Planetary Imaging With A Dobsonian

Planetary Imaging with a
Dobsonian Telescope
Martin Lewis (www.Skyinspector.co.uk

(www.Skyinspector.co.uk) ) Jan 2013
© Martin Lewis WOLAS 10-
10-6-2012
1
Planetary Imaging
• Methods of Recording Planetary Details
• Introduction to Video Imaging of Planets
• Video Planetary Imaging with a Dobsonian Telescope
• Refinement of the Imaging Method
© Martin Lewis Jan 2013 2

Recording Planetary Surface Detail-
Detail- Methods

Recording Planetary Surface Detail – Methods
• Sketching at the Eyepiece -1600’s to present

• Film camera -late 1800’s to ~1980’s
• CCD camera -1980’s to ~2000
• Digital camera -1990’s to present
• Video imaging ~2000 to present

Sketching at the Eyepiece - 1600’s to present
• Low tech, low cost
• Able to make the most of fleeting moments of
good seeing to pick out fine detail
• Brain is able to effectively average out some
of the movement effects of a turbulent
atmosphere
Giovanni Cassini 1677
Sketch of Jupiter
• Can be difficult to quickly record fine details
accurately before planetary rotation becomes
significant esp. Jupiter
• High levels of skill needed to make quick and
accurate drawings of planets – can take years
to develop this skill
• Prone to subjectivity and suggestion
eg Martian canals
© Martin Lewis Jan 2013 Jupiter 9/6/93, 10” Dob. ML 5

Film Camera - late 1800’s to ~1980’s
• Less subjective than sketching
• But generally, can see much more
by eye at eyepiece than can record on film
• Small image size at prime focus and
scattering of light in film causes loss of
contrast unless use eyepiece projection
or barlow to enlarge image AA Common 1867; 1st known photo of a
planet showing surface details
• Dimness esp. due to enlargement,
necessitates exposures of several seconds
making method prone to blurring by
movement of atmosphere and placing
big demands on tracking accuracy
• Have to estimate position of best focus
- lot of luck required
© Martin Lewis Jan 2013

Pic du Midi 1m scope 1988 6
CCD Imaging - 1980’s to ~2000
• CCD are like reusable electronic film
• No emulsion scattering issues and much higher sensitivity compared to film
which allows short exposures at reasonable image scale – so reducing
blurring by atmosphere
• Can take many more individual images than with film and reject most- can
readily home-in on position of best focus
• Electronic image so easier to carry out imaging processing techniques that
allow image enhancement and methods like stacking of individual images
• Electronic medium allows easy

distribution of images
• CCD cameras relatively
expensive

Digital Camera - 1990’s to present
• Similar to CCD imaging with similar advantage but much cheaper than CCDs
now- no need for cooled chip of CCD as exposures so short
• Quick to see results and so quick to home-in on focus
• Recent camera developments allow live view and video imaging at high fps

Video Imaging - ~2000 to present
• Has the potential to pull out significantly more detail than any other method
• No other method comes close to video imaging in terms of accuracy and
detail………. still has room to improve further

© Damian Peach © Martin Lewis Jan 2013 10
Video Imaging – Introduction

Video Imaging – Introduction
• Use a low-cost uncooled CCD digital video camera (webcam) used to take
thousands of separate frames of planet which are combined to make one
final combined image
• Not just the recording method- process relies on the combination of video
camera AND special processing software.
• Video imaging method uses software to;
• Align separate frames
• Put frames in quality order
• Reject worst frames
• Stack the best frames to produce
an averaged and low-noise image where
atmospheric disturbances averaged out
• Stacked average image can then
be image-processed revealing
The venerable and very popular Philips
detail which was initially hidden Toucam webcam with its colour Sony 098
chip
Video Imaging - Advantages
• Video camera fairly low cost and key processing software is free!
• Relatively simple to get started
• Good results possible with fairly minimal learning but great capacity to take
further
• Best planetary imagers need to develop skills in a wide range of different
disciplines and this makes it really challenging and interesting;
• optics
• video processing
• still image processing
• mechanics
• thermal management
• weather/atmosphere

Video Imaging – Equipment for Capturing the Video
Filter wheel (for Plus
mono camera) •1.25” to camera adaptor
•IR/UV filter
Barlow or Video camera
Powermate
Firewire or USB2.0
connection for high
data transfer rate
Motorised Focal ratios and effective Focal Lengths for 222mm scope
Focusser •Jupiter & Saturn f25 to f30 = 5.6m to 6.7m. 0.2 to 0.25 ”/pix
•Mars f35 to f56 = 7.8m to 12.4m. 0.14 to 0.09”/pix
laptop

Video Imaging – Two Methods of Getting Colour
• Colour video cameras simpler to use and much quicker to get colour results
Both 1st March 2012
Colour Camera Mono Camera + RGB filters
But B&W (mono) video cameras with changeable colour filters in front
produce superior results;
• Superior dyes in dedicated filters with more controlled band-pass
• 3x as many pixels for each colour so better resolution
• More light per colour per frame so less noise
Video Imaging - RGB Mono Method
Image through RED filter Image through GREEN filter Image through BLUE filter

Video Imaging – Method

Video Imaging Introduction-
Introduction- Basic Cameras
Basic (all 640x480 pixels Colour)

• Celestron NexImage @ £139
• Modern Astronomy Planetary Imager (same Sony chip as Toucam) @£99

Video Imaging Introduction-
Introduction- Intermediate Cameras
Intermediate (640x480 colour or mono)

• Mono-chipped SPC880 (mono) @£75 from www.astronomiser.co.uk
• Imaging Source DMK range (mono or colour) @ ~£300 from
www.OpticStar.com

Video Imaging Introduction – Advanced Cameras
Advanced (all 640x480 mono)

• Imaging Source DMK range with Sony 618 chip @ £385 from
www.OpticStar.com
• Point Grey Flea 3 @ $700 (618chip) from www.ptgrey.com
• Basler Ace GigE @ £500 (618chip) from www.baslerweb.com

Video Imaging Introduction – Advanced Cameras
• ASI1200 CMOS camera at $298 for mono and $278 for colour from ZW Optical
• 1/3” CMOS chip with 3.75um pixels, QE75%, no noise pattern
• 1280x960@30fps; 640x480@70fps; 320x240@130fps
• Up to 1000s exposure

Video Imaging – Fundamentals
Nuts and Bolts of the Mono RGB imaging process
• What a real planetary video looks like - unprocessed Video of Mars (with red
filter) from 26th Jan 2010
• See how the brain picks out the fleeting details

• Brain picks out the fleeting details

• Best red frame out of whole avi of 2000 frames- not nearly as good as
‘mentally filtered’ image
Best individual frame from Mars avi

Video Imaging – Processing the Video
• Registax is the free video imaging processing software created by Cor

Berrevoets that the majority of imagers use for their post-capture processing
• Other brands are available eg AutoStakkert!2
• Steps traditionally are;

• Select video to process
• Set alignment points on planetary features of good frame
• Do auto Align and auto quality sort frames
• Reject worst ~30% of frames eg 1200 out or 2000
• Stack best frames in good positional registration to make an average
frame with low noise
• Wavelet process stacked image to pull out fine detail

Video Imaging – Processing Method
• Select avi and select multiple alignment points. Hit Align button

• Registax aligns and sorts from best to worst. See best 1200 out of 2000 in
quality order

Best of avi of 2000 frames Worst of 1200 stack Worst of avi of 2000 frames
Choose this range

Stack of 1200 best. Noise reduced Stacked image wavelet processed

and atmospheric turbulence (Red)
averaged out

Red stacked image wavelet Green stacked image wavelet Blue stacked image wavelet
processed processed processed


Video Imaging with a Dobsonian though??

•Simple low cost

design
•Very stable
alt-az mount
•Undriven
•Push to follow with
no tracking


Video Imaging with a Dobsonian
• The frame to frame alignment capability of Registax means that there is not
the requirement to keep the planet absolutely stationary in the field during
recording of the video
• Planet’s image just needs to be somewhere in the field
• But a Dobsonian telescope has no drive capability at all so image will drift
out in a few seconds won’t it – so how do you image with a Dobsonian?

Video Imaging with a Dobsonian – Drift Method
• Drift Method (May 2005)

• Allow planet to drift through field and record video as drifts from one
side of field to other side
• Reposition scope and repeat drifts until have a few hundred frames
• Process videos in Registax as a set
• Drift video 22-06-2005


• Drift method results
Jupiter using drift method June 2005 with colour Toucam

• Drift Method
• Very simple method to get you going
• Can be used with any undriven scope
• Field drift approx. 15” per second. Exposures need to be short

otherwise get smearing in direction of drift
• Small image size otherwise get too few frames per drift
• Need to work quickly to minimise rotation of planet (esp. Jupiter)
• No compensation for field rotation

Video Imaging with a Dob. – Eq. Platform Method
• Drift method can only take you so far

• Image scale is low
• Noisy images as too few frames
• In Autumn 2005 decided to improve my imaging by designing and

making an equatorial platform
• With my Dobsonian mounted on this platform it should then allow me to
follow the planet
• Targeted the 2005/2006 apparition of Mars for completion of equatorial

platform

© Martin Lewis Jan 2013
41
• Platform has a virtual rotational axis which has to be carefully aligned

with the earth’s axis – it must point at the Celestial Pole
• Anything placed on the driven platform follows the rotation of the sky
• Very stable as bearing surfaces so far apart and very low
• Retains the easy alt-az scope movement that is so appealing with a
Dobsonian scope but with the benefits of tracking

Equatorial Platforms – Simples
Lat=52°
•Large Cone with base angle = 2x latitude

•On ground with axis at latitude angle

•Constrain with rollers so can only rotate about cone axis

•Point axis at celestial pole and rotate with sidereal period to match stars

•Anything attached to cone will follow stars

•Cut off parallel with ground to make a flat and level platform

Commercial Equatorial Platforms
• Tom Osypowski, California, US @ $1000+

www.equatorial platforms.com
• Watch House Platforms, St. Agnes, Cornwall @ £445 for up to 14” scope
www.equatorial-platforms-uk.co.uk

Mars 18th Nov 2005
First images of Mars with scope on Eq. Platform

with Toucam Colour camera
Drift Method 22nd June 2005 Equatorial Platform 11th May 2006
• More frames in given time so lower noise

• More frames and larger images scale so
more detail visible

Refinement of the Imaging Method

Further Improvements to Method – From Colour to Mono
• Color video cameras simpler to use and quicker to get results
• But B&W (mono) video cameras with changeable colour filters in front
produce superior results
• Superior dyes in dedicated filters
• 3x as many pixels for each colour
• More light per colour per frame
• Mono-rechipped Toucam bought in early 2006

Further Improvements to Method – From Colour to Mono
Both 17th Feb. 2006
Eq. Platform and Standard Colour Toucam Eq. Platform and Mono-rechipped Toucam (610nm
filter)

Further Improvements – Addressing Vibration
• Improvements made to eq. platform motor vibration (2009)

Further Improvements to Methods – Vibration
• Very low motor vibration is a key characteristic of any tracking mount
when video imaging planets. Much less important than tracking accuracy
• Normally won’t even notice vibration Visually or Deep Sky work but when
need resolutions of <0.5” for high resolution planetary imaging the impact
can be large
• Should certainly be no vibration felt in body of scope and very little by
motor
Generally accepted resolution is

0.45” for 25cm scope (Dawes limit)
but Encke’s division is 0.05” and
can be imaged with a 25cm scope
in good seeing

• Detection presence of vibration problems by ‘star dance’ method
Tapped eyepiece at high power - Tapped eyepiece at high power –

no vibration vibration present

• Stepper motor replaced with turntable synchronous motor driven under-voltage
• Introduced worm and wheel into gearing path to improve mechanical isolation
• Motor is spring isolated
• New design of low power synchronous motor drive electronics designed by
work colleague (Steve Markham)

4th May 2010
Edge-on Saturn after improvements to platform vibration

Further Improvements to Methods – Sensitivity
• Increasing the image surface brightness allows one to push forward
in a number of ways to improve image resolution;
• Larger image size without excessive reduction in surface
brightness
• Faster frame rate without being limited by exposure time. More
frames = less noise and better averaging
• Lower the gain = less noise
• To improve image brightness

• Get a larger scope!– also improves inherent resolution ££££
• Get a more sensitive camera

Further Improvements to Methods – Sensitivity
• Improved camera sensitivity
• Sony 618 chip approx. twice the sensitivity of the Sony 098 chip
used in many of the earlier generation of webcams
• All the top end astronomy video cameras now use the Sony 618 chip
• To get the advantages of the new 618 chip at minimal cost, I had a
colour Imaging Source camera converted to take the 618 mono chip
by Astronomiser in late 2009

21st Sept 2010
Jupiter with 618 chipped Imaging Source camera showing detail in Ganymede

Saturn 10th April 2011

Further Improvements to Methods – Image Scale
• Improved sensitivity allows improved image scale
• f35.7 = 7.9m fl & f22.3 = 5.0m fl

Further Improvements to Methods – Use of ADC
• Atmospheric Dispersion Corrector (ADC) to correct for prismatic effects
of atmosphere causing lateral spread within each colour band
Polaris (alt 52°) showing dispersion

effects

Further Improvements to Methods – ADC
• Severity of dispersion effects depends on object altitude, wavelength and
the width of filter bandpass
• Colour filters reduce dispersion effects but are significant in blue for all
planet altitudes from UK (<60°)
Saturn 2012
Jup. 2012
© Jean-Pierre Prost
Further Improvements to Methods – Use of ADC
• Atmospheric Dispersion Corrector (ADC) to correct for prismatic effects
of atmosphere by applying opposite dispersion to that caused by
atmosphere
(See more in Sky at Night
magazine Nov. 2012) or
www.skyinspector.co.uk
ADC – Astro Systems Holland


Jupiter & Callisto Jupiter 22nd Nov. 2011

13th Jan 2012
Smallest features ~0.4” across (image scale=0.18pix/arc sec)


Further Improvements to Methods – Pipp
Pipp is a Planetary Image Pre-processing program developed by Chris Garry
•Better quality sorting than Registax

•Speeds up processing and improves quality of end image
•Lots of very useful functions to prepare your video before aligning and
stacking in Registax
•Crop down frame to smaller size
•Centre in frame
•Bring all planet images to same brightness
•Remove all dud/empty frames
•Put in quality order
•Weight best frames more heavily than not
so good frames

Mars 2012 Albedo Map Project

Mars –Opposition, Winter 2007/2008
Winjupos to unwrap
globes and form map
Mars –Winter/Spring 2010

Mars –Winter/Spring 2010 (top) v Spring 2012 (bottom)
26th Jan 2010 14.1” after vibration fixed

24th Mar 2010 13.1” with 618 chip & ADC & Pipp
Mars –Spring 2012


Visit; http://www.skyinspector.co.uk/Mars-Rotation-Animations(2369874).htm

Further Improvements to Methods – Winjupos Derotation
Winjupos is a multipurpose Swiss Army knife for planetary imaging. Originally

designed to map the movements of Jupiter’s cloud belts the program can now
do all sorts of other useful things;
•Ephemeris for planets and their moons with graphical representation

•Creation of planetary maps by unwrapping globe
•Creation of rotational videos based on standard or created maps
•Derotation of videos
•Derotation of RGB images

Derotation feature is especially useful for Jupiter.

Rotational period is so short that to prevent blurring of the image all videos
need to be gathered within about 2mins.
Traditional methods to extend this restriction rely on creating two images;

one aligning centres of R, G and B images and one aligning on edges. These
images are then merged.
Derotation of videos is a
Long-winded process but
derotation of images and
R, G & B works really well
as adds little time overall

•R 1min 3600 frames at 60fps
•G 1min 3600 frames at 60fps
•B 1min 1800 frames at 30fps
•Process each video to create R, G or B images

•Combine all Reds using image derotate
•Combine all Greens using image derotate
•Combine all Blues using image derotate
•Finally Combine R, G & B with RGB derotate


platform- 1st try 9th Jan. 2013
18” on equatorial platform-
87
platform- 1st go on 9th Jan.
18” on equatorial platform-
88
Same 8 ¾” Telescope!
© Max Alexander
15ththOct 2011
22nd June 2005 17 Dec 2012

Planetary Imaging With A Dobsonian

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Planetary Imaging with a

Martin Lewis (www.Skyinspector.co.uk

• Methods of Recording Planetary Details

• Introduction to Video Imaging of Planets

• Video Planetary Imaging with a Dobsonian Telescope

• Refinement of the Imaging Method

© Martin Lewis Jan 2013 2

© Martin Lewis Jan 2013 3

• Sketching at the Eyepiece -1600’s to present

© Martin Lewis Jan 2013 4

© Martin Lewis Jan 2013 Jupiter 9/6/93, 10” Dob. ML 5

© Martin Lewis Jan 2013

• Electronic medium allows easy

© Martin Lewis Jan 2013 7

© Martin Lewis Jan 2013 8

© Martin Lewis Jan 2013 9

© Martin Lewis Jan 2013 11

© Martin Lewis Jan 2013 13

© Martin Lewis Jan 2013 14

Both 1st March 2012

Colour Camera Mono Camera + RGB filters

© Martin Lewis Jan 2013 16

© Martin Lewis Jan 2013 17

Basic (all 640x480 pixels Colour)

© Martin Lewis Jan 2013 18

Intermediate (640x480 colour or mono)

© Martin Lewis Jan 2013 19

Advanced (all 640x480 mono)

© Martin Lewis Jan 2013 20

© Martin Lewis Jan 2013 21

Nuts and Bolts of the Mono RGB imaging process

© Martin Lewis Jan 2013 22

© Martin Lewis Jan 2013 23

Best individual frame from Mars avi

© Martin Lewis Jan 2013 24

• Registax is the free video imaging processing software created by Cor

• Other brands are available eg AutoStakkert!2

• Steps traditionally are;

© Martin Lewis Jan 2013 25

© Martin Lewis Jan 2013 26

© Martin Lewis Jan 2013 27

Choose this range

© Martin Lewis Jan 2013 28

Stack of 1200 best. Noise reduced Stacked image wavelet processed

© Martin Lewis Jan 2013 29

© Martin Lewis Jan 2013 30

© Martin Lewis Jan 2013 31

© Martin Lewis Jan 2013 32

•Simple low cost

© Martin Lewis Jan 2013 33

© Martin Lewis Jan 2013 34

© Martin Lewis Jan 2013 35

• Drift Method (May 2005)

© Martin Lewis Jan 2013 36

© Martin Lewis Jan 2013 37

• Drift method results

Jupiter using drift method June 2005 with colour Toucam

© Martin Lewis Jan 2013 38

• Field drift approx. 15” per second. Exposures need to be short

© Martin Lewis Jan 2013 39

• Drift method can only take you so far

• In Autumn 2005 decided to improve my imaging by designing and

• Targeted the 2005/2006 apparition of Mars for completion of equatorial