As I mentioned in one of my previous posts, I got the entry level subscription to SLOOH. The "Student" level subscription at SLOOH costs you 50 USD per year and allows you to piggyback on 5 separate "missions". You can also choose 5 missions from the SLOOH catalog instead of piggybacking as well. However unlike higher level subscriptions, this does not allow total control over the telescope.
 |
| Horeshead Nebula, Barnard 33 (in the middle) and NGC 2023 reflection nebula near top left. Stack of 15x5min exposures using SLOOHs Chile Two telescope. |
The Chile Two telescope is a 17" telescope. Compared to my own NexStar 4SE, this one has more than 16x light gathering power. But even with that much of light, you still need to stack a few images to bring out the details.
 | |
| 5min exposure of Barnard 33 using SLOOH's Chile Two telescope. |
As you can see above, a single 5min exposure of the Barnard 33 still has some details but lacks contrast and brightness. While you can increase the brightness and contrast in a single image, it would also mean that it amplifies the noise on the image.
Stacking is used to integrate multiple photos into one. As the noise pixels are generally randomly distributed, they get cancelled off when averaging across multiple photos. When I started shooting with SLOOH, I didnt think that I would need to stack at all. I expected to see the photos come out as clear as the NASA photos you generally see. But looks like whatever the equipment you use, you can always make use of stacking.
Comments
Post a Comment