copyright StarlightCascade Observatory
Form left to right is:
Ganymede shadow, Europa shadow, Europa, Ganymede
seeing was poor, transparency was poor and winds were gusty. Clouds rolled in before the transits were complete 🙁
This is the best image of the 49 runs, the best 10% 10K frames at 3ms ramping up to 10ms at the end of the 49 runs.
Jupiter diameter is only 38 arcseconds
Below is the animated GIF of the 49 runs.
Whilst waiting for the double moon shadow transit on Jupiter Tuesday evening, I did a few runs of Mars imaging.
The wind was brutal.. gusting and then not. It did not get a lot better for Jupiter later on.. in any event…
This was the best 10% of 13K frames of approx 1.5ms each. Seeing was poor, transparency was poor and the Moon was nearing full phase.
There is some blur off to the right of the planet.. almost certainly an artefact of processing the wobbly wind blown image. Mars was less than 10 arcseconds in diameter
Jupiter Impact Detection
Besides imaging Jupiter for the outofthisworldlisness of Jupiter, its moons transitting the surface, its moon shadows transitting its surface, the Great Red Spot, bands and belts, and many other spots, amateurs can also watch for impacts on Jupiter itself. Anyone remember Comet Shoemaker Levy 9 in 1994?
So.. I have been aware of this concept, and even used the DeTect software package from time to time… but never in a consistent manner. During a Citizen Science Education and Public Outreach Webinar on Feb 23rd, I learned something tremendous. One can install Detect (https://github.com/DeTeCt-PSWS/DeTeCt-MFC/releases/tag/v3.9.0) on the same system as Autostakkert! v4 (https://www.autostakkert.com/) and… wait for it…
autostakkert!v4 will automatically invoke DeTect and have it search for Jupiter Impacts *whilst* at the same time, doing its normal stacking process!
As seen in this image (autostakkertdetect.jpg) .. there is a tiny icon that looks like Jupiter (highlighted) and the check box is now checked after install of DeTect on the system.
I am looking forward to have this additional value added science tool for use in the future. In the meantime you can also run it on the raw saved .SER files from the past. For those RASC-KC members that ask.. why do you save your raw data? This is another great reason!
So I fired up DeTect and aimed it at my online archive of 2025 Jupiter .SER raw video files. Processing those 87 files of approx 528GB will probably take a few hours. Especially since I just saw that there were also some Mars files in there… I wonder what it will do with them? After that I will starting running through 2024, month by month, probably in overnight runs.
This is the realtime display (image detect.jpg) of the software at work.
There is another big impact imaging project aimed at detecting lunar impacts… But I haven’t tried that out yet 🙂
(https://www.nasa.gov/meteoroid-environment-office/lunar-impact-monitoring/)
Greetings!
Another night that looked promising, what with -7C before 7pm, and skies that looked clear.
One hour, 16 imaging runs of Jupiter and a final temp of -15C later I shut everything down and tried out a new processing method.
*instead* of running all 16 imaging runs (abut 70GB) through autostakkert at 5%, 10%, and 25%, then bringing in each of the 16*3=48 images into Registax and doing wavelets on them, and then bringing in one of the 5,10, or 25% runs into GIMP to do three operations of black point, colour saturation and unsharp mask, and then onto ImageMagick for annotation, I tried the new method. It came to me from one of the so many online video tutorials that I have watched in the last month that I can’t even remember where it came from! The above method can take hours (sometimes a few, sometimes 10), especially running through autostakkert.
This time I took the 16 runs, put them in autostakkert at 10% and turned on the “sharpened” option. This does a much poorer job then Registax, but is batchable and automatic. This took mere minutes. I then looked at the sharpened “draft” results and chose only the best few. Those “chosen ones” went back into autostakkert with sharpened turned off, and the best 5%, 10% and 25% turned on. Then onto Registax, Gimp and Imagemagick as before.
This best result shows that seeing was poor, if not very poor. The raw video shows Jupiter bouncing around left, right, up and down. Firecapture ROI and Cutout Box options can minimize those motions but cannot compensate for the “Z-axis” of in and out movement. The result is a fairly poor contrast, low resolution image of Jupiter.
I do however, love the new, shortened processing method. Instead of results tomorrow, they are available today!
The last successful automated data upload to this website failed on 2025jan17.
Just today, testing showed that it was functional again.
No cause was found.. perhaps just a glitch, perhaps something to do with updated packages… who knows?
I must have been already brain frozen last night after two Jupiters (I had actually thought I did many more than that! Go Figure!), I thought to myself.. lets do Mars.. its not that cold out here!
This is the best of three runs of Mars, each run was 120 seconds.
Best 15% of 10k frames, at an altitude of 32 degrees.. more air to look through.
This evening we went out at -5C thinking it would stay that way and just more than 30 minutes later, we came inside to discover the temp was in fact -16C. The indoor hot chocolate I had formed icecubes when I picked it up!
This was one of only two runs of Jupiter last night. There was a shadow transit!
The moon appearing in the upper right is Io
The shadow is from Europa, which is just out of frame to the right.
Seeing was poor, transparency was poor
Focus… my remote focuser dropped connection.. over and over again. So the focus for this was not spot on at all.
Altitude was good.. almost 58 degrees up. This is the best 15% of 18k frames.
I’ve also started to change my firecapture cutout box from 800×800 to 600×600. As a direct result of that, the frame rate went up even more! I still use an ROI of 1200×1200. Tracking went well.. I did not have to guide at all in two 120second runs.
We are learning of many new things online, and especially from Country View Acres on Youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/@CountryViewAcres
In particular… more and better grow lights for starting seeds. So we picked up this package last month
“Barrina Grow Lights for Indoor Plants, Full Spectrum LED Grow Light, 2ft 80W (8 x 10W, 500W Equivalent), T5 Grow Light Strip for Greenhouse, Plant Grow Light, Easy Installation, 8-Pack
from amazon.ca and just recently installed it on a 4 shelf metal stand that we use for plants.
Full Spectrum (Pinkish White Color) – Barrina T5 grow lights 2ft provide indoor plants with full-spectrum sunlight replacement.
Super Bright and High PPFD- Consuming only 80W with 400 LEDS totally, replace 500W general plant lights. ”
Time will tell but more light should get more germination.
This was the single best imaging run of 36 runs on a cold evening.
The shadow transit is from Io, the top right moon is Ganymede. Io itself is on the surface of the planet, not easily visible.
Seeing was poor, transparency was poor, and a more than quarter moon was nearby.
Exposures were about 2ms and this was the best 15% of 15k frames. The workflow was: firecapture, autostakkert!, registax, imagemagick, gimp. Not included here is the further processing using winjupos. That will come along shortly.
Below is an animation of the 36 runs of 180 seconds each, totalling 108 minutes
and after even yet more time processing… this is the result of running 36 imaging runs through winjupos to derotate. It was also put back through gimp for black levels, colour saturation and unsharp process (right image).. the left image is the closest timestamped image before winjupos processing.
These results are inconclusive regarding better signal to noise and a better image.
Some images of Mars….
2024July, 2024 August with the Vixen VC200L
2024 October
and last night 2025Jan09 with the Celestron C9.25
also included is the Sky&Tel Mars simulator showing topographical features
All with x1.5 barlow
Overall I am Squeeeee! ing (with joy) all over the place over last nights latest image!
Seeing was poor, transparency was poor and there was that large honkin moon still up in the east as well. Mars was only 37 degrees up over the horizon.
It will only get better! (no moon, higher Mars, better seeing and transparency)
We are looking at Chryse in the middle of the planet, Solis Lacus a little to the lower left, Sinus Meridani to the right . The Tharsis region to the upper left.
New standard workflow: firecapture, autostakkert!, regixtax, gimp, imagemagick
Now to start work on the Jupiter run and try out using WinJupOS on a run of 36 .
We have a new-to-us Celestron C9.25 Schmidt-Cassegrain OTA and as everyone knows, the front corrector plates on SCT’s are extremely prone to dew. So we have had an external strap heater around the front end (image c925a.jpg).
Unfortunately this strap heater moves around, comes loose, prevents the metal cap from going on, and makes it very difficult to add in the foam dew shield. So we got the Celestron Dew Heater Ring, which mounts on the inside.
Step 1: add a paper safety on the glass (image c925b.jpg)
Step 2: remove the six Phillips head screws
Step 3: remove the existing ring, the gasket underneath
Step 4: install the dew heater ring, adjusted so the power cable is near the 7’oclock position and put the screws back in.
Step 5: run the cables into the cable holder which clips on the edge.
Step 6: Bob’s Your Uncle.
Previous to the work, I watched THREE youtube videos on the process to make me an expert:
and my favourite: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2blj_PDthcI
All three video demos went smoothly and the job was done in less than 5 minutes.
I made it to step 2. Step 3, removing the ring and gasket, totally failed. After 20 minutes of trying to pry out the ring without touching the glass (or breaking the glass!!!!) I stopped, reversed and put it all back together again.
I am suspecting that maybe it was that all three demos were done in very warm climates, I was trying this at -4C and that everything (metal bits) had contracted and was jammed together. The alternative is perhaps it was stuck together with adhesive. In any event, I will do some more research and wait for a much warmer day (say +10C or better) and try again.
The last image (image c925c.jpg) is what the dew heater looks like (measured 7 ohms which calculates out to about 20 watts max)
Winjupos. A word that strikes fear into the hearts of image processors.
You may have heard of it for its ability to “derotate” a series of planetary images, such as Jupiter, combining signal and reducing noise, over a long run of exposures.
Up until yesterday, I still had no idea of what the workflow process was… but that has changed now.
Typically, with Jupiter, I do maybe 10 -20 images runs of up to 180 seconds each. Each run will normally contain 10-20k frames. Because Jupiter rotates so fast, if you do an imaging run of more than 3 minutes the features will have moved from one pixel over to the next, blurring the details. Even if you take the best 10% of 20K frames, you still have only 2K frames for your image processing.
Winjupos will allow you to take that one processed image, and say the other 19 you also did, derotate time and allow you to use 38k more frames/signal and reduce noise… ie using all 20 imaging runs (and 40k frames for example) of that session to create one better quality image.
I have not yet done 20 imaging runs in one session. In fact, two evenings ago was my first session in two months. So all this article will show is the before and after of only 5 imaging runs from 2025 Jan 02.
Sometime in the near future I will go back to my archives, find a good night with a lot of runs, and process those through winjupos.
This first image is my new (fall 2024) standard workflow: autostakkert!, registax, gimp. The image is the best 5% of 12K frames over 120 seconds with an exposure of 3.5ms each. Jupiter was 65 degrees in altitude with an airmass of 1.1 (about as low as you can get). Taken with the C9.25, x1.5 barlow, ZWO ASI585mc camera, UV/IR cut filter, dew heater for the corrector and a dew cap, on a skywatcher az-eq6gt mount that was tracking very well.
The second image is the same as above plus using winupos to combine 5 images together. Each image was also the best 5% of the runs.
after winjupos[/caption]
The signal/data is a little better after than before. The added workflow however is something that I may not do on a regular basis, as it has added even more time that I want.
https://jupos.hier-im-netz.de/ is the home of winjupos but if you just want the download: https://jupos.org/gh/download.htm
The winjupos workflow looks like this:
winjupos to create a single best image of all the nights data in one
program; body; jupiter
recording; image measurement
open image; F11
image save F2
repeatfor total of 5 imaging runs
tools; derotation of images; edit; add all 5 files
compile F12
save