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Post by howie1 on Apr 30, 2016 2:51:17 GMT
Bit of a general thread topic as it covers a fair bit of stuff. Poster on CloudyNights asked me for a AstroToaster workflow and blow me down if that night wasnt clear!! So I made a video and posted some saved images from the live view. Have a read of this to get the intentions of the video then check it out. Even if you go a completely different direction, with different cameras it contains some good tips (I think!) My objective is Near Real Time Observing (NRTO) ... that is to see an image in 60 seconds. If I decide to stack multiple images together, then the total of the stacking time shouldnt be much more than that. In the video I stack 10 x 4 second images which is actually more than the 5 or 6 I normally use. And I highlight the LiveView feature for planetary viewing which is exactly that ... Live video feed from the camera. So ... first a link to shots I made last year pushing the ISO up to 6400 to allow short exposures. The testing I did ended up making me realise the best for my Canon 700D was iso6400 where I can tolerate the noise in single shots (with the Canon internal Long Exposure Noise Reduction ON) and really short shots. www.flickr.com/photos/9440349@N08/albums/72157659040940863Next are saved shots from the other night (one night ago) when I made the video. These saved shots are EXACTLY as they were (Expand gradient to 6, Black and White points moved slightly) as when in the video I said I would save off a shot. So they reflect what I could see with my eyeball on the laptop in-field at that time. The video on the iPhone which I used simply does not focus nor adapt to low light in order to shoot the video and is no where near the quality of what I can actually see in-field at night. It was disappointing to see the iPhone image of Jupiter, Mars and Saturn as they look really fuzzy but in fact were of some of the best Live video views I have seen with my gear (due to the constant rain we have had clearing the skies of dirt n stuff). www.flickr.com/photos/9440349@N08/albums/72157667515598902 and finally, the 30 minute video showing workflow between EOS Utilities and AstroToaster, and earlier in the video some of my principles of operation ... VIZ ... I dont care about coma nor vignetting. I aint chasing NASA photo of the day ... I dont autoguide .... I am out to observe and see color with scopes the size of which, with eyeballs/visual, would never ever let me see what I can see with the cameras. If the image has noise and grain ... I dont care so long as I can see the object then lookup info on it and wonder in amazment at how long those photons have travelled to reach me, and just how many trips from my place to Sydney are involved in the distance that thing is from me! LOL. As it turns out, DSLR/ASI224 + FireCapture/EOS Utilities + AstroToaster usually far surpasses my expectations and yields nice sharp details and views.
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Post by davy on Apr 30, 2016 6:23:30 GMT
Loving it howie,,this is the direction im heading in,I have the ed80 with the 0.85 sw matched focal reducer then canon 600d ,I was experimenting using canon oes utilities,but ive switched to backyard eos it supports twin dslr ect and can go to a red screen in my opinion if you like eos you will love byeos more.I will be using astro toaster when im more competent with my set up,im saving up for heq5 but after seeing yours im tempted to just dip into my savings and get it now,im looking to fit the ed80 set up and a st102 with my second 600d and use byeos 1&2 for capture,to this I will add my orion finder scope and qhy5l11 colour camera for guiding,but watching your video I think I will just use it as a video camera via sharpcap,,will run this via Panasonic toughbook and my toshiba laptop..well impressed with the video great stuff,I have already earmarked the belt upgrade when deciding I wanted a heq5 .
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Post by howie1 on Apr 30, 2016 7:19:26 GMT
Yeah Davy ... I've watched with interest your thread on your 'build'. If you look back at your thread, I posted up all the wonderful combo's of FOV you'd have with that setup. Can't wait to hear how it goes when you've gotten it all going.
On FOV ... your above post mentions a two Canon setup with what appears to be one in the ED80 and one in the 102x600 (? if thats what a ST102 is?). Aren't they both 600mm or there-abouts? Are you planning to focus one on one target and the other on another at the same time? That's an interesting out-reach idea, but for you just on one target I think you'd be better off chucking your qhy5l into one to get same F/5 goodness but with 5x magnification and hence narrowfield stuff. But I'm probably not understanding what you intend to do there.
BTW I still have an ED80 with the SW reducer/corrector ... great bit of kit that! If only the 6SE mount I also have could take the weight and dimensions of the ED80, I'd use it in the 6SE mount in a flash! Alas, it doesnt! So I use the Orion ST80 instead in the 6SE. But kinda like my kids .... so hard to get rid of the scopes! LOL. So I still got the ED80.
I absolutely love my little ST80 (fringe effects n all). That scope was used by the orig owner of my setup as autoguider. I dont guide but I have used the ST80 for hiking telephoto shots attached to the canon, birding (uh, feathered variety LOL), astro work on a simple flimsy camera tripod, a SW StarAdventurer mount, the HEQ5/ASI24 combo, used it with a solar filter, watching those mega million dollar twin V12 260Km/Hr power boat racing offshore. Soooo versatile. Love that thing, bless its little metallic heart and soul! Its now once again going great on the 6SE mount as it is able to point to Zenith/meridian and not foul on the base of the mount as its nice n short n lightweight! As per guru Ken's (Snake Valley) advice to use yellow #8 on it to cheaply reduce the achro fringe effects ... its just a great little thing!
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Post by davy on Apr 30, 2016 7:52:55 GMT
Hi howie,the st102 is my experimenting scope,I will use it with barlows and the video cameras ,,my idea was to do my captures via the ed80 combo,and leave as is...what I find im doing is starting off with one set up,say ed80 and focal reducer and canon 600d,then its a strip down and rebuild using a barlow,because im doing it from my flat window my fov is restricted and of course the weather is killing me just now..for the future,,,I hope to get shot of the avairy in carols back garden and build a roll off roof observatory.. this is solely because of weather,,I need a permanent set up ready to go fast. The heq5 buy is first up .
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Post by ChrisV on Apr 30, 2016 13:15:43 GMT
I sort of looked at your video Howie. Might have a much closer look now. After looking at Davy's build I realized by son has one of these cameras. Hopefully there isn't a filter to pull out ? I don't think I'd get that by him.
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Post by howie1 on Apr 30, 2016 20:04:59 GMT
Hey Chris ... nah, the Canon I use is unmodded. Just a regular camera.
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Post by ChrisV on May 1, 2016 0:56:27 GMT
Nice resolution, but not as sensitive as the 224 ? Do you always use the canon on the newt and 224 on the ST80. Whats the 224 like on the newt (its ad 8" f5 ?) compared to using on the ST80 ?
And I like the sound of that mount. My CG5 has so much backlash and I can't get rid of it ! Adjusted all the bearings etc, regreased ... . Came to the conclusions its actually in the crappy motor/gear box. Looks like something out of a slot car (and I'm not even talking scaletrix).
HEQ5Pro = my next mount.
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Post by howie1 on May 1, 2016 6:30:14 GMT
Yes, most of the time I use the ASI in the ST80 and the Canon in the newt. Bright stuff the Canon I can zoom in AToaster without loosing much detail cos its got so many pixels. Good enough for NRTO and my tastes anyhow. Dim stuff the ST80 ZWO combo is twice the mag but that isn't too much extra mag to still allow me to get most dim objects. And again I can zoom in AToaster. I have put the Canon on the ST80 though as stuff like veil, magellanic clouds, M31 are B I G! The big sized 22mm chip in the Canon combined with the 400mm FL ST80 allows me to get them albeit at much longer exposures cos they arent particularly bright things! So I dont tend to try them much ... and one of the reasons the Infinity is on the shopping list. Proven to do bright and dim and MegaBob and another youtube broadcast I saw has done planets. SO kinda does everything. Very appealing!
Both are F/5 scopes so the 'brightness' and exp times are the same between the two scopes, just that the image scale / mag / FOV are very different.
You're up for another $200 Aussie bucks if you get the Rowan belt kit from the UK. It's what fixes the no more backlash bit. Gotos were always good, but the old gears before the belt did have some backlash.
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Post by davy on May 1, 2016 6:42:11 GMT
once I get my heq5,will play about with it and then put in rowan kit at end of our summer.bank holiday in Scotland on Monday so chillin this weekend
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Post by davy on May 1, 2016 6:44:59 GMT
carl,do you use eqmod for heq5 at all or just handset
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Post by Rick in NWArk on May 3, 2016 14:53:26 GMT
Howie, I get errors trying to open your links. Could you verify that they're correct?
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Post by howie1 on May 4, 2016 2:18:09 GMT
Rick, Thats really odd. I checked and all my vids and links to albums are still public and the links work for me (but then I'm the owner LOL). Here's the public link to my channel below. Maybe that'll work for you ... you'll see all my public vids so obviously click on the EOS Utils one. Hope it works for you Rick. If not try a diff browser? www.youtube.com/channel/UCwRg2BjC54F8MEPAaXYsTCA/videos?view_as=public
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Post by Rick in NWArk on May 4, 2016 14:08:57 GMT
The first flickr link now works for me, but the second still says page not found.
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Post by ChrisV on Jun 10, 2016 13:17:32 GMT
Howie I tried my son's Canon 600D with EOS Utilities and Astrotoaster. GT-81 refractor, no filters or FR, iso6400 5x 20sec subs stacked (I think, the camera battery ran out). Hardly realtime as it too ages to register stars and align. Wow, big FOV its 2.3x1.5deg. Stretched in Fitswork after as I couldn't figure out where contrast controls were in astrotoaster. Got no idea what I was doing. Will have to look at your instructions again. Alignment was way off and focus dodgy as I had trouble with LiveView. Chris
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Post by davy on Jun 10, 2016 17:27:31 GMT
Great image chris,,take a look at backyard eos,, they do a trial version,,I liked using canon utilities but byeos blows it out the water
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Post by howie1 on Jun 11, 2016 4:53:33 GMT
Hi Chris ... You've been spoilt by 5 second integrations with your ZWO, 20s x 5 isnt long Heck those NSN guys are using 90s x 10 for the ASI1600 Yup ... DSLR sensors are 22.3mm in width so thats why its wide FOV - behaves like a 23mm eyepiece ... Thing is you can zoom in 200% or more on a small object and you can still see pretty sharp images cos the thing is 18Mp. BTW handy quick way to figure out degrees of FOV for a sensor is 58 / Magnification where Magnification is Focal Length in mm / Sensor width in mm EG your GTF FL is 535mm and the sensor is 22.3mm .... so 535/22.3 = 24.0 and 58/24 = 2.4 degrees FOV in the width. Very close to your 2.3 you worked out. Your ASI224 sensor is 4.8mm wide so 535/4.8 = 111.5 (approx) and would therefore be 58/111.5 = 0.5 degrees FOV approx. An Infinity on that scope would be ... 535/9 = 59.5 (approx) and would therefore be 58/59.5 = 1.0 degrees FOV approx. Anyway ... Wonder why its slow to align and register for you? That vid I shot and posted right at the top of this thread was all live. The processing bar zips by on my old 2008-10 Macbook bootcamped with Win7 on it. IE not a particularly grunty pc. Its got to be some other settings you have. See my other video (link below) on how to use AT as in there I go thru all the settings and detail how to use it. Do not use Auto detect new stack, it definitely slows it down. Here's a download link in which I put all the DSS settings too, in case something in your DSS is different. And ... Ummm ... Contrast is the slider in the color adjustments menu which says Contrast ... resid=848D63BF1462B9EB!22914&authkey=!ADYWJocxgl_rBzw&ithint=file%2cpdf How to use AstroToaster video below ... You already know the basics Chris so cut to 5:00 into the video so get blow by blow workflow and every setting discussed with examples processed. cheers
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Post by ChrisV on Jun 11, 2016 5:07:49 GMT
Contrast = Contrast. Damn. The files it makes are like 45MB. What the heck. Maybe I should be using something smaller. Trouble is, I'm the just do it and read manual later personality ... Thinks its time to watch your video.
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Post by howie1 on Jun 11, 2016 5:19:19 GMT
Yeah, I do have to add an annotation sometime to that video as I dont make it clear that you dont have to wait for all shots to stack ... you click the viewer Auto Refresh button and you can immediately see the first shot and start stretching and colorising it. As each shot comes in the view in the viewer window just keeps getting better and less noise same as all the other stacking type programs like SharpCap, Miloslick, etc. The way I describe stacking in the vid kinda could be taken as like you have to wait for it all to stack first. Not so.
Manual ... what manual ... that was the problem with AstroToaster and DSS when I started with it ... there was very little on how to use them. Much Googling and NSN'ing questions later I still spent ages figuring it out. That's why I ended up doing the vid.
cheers
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Post by ChrisV on Jun 13, 2016 3:35:54 GMT
Starting to get the hang of it. Had a go last night. Man its easy to setup/align with the big sensor ! I think I sorted out how to stack 'properly' half way through. So will have to re-stack them and see what it all looks like. For my setup I can see it would be nice with low F for some wide FOV shots on brighter targets.
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Post by howie1 on Jun 13, 2016 4:46:21 GMT
Glad to hear you have good weather again Chris. Been raining and cloudy for days here and the "Clear Outside" site as well as "CalSky" site has cloudy conditions for the next 7 nights!
Don't forget you can use the Zoom "+" button in the AT Adjustment window to zoom in on small stuff.
Stacking ... two ways ... 1. click STOP (to stop the MONITOR, SINGLE processing), then click the UNCHECK ALL button on the lower right of the ColorAdj window to deselect all the previous images, and then click MONITOR, STACK, REFRESH and then all the subsequent shots coming in will be stacked. The top of the Viewer window displays how many images have arrived in the monitored folder and how many it has stacked. ..... or ..... 2. the method I showed in the How To video ... click STOP (to stop the MONITOR, SINGLE processing), then click "Set New Stack" button which makes the last shot you took (to centre the object) as the first frame in the stack and then click MONITOR, STACK, REFRESH. All new shots coming in are stacked along with that one you set with Set New Stack.
Are you shooting in RAW or Jpeg? Did you sort out the slowness issue? Have you got in-camera "Long exposure NR" or in-camera "High ISO processing" turned on in the camera by any chance? Long exposure NR will automatically take a dark frame in-camera and therefore doubles the exposure time! Its good but time consuming. The High ISO processing should never be used as it does a pixel averaging process over surrounding pixels and kind of blurs the image.
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