How to: CellPhone Jupiter Imaging Reference
Alot of people asking "how do i do better" "best way to take a picture of Jupiter" Thought this could be used to help. Sooo....
If you must, this is a short guide to get you started.
Quick break down on lucky imaging. We dont take pictures of Jupiter in Luck Imaging/LI. You take a video. As you know a video is still pictures or frames that seem like motion. So when you take a video you get lots of frames. You can stop there and just pic the best frame from your video... or you can continue by stacking those frames on top of each other in an attempt to average out the noise. Get a "stack" from that, then sharpen it. That the basics.
Phone settings.
Get a phone mount Celestron Nexgo or XYZ. You want jupiter on your screen for 2mins this will help.
(Step 2 ,3 4,5 balance together) Jupiter is very bright. Its called "blown out" you cant get "detail" if its to bright. Go to your phones "pro mode/setting" or download an app like Open Camera app for android. You will have a choice between iso/gain. You need to get Jupiter on your screen looking its best by turning down the iso/gain.
There is an exposure setting or shutter speed settings. Turn it to the fastest option. This may cause you to have to re adjust your Iso/gain. The atmosphere interferes with the light, you need to have a fast exposure so the atmosphere has the least amount of time to interfere
Set the auto focus to off or "infinity" or your phones focus will argue with the focus your trying to do at the focuser. All focusing is done at your telescopes focuser.
Use the fastest frame rate you can, but there is an exception. FPS or Frames per Second. Sometimes you can have a higher FPS for a loss of video quality. You can also try and film in some kinda "RAW" format IF you have that phone option. When it comes to this you will have to experiment here a bit to find out which works best. For example if I use less resolution I can get more FPS and get a better stack or it may turn out worse and less frames of higher resolution or quality is best. NOTE : when you change the other settings your phone usually goes to a FPS that works out.
Eyepiece choice. You will want to use as much magnification as you can. 1 dedicated eyepiece is best or Use what you got.
Seeing conditions will play out in your stack. In order to get passed "pixelated blob" pictures you need to push magnification High on Most cellphones (I have seen a few that you didnt.) 200x+ is where it seems to move out of that pixelated area. Dont use less magnification because seeing is bad like in visual. You have to go as big as you can or its just going to just be a small disk. Or wait for better seeing. Its an all or nothing type of thing. DO NOT USE DIGITAL ZOOM
Only a 2min video, jupiter spins fast. Here shows why. https://www.reddit.com/r/telescopes/s/w5L5ht5wHc
Editing : Once you have Jupiter in a 2min or less you can start the Editing process.
Down load for PC PIPP, Autostackert4 , Registax6 or AstroSurface.
PiPP this centers Jupiter and crops it making your frames smaller for storage size and making Step 3 easier.
Autostackert4/AS4 does the stacking. Take that .pipp file put it into AS4 choose whatever options you like(stock option usually work). Use 7%to 30% of the frames depending on how many you got, the seeing conditions, etc. This is something you have to experiment yourself.
Take that stack to Registax6 and or AstroSurface. Color Balance, color Align then Sharpen using the wavletes. Be careful here, its easy to over do wavletes... you could get to crunchy or smeared. You need to find a balance.
Cropping your picture to much or enlarging it will only make it more pixelated.
r/Astro_Mobile is a dedicated place for cellphone pictures. You can Post, find tip/ give tips and get feed back There.
Questions of "why is it gray,why is it oval, why is there no detail, whats that mushy dot, why is it blocky, etc" is because these Editing methods are not made for compressed cellphone videos, that being said you Will Not get the benefit of a Proper astrophotography Camera set up.. Doing the Editing method I have seen in alot of cases it turns out to do nothing or even make it worse then a snap shot. Stacking is only as good as what you give it. You put in Sparkly pixelated video, you will get that back, so keep Expectations reasonable.
I dont claim to know it all. You have suggestions, a refined step, better step, etc and people care about this i will update.
Good Luck
Clear skys.