Astrophotography diagnosis of star: Focus miss and oversaturation

Processed

The Doc examined this image of star (processed). Estimated overall technical quality: 3/10. 2 defects found: Focus miss (severity 4/5), Oversaturation (severity 3/5).

Annotated image
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Info

Cible
star
Position
0h00m00s · +0°00'00"

The moon is a waning crescent at 5 percent, effectively absent: it has no impact on this target. In any case, for planetary work light pollution and the moon are nearly neutral parameters, the planet is vastly brighter than the sky background. The only sky factor that matters here is turbulence and Jupiter's altitude above the horizon: the lower it sits, the more the air stirs and the more the disk boils, with atmospheric dispersion colouring the edges on top of that. Aim for the windows when the planet crosses the meridian, and favour steady nights over transparent ones, that is not the same criterion as in deep sky.

- the Doc

Setup

Type d'image
Traitée
Phase de lune
Waning crescent (5 %)
FOV
1.2'

The computed field of 0.02 degrees is consistent with a long focal length setup, which is the right choice for Jupiter: the planet fills about a quarter of the frame width, comfortable for recentring and leaving margin for drift. However, the detail actually delivered does not match that sampling, the disk is far softer than the image scale would allow. Without tube or camera details provided, I will not go further on optical suitability, but the visible bottleneck is the capture chain, not the field. A fast planetary camera in video mode, even a modest one, would gain far more than an optics change.

- the Doc

The diagnosis in detail

The main finding is a general lack of sharpness across the disk. The limb spreads over several pixels instead of cutting cleanly against the black background, and the belts are only blended lines with no internal structure. The complete absence of directional elongation rules out a tracking fault or vibration: the mount held the planet fine, what is missing is instantaneous resolution.

Second point, related: the disk is too bright and too uniform. The highlights are pushed to the point of flattening the brightness difference between bright zones and dark bands, exactly what makes Jupiter interesting. Combined with the blur, this yields a monotonous cream planet. The sky background itself is clean and properly black, with no parasitic gradient at this field scale.

In summary, both defects point to the same root cause: a single still capture, badly dosed in exposure and with no way to sort out turbulence. Planetary imaging is not won with long exposures but with frame count, and that is where the whole potential gain lies.

Priority actions

  1. Capture Jupiter as an uncompressed SER or AVI video of 60 to 120 s instead of a still image
  2. Stack the best 10 percent of frames with AutoStakkert!3 then refine with wavelets
  3. Refocus in zoomed live view on a Galilean moon before each run
  4. Lower gain and exposure to place the disk peak around 75 percent of the histogram
  5. Wait for the planet's meridian transit to minimise turbulence