[[WIP][1.9.x-1.12.x] Scatterer-atmospheric scattering (0.0838 - 14/08/2022) Scattering improvements, in-game atmo generation and multi-sun support]

whats going on with the depth buffer in this game, creates these weird slices in it and it cuts off when the camera gets close

[The Stargazing Thread!]

1 hour ago, Endersmens said:

@Rareden, reflectors have a "blind spot" though. Where the second mirror is, and the spokes that hold it. Not really blind, more like blurry. From what I have read and seen. Not sure if I want to have to deal with that. 

really? as far as i know having the secondary mirror there reduces the overall brightness /Fstop, as for the blurriness it depends on the quality of the mirrors, for instance the heres a comparison between the celestrons standard and HD mirror,
I unfortunately have the standard and you can see the bloating/ blurring effect on my last image.

[The Stargazing Thread!]

8 hours ago, Shpaget said:

I can't recommend anything, but reflectors are usually a lot less expensive than refractors for the same light gathering capability.

However, refractors usually have better image quality.

That being said, I doubt you can find anything new for $150 that would be half decent. Supermarket stuff is a waste of money.

Take a look at the possibility of making the primary mirror yourself. That's the most expensive part of a reflector and actually can be done at home and very good quality is achiavable.

Reflectors are cheaper compared to a same spec refractor, i dont agree that a refractor has better image quality however, more lens = more chromatic aberration and diffraction,
a 6inch Newtonian reflector is pretty good for its price depending on what your wanting to observe.
I do find that my 8inch 2000mm scope has too much magnification for the deepsky photography i like to do, cant even get all of orion in the view with it.
I would sell it for a newtonian if it didnt have a damaged mirror.

[The Stargazing Thread!]

3 hours ago, cubinator said:

Really? I could make out the bands on Jupiter if I wiggled the focus knob just right on my highest power lens a few nights ago, and that was with Jupiter only ~15° above the horizon, and enough icy haze in the upper atmosphere to put a halo around the moon! (A very beautiful halo, too!) I was trying to observe the eclipse Io was making, but I just could not quite make it out.

yea through the eye piece its sharp but small, if i use my camera its quite blurry and after processing if turns out like so, cant get anything as large or sharp as your planet shots.
 

Spoiler

 

[The Stargazing Thread!]

3 hours ago, cubinator said:

Not sure about the specs, it's enough to see the bands on Jupiter and Saturn's rings pretty well. I hardly remember ever looking at the rocky planets with it, but it could probably see the crescent of Venus, and maybe some features on Mars. It's an old Celestron, orange, and I don't have the manual or anything within easy access.

Edit: Hey, whaddaya know, it's printed on the side:     Aperture 8 in     f/10     efl 80 in
Before I saw that (all the time up until now) I was just guessing, I'll have to check with Stellarium and see just how well I can actually see it!

Edit 2: It'd be barely distinguishable from the other stars.

BTW it seems to be a catadioptric telescope.

Ah i have the same telescope specs then, havent been able to get planet images that detailed with it though, 
must be the air clarity.

[The Stargazing Thread!]

On 2/1/2016 at 2:33 AM, cubinator said:

With the telescope I'm using, it should be visible as a small disk, a little smaller than Saturn. I'll have to go out in November-December, when Uranus is rising the evening to avoid the city lights in the west. Hopefully I can find a day that's not so cold my fingers freeze after fifteen minutes of searching...

Nice, whats the focal length of it?

[The Stargazing Thread!]

2 hours ago, cubinator said:

I tried looking at Uranus today, but couldn't see anything due to light pollution. I'll have to try again some other time of year, when it appears in the clear east instead of the hazy west. 

Uranus will be rather difficult to see as well due to its distance from us, probably will be a faint green dot.

[The Stargazing Thread!]

Got a shot of the Eta Carinae core last night. stack of 21 3min 20sec exposures.
The weird distortion in the stars towards the bottom of the image is due to the nature of my telescopes mirror unfortunately.

 

Spoiler

 

[The Stargazing Thread!]

2 hours ago, Matuchkin said:

But that guy said he didn't use any spectrometers, filters, etc...

you dont need them, a spectrometer is used to identify what wavelengths of light are coming from the nebula, filters will block certain wavelengths.
Every element gives off a certain wavelength of light when ionized which the camera picks up during a long exposure, you can then identify what elements are in the nebula based on the colors/wavelengths being emitted 

[The Stargazing Thread!]

16 hours ago, Matuchkin said:

Wait, those nebulas are actually in pink and blue? I thought those images on the NASA website were in false color...

 Correct me if im wrong but I think the colours you see In a nebula are mainly from the type of gas being ionized if its a emission nebula like orion, pink/red is hydrogen usually with a hydrogen alpha pass as well if they are using a infrared sensitive CCD, blue  is nitrogen and green is oxygen?.  
I think the colours can be determined with a spectrometer or a Discharge tube.

[The Stargazing Thread!]

I have a celestron 8" scope with a f6.35 focal reducer, Celestron AVX mount, off axis guider with a nexguide attached and a Infrared modified canon 600d as well as a 6D for non nebula shots.
yes city light pollution was a factor, i was just in my backyard, i usually try to get at least 40km away from a city when doing astrophotography 

[The Stargazing Thread!]

Greetings, finally got a decent EQ mount for my scope, heres a test shot of the Orion nebula.
full moon was up unfortunately, so rather a lot of light pollution obscuring the dim details.
68 1min 20sec exposures with autoguiding, full moon was preventing me from using a longer exposure

Spoiler

 

[Rareden's Projects]

Rareden, are you still taking requests?

mmm if i get some spare time perhaps, link me what you would like and ill take a look.

also update OP with a shot from Voyager film, yes we are still working on it.

[Rareden's Projects]

I've always loved the deep and varied coloration of the surface of it and I was curious if you still had the original texture around . I doubted it would be in standard KSP planet format if you had it regardless though. Still one can dream...

Another thing I noted in this picture was the addition of rivets in the RTG's. I might end up adding those to my own RTG textures. Looks nice! - If you ever end up doing other renders and want interesting variations on stock textures you might wanna check this out.

well ok, apparently my reply never got posted,

I may be able to convert it to a usable ksp format, i did mess around with planet factory mod but had a weird issue with terrain planet scale vs the scaled space model, never got around to finding out what was causing it.

[Rareden's Projects]

Odd... It works on my phone xD

Re-upload to Imgur:

http://i.imgur.com/aMmZKb8.jpg

Your testing my memory with that one, i think it was a mix of the standard duna diffuse texture blended with a bit of procedural maps, and the height map was the standard duna mixed with the normal map.

I did mess around with generating planets and adding them with the planet factory mod, got a weird bug with the distant space model being far smaller than the actual planet, so when you got within 400km or so it would suddenly get huge as it switchs to the actual terrain mesh.

[Rareden's Projects]

Hey Rareden... Do you have the texture you used for Duna in this shot handy?

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/a/img707/3137/ikeq.jpg

I'm unsure exactly how you got it to look so pretty but I'm wondering if I could turn that into an in-game texture for Duna. It would be interesting to see what could come out of it.

Link is broken

[The Stargazing Thread!]

LRGB method? Do you break the image into its lrgb components and process them? A method for processing one-shot data is to debayer the raw data (after calibrating them), break each frame into the LRGB components, stack each channel, process the L channel in order to reveal more detail and then combine the LRGB image.

yorshee, i love the sun image with the sunspot

No i copy the RGB image and convert it to grey scale and work on that to enhance the DSO then apply that to the rgb image as the detail layer, the rgb image is just for color.

[The Stargazing Thread!]

I already knew about stacking, but still, that's a lot of time taking pictures. It's a wonder it's so clear after 5 minutes exposures.

If by clear you mean no star trails? im autoguiding my mount, when the mount decides to cooperate anyway

[The Stargazing Thread!]

those are very nice pictures for a dslr, but you should pay more attention to processing, the lagoon nebula is black clipped and you can bring out more detail at your photos. At the ÃÂ ophiuchi you took, which is very impressive by the way, there is a green tint at your photo, there is a plugin for PS that can remove it (it is called asta la vista green) How many frames did you take for those DSO's? Also with which scope are you going to image?

P.S. Endersmens congrats for getting sticky for the month

The lagoon shot is 10 5min exposures, antares is 23 5min exposures, unfortunately they are in light polluted skies, havent had time to take a trip to dark skies.

The Dso shots are taken with my 70-200mm f2.8 lens, the shot of the moon is my 8" celestron scope with a 2x teleconverter on the camera, i intend to use the 8" scope when i get the new mount for Dso imaging using a f6.3 focal corrector.

For prepossessing im using the LRGB method and the photoshop astro actions plugin.

[Rareden's Projects]

Well Rareden, it looks like you are just in time for the 2000th post! Rejoice! (what, you don't have something celebratory ready for us? )

wow really, 2000 posts, well there will be a video out very shortly, so i guess that could count as celebratory.

[Rareden's Projects]

I wanted to say this seeing as it's relevant now that you're back. This picture is first place in my favorites list:

I'd be using it as my work station background if it worked for dual 1920x1200 monitors . There's a special place in my heart for silhouettes. It leaves the viewer to interpret what's in the foreground.

indeed, was rather funny when i first made that and put it on reddit, i received rather a lot of flak for it because quite a few people thought it was just a photo of a rocket launch and not a render or anything to do with ksp.

[The Stargazing Thread!]

What do you mean nothing spectacular? Those are amazing!

Well not compared to "kookoo_gr"

My mount has been restricting me unfortunately, cant use the 8" scope on the wedged SE mount because the mount cant take the weight.

[The Stargazing Thread!]

Greetings, been using my celestron 8SE mount on a wedge with my 6D or modded 600d with 200mm 2.8 lens,

nothing spectacular, saving up for a avx mount so i can use my 8" scope with autoguiding.

[Rareden's Projects]

Do you mind telling us what you do use? Blender certainly has limits. (I'm looking at your, fireflies >.> )

3ds max mainly for rendering plus some modeling, zbrush for other modeling.

[Rareden's Projects]

You've been manually assembling all the craft you've rendered?

Like Starwhip said, now we have a plugin that imports craft. (Albeit not perfectly, sometimes scaling is messed up and parts are different scales)

indeed, back when i was making images the plugin didn't exist, plus i don't use blender.