Processing Plato

As I mentioned a couple of posts ago, I've been intending to improve my image processing for a while now. I do my processing using Registax and have just had a first foray into the myriad of options and settings. I haven't 'drizzled' yet but I've tried out a few tricks and tips I've read about elsewhere.

I thought it would be interesting to re-process one of my Plato videos and look at the results of each processing step.

Step 0: before I start I already have lots of images - each raw frame from the video. These images vary in quality depending on the viewing conditions at that moment but here is a typical frame from the video I'm about to process:


Step 1: the bulk of the Registax processing involves aligning the individual frames and selecting the best ones to stack together to create a new picture. I've used 400 frames out of the 3200 available. This creates an image that is less noisy (i.e. smoother) but also quite blurry:


Step 2: the step that makes all the difference is tweaking the image properties to bring out the detail. This is something of a black art and can range from simple changes to the contrast/brightness to sharpening individual image layers or manipulation in PhotoShop. Increasing the brightness and contrast gives us this:


Then sharpening some of the image layers:


And finally changing the saturation and lightness:


So this is the final image using a new processing technique! Here's the image using the old technique:


I think there's a clear improvement (especially if you click on each image to enlarge them) with the same detail but much less noise.

Cassini

Staying in the vacinity of Mare Imbrium I picked a new target in the crater Cassini. There are a couple of famous astronomers called Cassini but the most noted is Giovanni Domenico Cassini. G.D. Cassini was a 17th century Italian astronomer who was the first to observe many of the moons of Saturn, the main (Cassini) division in Saturn's rings and, along with Robert Hooke, the Great Red Spot on Jupiter.

I only recorded one video of Cassini using the 2x Barlow and here is the end result:


The Cassini crater is the larger, flat crater surrounding the 2 smaller craters (which are Cassini A and Cassini B). It is belived that Cassini flooded with lava at around the same time as Mare Imbrium, about 4 billion years ago. The A and B craters are certainly younger impacts.

Plato

The next stop was Plato, just a short hop north across Mare Imbrium. My last images of Plato were taken in November and I was hoping for something better this time.

Here are the picks:


Similarly to Eratosthenes in my last post, this image is much crisper than my previous efforts. The shadows clearly show the jagged shape of the crater rim. Below Plato and slightly to the right, the light falling on Mons Pico makes it look much taller than its 2.4km height.


I think this is my best image using the 2x Barlow. Sections of the video were so clear that I'm hoping to get a sharper picture by processing it differently. I'm just not sure how to do it at the moment.

Eratosthenes

There have been a few clear nights over the last couple of weeks which is a big improvement on a pretty grim winter. The best night coincided with the last new moon which was great for being back at the eyepiece but not so great for creating material for this blog. Last night was clearer than usual - barely a hint of cloud and very still. I was optimistic.

Since it was one month since my last lunar observations (this is becoming something of a theme...) I was, yet again, presented with the usual targets of the first-quarter moon. I started with the old favourite of Eratosthenes last visited here.

I had a bit more time since I wasn't cloud dodging and produced a number of images both with and without the 2x Barlow. The best ones are these:


This is much crisper than the image in my previous Eratosthenes post. Montes Appenninus always look impressive and the distance from the termintor is perfect for enhancing the detail without everything being swamped in shadow. The exterior shadow from Timocharis shows up nicely as well (top left).


This image with the 2x Barlow really shows the detail inside the crater. I'm still working on adjusting the focus during video capture when using the higher magnification. This could help to sharpen the images a little although there is always a natural limit to how sharp the image can be. A green filter might help as well but I haven't tried that yet.