For the third morning in a row I had clear skies. Once again the GRS was coming into view. I arranged the IR 642nm BP and RGB captures to have the same time stamp through derotation with WinJUPOS. If you start with IR and finished with IR, with RGB captures in between, the final IR and RGB images will have the same rime stamp. In this case there were 3 RGB runs and 4 IR runs....i.e IR RGB IR RGB IR RGB IR.

It is fun and quite informative to then blink animate the two and see how the colour image varies against the IR one. For instance I notice that the break out in the complex wake of the GRS shows quite a shift from one to the other. There is also quite a difference in the GRS.

Version B is my first Methane Band image with the new ZWO ASI 462MC, which I bought to allow me to do better in the infrared. Although the ZWO ASI 462MC is a colour camera, it is hugely more sensitive to infrared than my 174MM, notwithstanding the bayer matrix i.e. the IR passes all the bayer matrix filters. Remember the bayer matrix is a matrix of tiny red, green and blue filters which allows a colour camera to produce a colour image.

This morning I commissioned the ZWO ASI 264MC and it is going to be a huge benefit to my IR imaging. Because of its small pixels it only needs a 1.8X focal length increaser to get adequate sampling. I ordered a new Tele Vue 2X Barlow and it is at the Post Office. When the seeing is good, with the improved sampling, I should really be able to produce some really nice images. This first cab off the rank, albeit at Prime Focus is so much better than my previous efforts. Even at Prime Focus the 2.4 micron pixels versus the 5.9 micron ones on my 174MM vastly improves the sampling.

With my old 174MM, at Prime Focus and maximum Gain, I would only achieve a frame rate of 4-5 fps, to get a reasonable histogram…say 60%. That is not fast enough to “freeze” the seeing. I would image for 15 mins and then derotate the video with WinJUPOS….just to get enough data to get a reasonable image. The large pixels meant the sampling was inadequate for the detail available from the OTA. All in all a huge compromise.

With the ASI 4262MC I wasn’t even at full Gain and was getting 75 fps. Of course that will come off a bit with the Barlow, but I should effectively be able to do Methane Band Imaging with as much efficacy as I do now for RGB.