10th May 2016 Some first imaging results.

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Having shared my afocal 'snaps' in the last post I tried my luck with Registax 6 on some of the Neximage 5 videos I took yesterday. It was quite fun working on my old, Vista computer in the shed. Apart from the wasps looking for nesting sites!

I started with Jupiter because the clear contrast should have been easier to work with for a complete beginner.  I have to admit to being rather pleased with this very first successful outcome of using Registax. This image came from my 90mm f/11 Vixen 90M, on the vintage Fullerscopes MkIII mounting, using the Neximage 5 camera. None of the original frames showed anything but two fuzzy stripes on a soft and fluffy ball. None of this detail was seen visually. Merely fleeting moments of two darker belts. Colour versions should follow when I attain greater mastery of the processing software.

My first image of Mercury is a bit overblown in the Registax processing. There are signs of CA surrounding the planet thanks to the enormous image scale. See my last blog post for full sun images showing the tiny size of Mercury relative to the sun's disk. Some surface structure of the Sun also appear in the background.

Remember that this image was taken with an achromatic refractor. 180mm, 7" f/12 stopped down to 150mm, 6" working at a nominal f14.4. iStar's claim of 35% improvement in CA for their R35 optics must surely be proven by the quality of these early images?

The sun was dominated by a large, almost central, sunspot group during the entire transit. I captured several videos of this group using my iStar refractor using a Baader AstroSolar foil filter. The Neximage 5 camera was mounted on extension tubes rather than using the star diagonal to avoid unnecessary optical components. 

Now I am wondering how I managed to capture two different sized sunspots.  It is just possible that one was taken using a different resolution in the iCap camera settings. I was experimenting some of the time to see how it affected image quality. The normal 640x480 setting was changed to 1024 x 768 to get a wider view and hopefully, to reduce the incredible thermal turbulence visible on the screen. Both images are saved from Registax without any further 'adjustment.'

 These first imaging results are certainly encouraging. Had I failed dismally at the first fence I might have lost my early enthusiasm. It just goes to show how a home-made telescope on a half-century old, vintage mounting, wielded by a complete beginner at imaging and using Registax can achieve reasonably acceptable results.

I am most grateful to my fellow amateur astronomer in the UK who's selfless guidance has helped me to clear many potential hurdles.

Hopefully, with much more practice and experience I can achieve better results.

This image has been stacked and processed in Registax as before but then [mis]treated in PhotoFiltre. Dust Reduction and changes in gamma and contrast and cropping have helped bring out more detail. Critics might argue that it has been over-baked but I am only a complete beginner at this and am quite prepared to publish my mistakes. 

I have now been given some notes by my imaging adviser in the UK and can fill in some of the missing gaps. Progress is not helped by using two computers. One of which has the AVI files but no connection to the internet and is in the shed. I am ferrying processed images back to the indoor computer on a USB stick for publication on my blog.

This last image has been through PIPP before processing in Registax in colour. Early days yet and I am still finding my way around the software.

Click on any image for an enlargement.

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