From: Phil Houston <pkh111@knology.net>

Date: March 20, 2007 6:07:33 PM MDT

To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Re: [Astro_IIDC] Saturn March 18th

Jim,

Looking over your Saturn image reminded me of some color problems I've had using color filters on a monochrome camera.  If I remember correctly, two solutions come to mind, I apologize if this has been covered in a recent post.  The RGB filters I use allows way too much IR to pass and by adding an IR blocking filter I got rid of the excess red and could balance the colors.  The IR block filter may only be needed in combination with the red filter, but I use it with all colors captured.  The other solution to a few of my "poor color" images was to make sure that I did not inadvertently switch the red and green channels when assembling the RGB information. That also plays hell when trying to capture decent color, too.

This year was the first year I've used a monochrome camera (DMK) to capture Saturn and have found that by using the rings to obtain a white balance, the planet colors seem to look okay to me.  Before the DMK, I used a Toucam and found much greater variation in color from one image to another.  I have never had the chance to use a Flea camera.

Good luck with yours and I hope to see good Jupiter shots this year as well.

Phil

http://www.knology.net/~pkh111/astrophotos/Q6saturn.html

On Mar 19, 2007, at 9:31 PM, jimchung2338 wrote:

Hey everyone,

I've given up on trying to get color data from my Unibrain webcam for imaging Saturn and
turned to a filter wheel with my mono Flea. Much better results in my opinion but still
ascending the imaging learning curve.

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Astro_IIDC/files/Planetary/saturnmar18bcopy.jpg

Jim