Welcome to the "boring" side of Jupiter. Right before heavy fog ended the imaging session, I was able to capture some RGB, IR and CH4 data. After switching from Hyperstar to prime focus imaging, I had no time for the usual collimation & seeing test on Capella. However, based on the quality of the SER movies, I assume fair - good seeing conditions (Pickering ~6-7). For processing the RGB data, I used the LRGB approach by Damian Peach, which is described in much more detail in his 10 part tutorial series Jupiter from Barbados - Complete Workflow.

Based on my experience over the last few nights, I was not really happy with the s/n ratio of the RGB images derived from single SER movies. Because I can capture ~ 5000 frames/RGB channel in only ~ 30 s with my laptop, I decided to capture 3 SER movies for R at the beginning of an RGB run, the usual 9 SER files for G and finally 4 SER files for B. Total time for an RGB run is ~ 11 min, which should be acceptable for derotation in WinJUPOS. To create the RGB, I now derotate and stack the 3xR and 4xB files, as well as 3xG, captured at around the same time as the lum master. This approach increases the s/n ratio of the RGB and lum images significantly.

After watching this tutorial by Chris Go, I also decided to only focus the image for the green filter correctly and then use the same focus position of the Celestron EF for red and blue. While the filters are obviously not homfocal, the difference might only have an impact on the image quality during excellent seeing conditions. During average seeing conditions, an accurate focus point is quite hard to estimate anyway, so this approach seem to be sufficient and safes a lot of time. The focus position of the Baader IR and CH4 filters also seem to be quite similar.

Original: LRGB image (02:09 UT)
Revision B: IR image (02:19 UT)
Revision C: CH4 image (02:28 UT)

If you want to process the data yourself, I uploaded the raw stacks straight out of AS!3 here.

10.09.2023 (02:03 UT - 02:32 UT)

Celestron C14 Edge HD @ f=6650 mm (F/28), res = 0.09"/px
+ Celestron CGE Pro mount
+ Celestron EF
+ ZWO ASI 290 MM
+ Baader 2x VIP Barlow
+ ZWO EFW
+ Astronomik RGB filter
+ Baader IR (685 nm) filter
+ Baader CH4 (889 nm) filter
+ Tempest Cooler
+ Omegon Dew Heater
+ Astrozap Dew Shield for C 14

Very short imaging train: I simply screwed the Baader VIP Barlow into the nose piece of the ZWO EFW. However, the small pixel size of the ZWO ASI 290 MM leads to a pixel scale of 0.09"/px at a reasonable f-ratio of f/28.

R: 3 x SER movie
G: 9 x SER movies
B: 4 x SER movies
IR: 5 x SER movies
5000 frames/movie
1x1 bin

CH4: 6 x 120 s SER movies
2x2 bin

recorded with Firecapture

Jupiter 50° above the horizon
Seeing: Pickering 6-7 (fair - good)

Postprocessing

IRRGB

Autostakkert!3:
- Stacking 50% of the frames/movie (IRRGB)
- Image Stabilization Planet
- Quality Estimator: Laplace, Noise Robust 5, Local
- Reference Frame: Autosize
- Normalize Stack 90%
- Minimum AP size = 104, Min Bright = 45, Multi-Scale

Registax:
- wavelet sharpening using layer 2 & 3, step increment = 2, contrast= 95

Photoshop CS2:
- increase image size by 160 % using bicubic interpolation (smooth)

LRGB image

WinJUPOS:
- image measurement of RGB images
- image de-rotation & stacking of all RGB images into one luminance image
- image de-rotation & stacking of 3xR images into one R master image
- image de-rotation & stacking of 4xB images into one B master image
- image de-rotation & stacking of 3xG images centered around the time of the lum image into one G master image
- RGB image de-rotation of R,G and B master images into RGB image

Photoshop CS2:
- apply unsharp mask to lum image
- despeckle lum image
- apply unsharp mask to RGB image
- despeckle RGB image
- color correction of RGB image
- color desaturation of the blue and red colors at the planetary limbs
- increase color saturation of RGB image
- combine lum and RGB image into LRGB
- local sharpening of features of features in the polar regions and STB using unsharp mask
- darkening of the background
- increase canvas size

IR image

WinJUPOS:
- image measurement of IR images
- image de-rotation of 5xIR images into one IR master image

Photoshop CS2:
- apply unsharp mask to IR image
- despeckle IR image

Topaz Denoise 6:
- noise reduction of IR image

CH4 image

Autostakkert!3:
- Stacking 80% of the frames/movie
- Image Stabilization Planet
- Quality Estimator: Laplace, Noise Robust 5, Local
- Reference Frame: Autosize
- Normalize Stack 90%
- Minimum AP size = 48, Min Bright = 20, Multi-Scale

Registax:
- wavelet sharpening using layer 3 & 4, step increment = 0, contrast= 95

Photoshop CS2:
- increase image size by 320 % using bicubic interpolation (smooth)

WinJUPOS:
- image measurement of CH4 images
- image de-rotation & stacking of 6xCH4 images into one CH4 master image

Photoshop CS2:
- apply unsharp mask to CH4 image
- despeckle CH4 image

Topaz Denoise 6:
- noise reduction of CH4 image

Schwentinental (Germany)

-CS Daniel