User manual

Handbook for the SXVF-H16 Issue 1 August 2006
16
Processing a planetary image:
Planetary images have one major advantage over deep sky images, when you come to
process them – they are MUCH brighter, with a correspondingly better signal to noise
ratio. This means that aggressive sharpening filters may be used without making the
result look very noisy and so some of the effects of poor seeing can be neutralised.
A raw image
Try applying an ‘Unsharp Mask’ filter with a radius of 5 and a power of 5. This will
greatly increase the visibility of any detail on the planet, but the optimum radius and
power will have to be determined by experiment. In general terms, the larger the
image and the worse the seeing, then the wider the radius for best results. My Jupiter
shots are usually about half the height of the CCD frame and I find that the ‘radius 5,
power 5’ values are good for most average seeing conditions. If you have
exceptionally good conditions, then a reduction to R=3, P=3 will probably give a
more natural look to the image, as too large a radius and power tends to outline edges
with dark or bright borders.