It is all in the detail.

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denababy
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It is all in the detail.

Post by denababy »

Hi all, today’s problem for me is that I cannot get any detail in my videos. My equipment is a Lunt 50 ha single stack, zwo 120 mm camera, software is Sharpcap v 3 Autostakkert 2 and Photoshop cs 2. After careful alignment and clear blue skies I have taken numerous videos over two days but when I try to process them there is little to no detail. I focussed at 200 magnification and my settings in Sharpcap were exposure 0.10 gain 59 and Gamma on 1. Am I expecting too much from my setup if so what is suggested? When I say no detail I mean there is, compared to others, no-detail.


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Re: It is all in the detail.

Post by Montana »

Hello, I think we really need to see a screen capture or picture of what you have taken to make sense of what is happening.

Alexandra


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Re: It is all in the detail.

Post by Carbon60 »

I agree with Alexandra. Silly question, but are you tuning the etalon? Do you see any detail visually if you look directly through an eyepiece?

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Re: It is all in the detail.

Post by denababy »

Thanks for your replies. Yes the first thing I do is look through an eyepiece and tune the best I can, to ensure I have a good visual before I attach the camera. Tomorrow I am going to try and upload the stacked pic so that you can see the detail I have not got.


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Re: It is all in the detail.

Post by PDB »

I focussed at 200 magnification
Hi, i suppose you focused visually when you say at 200 magnification or do you mean 200% on the SharpCap screen. Focus position for eyepiece and camera are not the same. The camera needs to be more infocused than the eyepiece and I have seen many discussion on how to reach that with an LS50.
You might need to unscrew the eyepiece holder and connect the camera (think you need an adaptor for that) directly without the eyepiece holder. Since I don't have an LS50 can't test, only guess ....

Pictures are really needed:
- your setup
- screen dump of SharpCap screen
- result

That will at least give more clues.

Regards,

Paul


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Re: It is all in the detail.

Post by denababy »

hi in reply to my focus issue I focused using an eyepiece first then attached my camera and refocused using the magnification on Sharpcap (200).


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Re: It is all in the detail.

Post by denababy »

Trying and trying to insert a pic. It's all in the eye movement


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Re: It is all in the detail.

Post by denababy »

I am trying to upload a pic, I go to Full Editor & Preview, then attachments at the foot of the page then type in some words and hit submit but nothing seems to happen, what am I doing? Or what is the next step to upload a pic.


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Re: It is all in the detail.

Post by PDB »

Just forgot not all file types are allowed. Best is jpeg or png


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Re: It is all in the detail.

Post by PDB »

Have you selected "add files" in the attachment tab?
then you should see a dialog box that lets you browse on your local pc to the file you want to upload.
Select it, doubleclick on it, and it will transfer the file to solarchat.

Then you can select the "place inline" an in the text box there should be a reference to the uploaded file.

Use preview to see how it looks

P


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Re: It is all in the detail.

Post by denababy »

Where will I find place in line? I have looked and looked but for the life of me I cannot see it. Wait until I can do this There may be quite a few pics to go along with my questions.10_27_28_g6_ap1534.png.tif


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Re: It is all in the detail.

Post by PDB »

When your file is uploaded you should see a screen like this where the Place Inline button is
Test.png
Test.png (17.64 KiB) Viewed 3913 times
But you seem to have a file .png.tif extension. Are you sure if the file is correct? That filename questions.10_27_28_g6_ap1534.png.tif will probably give you problems uploading.

Regrds,

Paul


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Re: It is all in the detail.

Post by denababy »

10_27_28_g6_ap1534.png
10_27_28_g6_ap1534.png (1.09 MiB) Viewed 3911 times
Right I have saved the file as a png. hope this works.


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Re: It is all in the detail.

Post by PDB »

Hi,

yes the upload was ok. That image doesn't look good, there is as you said no detail. Focus looks ok if I look at the solar limb so that is probably not the problem. (The Newton Rings can be avoided so that is not a real problem). There are some other strange artifacts in the image but I don't see what the problem is. If you could try to upload the stacked file coming out of as2 we can see if the problem is the later processing, or that file is already weird.

P.


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Re: It is all in the detail.

Post by denababy »

Hi the pic is a stacked one from Autostakkert 2. The Newton’s rings I can get rid of using the flat, but I have problems when I load it, I must be doing something wrong. I follow Marty’s video step by step but must be missing something. Thanks for your time.


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Re: It is all in the detail.

Post by PDB »

To be honest, I have no clue what happened here. Never seen a stacked image like this.
if you open the file in AS!2 do the images also look washed out?


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Re: It is all in the detail.

Post by denababy »

Hi the images look just as the pic. Is there something I should try during the capture process, my settings in Sharpcap are - exposure 0.10 ms, gain about 57 and Gamma at 1. Do I-need different equipment to improve things or should I be able to achieve better results using my Lunt 50 ah? I have an Explore Scientific 80apo if I fitted a Quark Chromosphere would it give me much better detail?


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Re: It is all in the detail.

Post by PDB »

Hi,

First thing i should try next time is put the gamma value at 50 instead of 1. (For ZWO cams 50 is the recommended and neutral value) Exposure value, that you can only judge using the histogram in SharpCap.

The LS50 is surely capable of producing excellent pictures. You will have more detail with bigger scopes, but try first with this one. Even with low action on the Sun (as we see today) there should always be some details even with the smaller scopes.

Regards,

Paul


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Re: It is all in the detail.

Post by denababy »

When we next get some clear skies I will try Gamma at 50. I use the histogram and try to set everything so the reading is between 70 x 90. That way I am not clipping off data. I am really looking forward to getting some worthwhile shots of the Sun. Cheers


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Re: It is all in the detail.

Post by THEO BAKALEXIS »

can you put an image of the camera software menu.....?????????


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Re: It is all in the detail.

Post by THEO BAKALEXIS »

You have no focus because your camera is to closed to the eyepiece.

I believe you must try to use

1) a barlow 2X

or

2) an extension tube

on your camera.


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Re: It is all in the detail.

Post by denababy »

Thank you Theo, if I use any Barlow at whatever magnification it is impossible to get any where near focus. I Have three ccd cameras, DMK 21 an Altair Astro 8gm and the ZWO, out of those three only the zwo works on my Lunt. I have emailed Lunt a few times but never received a full answer. I changed from the original focuser to a Feathertouch, in the hope I would get more inward travel.


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Re: It is all in the detail.

Post by THEO BAKALEXIS »

I had the same problem with my coronado and i solve it with a barlow 2X televue.

If you make observation and you see clear icon your scope it`s ok. I believe you have a camera focus problem.

Use the barlow with two ways.

Put the camera inside the barlow and all the set in eyepiece position. After turn the ethalon to focus.

If you cant see anything then unscrew the len of the body of the barlow and put it in the eyepiece position and after put the camera and make focus again with the ethalon.


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Re: It is all in the detail.

Post by Bruce Girrell »

That doesn't look like a magnification or focus issue to me. The disk appears to be in good focus. That pattern is certainly strange though. That looks electronic to me. How did the image look on the monitor as you were making the capture?

The one thing that I see a little odd is the 0.1 ms exposure. With only 100 microseconds, that starts to push timing in the camera. It also forces the use of a higher gain. I don't understand how your exposure could be so short at a gain of 59. Especially with the gamma set to 1, I would think that the gain would be pretty far up.

Get your settings back more to the center of their ranges and try again

Since the CameraSettings.txt file is small, you might want to simply copy that and post it.

BTW, if you have a Nikon SLR, the lens fits snugly into the opening of the camera (watch the electrical contacts and push gently). Find something to support the lens and the camera on their sides. The lens can then be used to focus an image on the camera sensor for testing. It also lets you play around with camera settings and see what it does to the image, since you can see the scene and how it appears to the camera live


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Re: It is all in the detail.

Post by rsfoto »

Hi,

The first thing that came to my mind when I saw the image, was a camera with a interlaced chip.


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Re: It is all in the detail.

Post by marktownley »

There's a couple of things going on here - there is newtons rings, get the camera tilted to solve that. Then concentrate on the tuning, it doesn't look at all on band - the darker light area is the sweet spot.


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Re: It is all in the detail.

Post by Bruce Girrell »

rsfoto wrote: Wed May 16, 2018 10:54 pm The first thing that came to my mind when I saw the image, was a camera with a interlaced chip.
Good call. It does appear to be interlaced. It's almost as if two different images are recorded.
Is it possible that the wrong camera was selected in setup? Normally if my camera is connected when I fire up SharpCap, it selects the camera automatically. But if, for example, I change cameras without shutting down the program, then I have to select the camera manually. Any chance the program thought that it was looking at the wrong camera?

Denababy - Please post the CameraSettings.txt file. Also, please select a single frame of the capture, export it from AutoStakkert and post it. It doesn't matter which frame.


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Re: It is all in the detail.

Post by Bruce Girrell »

I loaded the image into Matlab and split it into two images. In one case I kept the even numbered lines and interpolated the odd ones and in the other I kept the odd lines and interpolated the evens.

Odd lines kept:
OddInterp.png
OddInterp.png (969.57 KiB) Viewed 1748 times
Even lines kept:
EvenInterp.png
EvenInterp.png (948.96 KiB) Viewed 1748 times
As you can see, the even line image is considerably darker than the odd line image. On average, the numerical values of the odd lines of the image were roughly 1.4 times the values of the even lines. In both cases, the rings are still visible, but there is not much else to see. Combining the two images and processing a bit more yields an image that makes me want to believe that there is image data there, but it's probably my brain playing tricks.
Combined.png
Combined.png (1.01 MiB) Viewed 1748 times
An enlargement shows that there is no coherent detail
Combined detail.png
Combined detail.png (317.17 KiB) Viewed 1746 times
I doubt that this clears up much. Just some additional information. Too bad there aren't any really good features up there right now


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Re: It is all in the detail.

Post by marktownley »

Even on a 'blank' disk there is still plenty of detail for a Lunt50, here's a shot I took a few days ago.

Imagess-fd-bw by Mark Townley, on Flickr

I get very similar sweetspotting that you get when my Lunt50 isn't acclimated. It seems to like sunlight on the etalon chamber for a while before the sweetspot is even.


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Re: It is all in the detail.

Post by denababy »

09_53_11_g6_ap1605.png
09_53_11_g6_ap1605.png (1.64 MiB) Viewed 1736 times
the last few days have been ok ish so I set up my Lunt Etc. and took a few videos. Firstly I could not see any Newtons rings until I opened the file then they were as plain as day. After adjusting my tuning very slowly I managed to get some detail, that's the first problem nearly solved, then I followed Marty's video as I went along but still managed to get something wrong. After saving the file into my finished images file it would not open as the file had been saved as an ALV. Anyone else had this problem, if so where would it happen? Her,e is my last poor attempt, it's absolutely rubbish but at least I'm making some progress thanks to you folk.


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Re: It is all in the detail.

Post by PDB »

Just a silly question. I think you have the usb2 version of the camera (120MM not the MM-S) Did you install the lastest drivers from the ZWO website. I noticed a new driver was released a few days ago which now groups all cameras. (If I remember correctly, there was a seperate driver for the 120 MM in the previous version). That image does not look normal, these horizontal lines should not be there. Could be bad cable, bad camera, bad driver, bad usb port (don't use the camera over a hub, that can also give problems)

Paul


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Re: It is all in the detail.

Post by denababy »

I tell a lie, I hooked everything up and looked very very closely and there were the rings. You are correct PDB I do have the 120mm, yes I installed the drivers, Iam going to look to see if there are newer drivers. The horizontal lines I think are Newton rings. and I try to get rid of them by using a flat on the surface, not on the proms, it usually works but recently I have a problem when I load the flat, the pic goes like a negative and is not lining up with the surface pic. I try to polar align as carefully as possible, recently on the handcontroller it came up with ‘polar is 1.3 off’ but don’t ask me where that can be found it just came up.


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Re: It is all in the detail.

Post by PDB »

Hi,

these horizontal lines ar not Newton Rings. (The NR's are the ones that are bent over the disc.) Could be some other interference (exists on a 178MM) but never seen that on an 120. Any weird settings in AS!2 stacking?

Paul


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Re: It is all in the detail.

Post by denababy »

Just goes to show I know very little. I have and will have a good look at the settings.


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Re: It is all in the detail.

Post by PDB »

Good point. There is something on stargazerelounge: https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/2133 ... sun-in-ha/
Probably a bug in the driver where #of frames from shutter speed exceed the USB 2.0 speed? Maybe in combination with some other setting (Highspeed, USBTraffic)

Paul


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