Struggling with imaging…

I got the clearest skies I’ve seen in weeks this morning, and seeing that was tremendous.  So why did my videos and pictures not turn out so well?  I have theories.  More that at the bottom.

I started out using the FrankenCam (see the other post from today) but I’ll leave that disappointment aside.  I figured for sure I’d get some wonderful images with the Fujifilm Finepix S700 that gave me such great data last time.  Well, I was wrong.  What I saw through the eyepiece was a huge, sharp, contrasty planet.  What appeared on LCD screen of the camera looked pretty similar.  When I pulled up any of the 10 videos I shot this morning, this was what greeted me (or worse!):

Absolutely heinous.  Compare that to the raw image that greeted me on October 8th:

I don’t know if you can tell the difference  but I sure can.  Today’s videos were way more grainy and distorted.  However, I gritted my teeth and plugged away at the data I had collected in Registax anyway.  If nothing else, hopefully I can learn from this.

Here’s what I pulled from Registax after stacking a few 800+ frame movies (using anywhere from 150 – 600 of the best frames):

Registax is truly an amazing program.  To go from that grainy nasty thing to the above picture in less than a few minutes is just wonderful.  The picture still isn’t anything I’m excited about.

My ideas: the filter.  This time I used a filter on the eyepiece—last time I didn’t.  As a result the colors from the Oct 8th imaging were richer and fuller.  It cut down on the glare, to be sure but at the cost of detail and coloring.  I think.

Besides the filter, I had turned on the anti-vibration feature of the camera after last time.  I don’t know why, I think I was just messing around with settings on the Finepix and decided to try it.  Next chance I get, I’m going to take 2 videos back to back, one with the setting on, the next with it off, to decide which one is better.

The other thing I didn’t have going for me like last time was the proper cool-down of the telescope.  Last time, I got up at 5:30am and let the scope cool for nearly 40 minutes before I observed and filmed.  Today, I was so shocked by the good seeing, mild temperature (it was about 50* as opposed to 30* on October 8th) and clear skies, I gave the scope about 10 mintues to cool down before I couldn’t contain myself any longer.  Both sessions the cooling fan was running and collimation was spot on.

So, my takeaways are patience, patience, patience…and try it without the filter next time.  Sheesh.

 

 

 

FrankenCam first planetary test!

At long last I got clear skies this morning—and what a clear sky! WOW…seeing was awesome..at least a 8.5 or 9 out of 10. That front that came through yesterday/last night really stabilized everything.

I got the gear set up and after monkeying with inward travel on the focus for the webcam (I had to go waaaaay in from where my tests were conducted with the trees in the backyard yesterday, which I figured, but just not THAT much). But finally got Jupiter in the cross-hairs so to speak.

Unfortunately, everything was overexposed.  Jupiter was a perfect white ball, and the Galilean moons were perfect white little spheres. But…no detail!!! 

I tried using the Barlow but could not even find Jupiter. I think I need to get more inward travel to bring the barlowed FrankenCam to focus. There is that little black plastic pipe that I attached to the camera. I think I’ll take it off next time and see what happens as it adds a good 3-4 inches.

In my panic/frustration, I taped (yeah, taped—I’ve said before, there’s nothing but class with this rig) three different filters (a blue, a ND and my Crystalview Moon filter) to the end of the webcam tube (which of course required monkeying with the focus again). No, I didn’t tape all three together…though maybe I should?

The difference was instead of an overexposed Jupiter, I got a blueish tint to an over-exposed Jupiter. What gives? 

The kids were stirring, my wife was leaving for work, before you know it, I was running out of time and switched to my Fuji film for some good shots afocal.   I’ll process those and post them as  I get time…

But now I’m starting to think it was the software settings in VirtualDub.  Here is  a screen capture of the default settings.  Next time I will devote the entire session to messing around with getting the settings right (if I have to!).   In my excitement to be back out under the stars, I rushed myself I think and spent more time fiddling with the Fujifilm camera afocally than worrying about the FrankenCam.  Maybe some tea before I go out next time to help wake me up too.

Ah well, the clouds and another front rolling back in signal that I’ll have plenty of time to figure this out.

Oh, before I forget, there was one great thing I can report though: The Telrad base worked great!  It was soooo easy to align the dob on Jupiter and keep it there.  Way more convenient than the RA finderscope.  I should have done this years ago!  I love me some Telrad!

FrankenCam Test

So I finally got some time to do another test of the modded camera, this time with the filter in place. I did the same thing I did for the first (filterless) test: that is, I aimed out the side garage window and focused on the trees across my backyard, approximately 45 yards away.

You can see instantly that this single frame pulled out of the test video shows the filter is indeed working…everything looks normal! Except there’s no leaves this time—fall sure hit fast!—just the bark of a branch.

Additionally, you can clearly see the dead zones where I got too much superglue on the sensor in the bottom left and upper right corners. I was initially disappointed by this, but upon reflection on how tiny a workspace I had to deal with, I’m pretty happy I didn’t ruin the entire sensor! We’re talking superglue drops on the tip of a toothpick here…Also, there’s still some dust on the surface of the filter, which I have reduced by blowing air down the camera tube but I haven’t eliminated all the dust. Assuming my planetary images don’t land right on the dust spots, I’ll be fine.

And of course it’s supposed to be cloudy tomorrow morning and raining. Ugh. I can’t wait to really give this camera a “live” target!

DIY: Telrad Base part 2

Continuing work on the Telrad base was easy—cloudy nights=busy days.

I added a wedge to the front of the Telrad base to make it more secure when attached, shaped the whole thing and made some nice edges.  I think this is just going to be an experiment in getting it done—if I like how it handles in the field, I may make it out of oak or something more stable and solid than pine (this was all pieces of 2×4 cutoff).

I had the wooden part in the bench vise, then shaped the angles of the top to match the angled Telrad base with a block plane and a chisel (on the knots).The above picture shows it as I started to shape the angle.   It took surprisingly little time!  Maybe 10 minutes.

Then, I used two 1/2″ wood screws I found in the junk drawer to attach the Telrad’s base to the shaped wooden base:

Finally,  attached the base to the telescope using the finder scope’s cleat, then attached the Telrad for a test fit.  Perfect!

Assuming everything holds up in the field, I will use this prototype to test finishes for waterproofing and painting.  Once I get it all refined, I’ll likely find myself a nice piece of hardwood and make a nicer looking base.  Or I may just say the heck with it and use this one!

Time will tell, but if the clouds don’t freakin’ get out of here it’s a moot point…

 

Fun with processing…

So it’s been too cloudy and windy to try the modded Lifecam Cinema HD but I’ve been able to play around with new techniques for processing planetary images in Registax and PSE.

Back on the 8th of October, I used my Fujifilm Finepix camera to take some .avi files of Jupiter using the 4mm eyepiece.  There was no filter on this eyepiece because the lens in the eyepiece already limits so much light from coming through, the image would be too dark.

The data has been sitting on the computer for the past few days as I messed with the Lifecam Cinema and visited relatives.  Today it’s raining and I decided to play around with the new techniques I’ve learned from gleaning the Cloudy Nights forums,

After tinkering with wavelets and how I process the .avi file I ended up with this picture of Jupiter:

This image is bigger than the others I’ve taken so far because the Fujifilm Finepix has a 10x optical zoom compared to the 3x optical zoom on the Casio.  This allows me to get a larger image of what’s projected in the eyepiece, but as you can see, it’s at the expense of clarity.  Nevertheless the raw image pulled out of Registax was very blurry and the image above is a HUGE improvement.  I have also rotated and flipped the image so it is “natural” (north is up and east is to the right).

Then I decided, since I had two separate videos that yielded similar results as the image above, why not stack those two images in Registax and see if you can’t get an even sharper image?  Well, Registax didn’t like the idea of stacking only 2 images but I did it anyway and got a result that was a little sharper but grainier.  Meh, it’s a tossup if you ask me.

Anyway, here’s the second (stacked) image at 100% and 50%.  Looks like I will play with the Fujifilm some more!  If I can get the focus better, this could be a better setup than the Casio, even though it’s not quite as easy.  It takes two hands to film with the Fuji, where with the Casio I can guide with one hand and film with the other.

Webcam Surgery—part 2

So after discussing it with some fellow stargazers on Cloudy Nights, I decided that I needed the IR cut filter that is housed in the back of the lens assembly for the Microsoft Lifecam Cinema HD.   If you recall, yesterday I removed it following Gary Honis’ instructions.

Turns out, for the camera to work properly for astronomical (or otherwise) purposes, you need a UV\IR cut filter to block IR light and give the image a “natural” look.   As it happens, I guess it’s so well known that if you modify a webcam you need to do this that everyone just buys a 1.25″ filter (designed for the eyepiece) and attaches it to the modified camera.

Well, I took a look at all the parts (thank goodness I saved them!) and decided why not just remove the little IR filter that came with the webacm and figure out a way to re-attach it to the sensor?  What have I got to lose, right?  If it doesn’t work, I was going to throw out the extra parts anyway and have to buy a filter (anywhere between $40-$100).  Since this whole project was partly to save me money, I decided to just plow ahead and say what the hell.

So, first step was to remove the IR filter from the lens assembly.  Here it is all attached ready for surgery.

Tiny little bugger, ain’t it?

How to do this though?  It’s inside that little black box made of metal (and oddly enough a nice little magnet…) and plastic.  Well, the solution was easier than I thought.  See that little eyeglass repair kit screwdriver there at the bottom of the above picture?  Well, just wedge it in the seams all the way around the little lens assembly.

A little judicious application of force and one of the sides popped free.

Aha! The first crack in the armor.

And then you just wedge your way around the thing, peeling up the sides to expose the next layery.  It’s like a tiny little magnetic onion that represents $40-$100.  Careful now…don’t scratch the filter.

Next layer comes off pretty easy…

And you just keep working your way down, peeeling offf little thin metallic layer by layer until you end up with:

Tiny little camera lens.

The IR filter is there on the top.  On the other side is what looks like the nose off a minature little DSLR.  Crazy thing is, the cylinder rotates freely inside the square housing.  It’s kind of hard to describe, but it’s pretty darn neat to see.  Amazing what they can do now in China.

Anwway, here’s the side with the filter:

And here’s the reverse, with the mini-DSLR looking “nose” (LOL):

This side houses a little a little lens that looks like a bubble fisheye lens. Weird. Anyway, I tried several times to push and pull the little square housing off. I tried prying it off with a knife. Nothing worked. So I took it out to the shop and tried a hammer (gently lol) on the corner while holding it with needle nose pliers. Nothing. Out of desperation I tried squeezing the tu e behind the IR filter with those needlenose pliers too. Still nothing, but…the barrel tube thing was scratched. It was plastic!

So I gripped the thing with my pliers, then got a nice sharp knife and sliced that barrel just past the filter.

A little precision scalpel work and the filter started to come free…there was just a hint of glue on the edge holding it in!

Very gently I pried the filter out and noticed a little O-ring popped out with it, followed by a few more pieces and glass lenses (I guess that what they were). And that’s when I realized how I would mount this little sucker to the sensor.  I would use the O-ring as a spacer and glue everything in place with dabs of superglue.

Do get to the sensor chip, I had to disassemble the camera (again).  Once the sensor was free of the housing, I used some superglue and a toothpick to apply four tiny drops to the four corners of the sensor.  And I do mean TINY drops. Don’t want to cover any pixels now…then I used tweezers from a pocket knife to gently lay the O-ring in position. All good so far.

There’s the O-ring glued on around the edges of the sensor…it just barely fits.

I should mention that I noticed there is a super thin little clear plastic sheet that covers the sensor chip. I figure this is my get out of jail-free-card—if I screw this up, I’ll just peel off the plastic, O-ring, and filter and go buy a real filter!

Anyway, it was easy to put a little superglue on the top of the O-ring and very carefullyput the filter on top.   A seconds to adjust positioning with the tweezer and Bob’s your uncle.

Hot damn, I did it!

I now have the IR filter neatly in place over the sensor. Just a matter of putting everything back together and voila…NOW she should be ready for work.

Kinda hard to see down that extension tube, but there she be.

Of course, who knows if it’ll work. But it was fun tinkering and now I really do have a FrankenCam!  If this works I’m gonna be stoked!

DIY: New base for the Telrad!

If you have a telescope, chances are someone’s recommended using a Telrad reflex sight instead of (or in addition to) a typical finder scope.  It looks a little funny—a blocky kind of thing with a little viewing glass on the back.  When you line it up right with the Optical Tube Assembly (OTA) you simply peer through the glass and see a glowing red bulls-eye pattern with concentric circles.  Center the star or planet you’re looking for in the bulls-eye and boom—said object is in the field of view (FOV) of your eyepiece.

That’s how it’s supposed to work.  In theory.  Many people seem to have difficulty using the device because it sits fairly low on the telescope body—you have to bend over and crane your neck a little to sight along the Telrad.  It’s even worse if you have a finder scope sticking out of the side of the telescope.

My Yard Cannon has an 8×50 right angle finderscope that sticks up off the OTA about 6 inches.  And of course it’s in just the exact spot that I’d want to put the Telrad—with both attached, not only is the telescope top heavy but it’s almost painful to use either or both while observing.

So, I finally had enough of bumping the finderscope while filming the planets and especially when storing teh scope.  My solution?  remove the finder all together and install the Telrad on a base that utilizes the base for the finder that is already attached to the OTA.  The tricky part?  Making a base (of wood) that will either connect to the base or go over it.

I chose to use the base of the RA finder and carve wood to fit it.  So I pulled a scrap piece out (from when I built my workbench—that adventure is on my woodworking blog, which you can read about here) and carved a dovetail into it that would match the base.  I used some chisels and a rubber mallet and in about 10 minutes, I had this:

Then I flipped it over and worked the other side:The picture is kinda blurry (sorry, cell phone) but you get the idea—I created a nice little dovetail notch to fit the RA finder base.  I decided to test fit it and it was just a tad bit too thick.  Here’s where it’s going:After cleaning up the cuts a bit to remove some excess trimmings and some monkeying with the fit, the carved wood slipped in perfectly and was nice and secure with the set screw.  It will make a perfect bed for the base of the Telrad to be attached.

I am thrilled at how well this fit came together!

However, the piece of wood I used was just a little too thin—the base of the Telrad will partially cover the set screw if I use it in this position.  So, I cut me another piece of wood and glued it to the dovetail carved piece.  Once that’s been shaped and trimmed to length, I’ll mount the base of the Telrad to this wooden piece and the Telrad will finally (I’ve had it for about 4 years and used it twice because of the awkwardness of working around the RA finder) get some love!

Here’s a closing shot of the Telrad, base and the two pieces of wood just before I glued the wood together.  

 

I’ll admit, it looks kinda wobbly, but nothing is glued together and it’s still in the rough-cut phase.  I’ll pretty it up, never you mind…