high quality, very fast. I use this mostly. Notable other software: PIPP Used to pre-process (select and align). I use it often! Petros Pissias Eumetsat Astronomy Club 11/06/2015 Slide 37

38 Processing Petros Pissias Eumetsat Astronomy Club 11/06/2015 Slide 38

39 Processing After sharpening Photoshop Elements (or your standard image processing program) Must be able to process 16 bit per color images Histogram enhancement (levels) Make the image brighter, increase contrast Crop Save as 8 bit JPG Always keep your original stacked image (and video) for later re-processing [cloudy nights] Petros Pissias Eumetsat Astronomy Club 11/06/2015 Slide 39

40 Processing Processing Summary Pre process in PIPP (optional) Align and stack in AS!2 (has also batch mode to process all videos) Wavelet sharpening in Registax 6 Final processing in photoshop Overall Summary Choose day, check object elevation, test equipment, cool telescope, collimate, point to target, focus, setup capture software, record videos + Processing Summary Petros Pissias Eumetsat Astronomy Club 11/06/2015 Slide 40

41 Thank You Petros Pissias Eumetsat Astronomy Club 11/06/2015 Slide 41

42 Agenda Introduction Basic Equipment Preparation Acquisition Processing Quick demo?? Petros Pissias Eumetsat Astronomy Club 11/06/2015 Slide 42

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