Here is my version:
Entirely processed in PixInsight 1.0.37.315. These are the processing steps:
1. I registered the original 900 BMP files for each channel with my FFTRegistration JavaScript script (you have it under the Script > Sample Scripts main menu item). I just selected the first file of each set as reference image, and the rest (899) as targets. With the default script parameters I obtained an integrated image for each channel in 32-bit floating point format.
2. I registered the red and blue integrated images with respect to the green integrated image, again using the same script, but this time writing the registered images to disk files.
3. ChannelCombination to generate a RGB color image.
4. I made a duplicate of the green channel, which I blurred with wavelets and adjusted with HistogramTransform to build a mask. This mask is to protect limb regions during wavelet processing.
5. With the previous mask active, I used ATrousWaveletTransform to enhance small-scale structures. I applied a strong bias of 7.0 to the second layer with a narrow scaling function (3x3 Small-Scale 1) and noise reduction (directional multiway median, 4 iterations, 3x3 kernel). A weak bias of 0.8 to the third layer. High dynamic range extension = 0.18 to avoid oversaturation of bright features. The wavelet transform was applied to both the luminance and chrominance of the image.
6. CannelExtraction to extract the red, green and blue channels from the wavelet-processed image.
7. With an experimental version of DynamicAlignment (which will be available in the next version), I registered the red and blue channels with respect to green. I used six registration points for red and five for blue.
8. ChannelCombination again to obtain a RGB color image with correctly aligned channels. DynamicAlignment worked extremely well for most of the planet's disk. However, unfortunately the channel alignment procedure colorized the left and right limbs -especially the right one with blue-, which is very ugly. This is due to differential planet rotation between the individual capturing sequences for the red, green and blue channels, I think.
9. With a duplicate of the limb protection mask, further stretched with HistogramTransform and controlled (its size) with an erosion filter (MorphologicalTransform), I made a new mask that unprotects just a thin ring all around the planet.
10. With the previous mask active, I applied CurvesTransform to desaturate the image completely (the CIE c channel curve is a horizontal line from 0,0 to 1,0). Thanks to the mask, this acted over the colorized limb regions exclusively.
11. A final ATrousWaveletTransform application to enhance small-scale contrast slightly. This was done with the same mask used for step 5.
And that's all. Unfortunately I forgot to save the .psm file :oops: (I was severely distracted at the final stages of the procedure :wink:) , so I wrote this trying to remember the most important steps...
It's always a great pleasure to work with superb planetary data, as in this case.
Unfortunately, it seems that most planetary and lunar imagers don't want to use our software. This is a bit frustrating, since we provide state-of-the-art implementations of cutting edge algorithms and techniques. Of course these techniques require some additional work and a learning curve, when compared to other tools in common use. Here is a recent example:
http://pleiades-astrophoto.com/examples/deconvolution/moon/en.htmlThe most "intense" public answer that the above tutorial seems to have received consists in an intent (unsuccessful, by the way) of trying to obtain similar results with other well-known software tools. Quite disappointing.
I think this may be resistance to changes, in terms of exploring new processing techniques and strategies. Of course this also happens in all fields of astrophotography, but I have seen particularly reluctant attitudes when I've tried to show that there exist advanced ways to process planetary images with our software tools that consistently lead to better results. This fragment from the preface of
A manual of advanced celestial photography by Wallis and Provin applies particularly well here: "It seems like the offer of help is often seen as an accusatory finger. Besides that, we are often accused of having such a negative attitude because of the fact that we keep pushing to make things better and keep pushing to get people to do better work. Why is the desire to improve on existing conditions seen as a negative attitude?".
