From: "doodlebun" <gbleser@bellsouth.net>

Date: July 28, 2008 1:24:24 PM MDT

To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Monochrome???

-Milton,

If I understand your explanation, the workflow you are recommending 

is:

1. Capture R, G, and B Monochrome movies with the DMK21AF04

2. Do NOT select USE MONOCHROME CHANNEL FOR  SHARPNESS AND ALIGNMENT.

instead just change MONOCHROME to RED (or G or B) for processing a 

movie through the red filter.

The reason would be to speed up the stacking in the step leading to 

display of the confidence setting histogram screen?!?

After you accept the subset of frames in the histogram screen, the 

stacking begins, which is rather slow. Are you saying the steps 

stated above will speed up that process, producing a finished stacked 

image ready for wavelet adjustments, much sooner with no downside of 

the technique?

NOW CONSIDER THIS THEORY OF MINE ABOUT COLOR VS MONOCHROME.

  If you scan the net for planetary pictures taken with Imaging 

Source cameras you will notice only a tiny fraction of them will be 

taken with color cameras like the DBK or DFK series. 95% will use the 

monochrome with filters.

  Now here comes the heresy from Florida in the form of axioms.

1. The surface brightness of Saturn is rather dim, which makes a LRGB 

approach prudent.

2. The luminance frame of a Saturn image is much brighter and with 

higher resolution than the R,G, or B. filtered image in the 

DMK21AF04. This makes the LRGB combo image the way to go.

3. The surface brightness of Jupiter is so high that taking Luminance 

frames is a waste of time. The resolution of a processed luminance 

image is no better than a processed red image.

4. A color camera like the DBK21AF04 will produce images of Jupiter 

that are indistinguishable from monochrome RGB combined images. 

Monochrome images must be rushed to finish in less than 3 minutes. 

Jupiter's moons like Io move so fast that the RGB images will never 

register over each other anyway, making the color camera the logical 

choice.

  In conclusion:  

   Saturn:  use DMK21AF04 with LRGB filters

   Jupiter:  use a DMK21AF04 alone and color balance with Astro IIDC.

Dave

Hi doodlebun;

Thanks for posting your processing flow.

One thing you can do to save some time and speed up the processing 

is  

to use one of the Color channels (Red, Green or Blue) instead of  

Monochrome. Even thought your using a monochrome camera, QuickTime  

delivers the image as ARGB32 with Red == Green == Blue for color  

intensity (basically it populates the R G B with your single  

Monochrome color). If you choose Monochrome, then Astro IIDC will  

convert the R G B colors to monochrome, which involves 3 

multiplies  

and 3 adds per pixel to calculate it. If you use Red (or Green or  

Blue) then Astro IIDC will just extract  the Red (or Green or 

Blue)   

pixels without doing the additional conversion work.

The only reason to use Monochrome is to help with noise 

suppression  

for RGB color movies.

Hope that helps..

Milton J. Aupperle

On 27-Jul-08, at 2:24 PM, doodlebun wrote:

While we all wait with baited breath  for some photo's from  

Milton's new camera, I have gone

to some trouble to show the creation steps leading to the final 

RGB  

image of Jupiter shown

on my blog page. Comments appreciated of course.

http://web.me.com/davidbleser/AncientDocuments/ 

Jupiter_Image_Processing.html