Astromart

July 1, 2009 06:11 AM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Solar System

Mercury on June 17th

That looks pretty amazing to me John! I'm no expert on Mercury but the few images I have seen don't show anything like this level of surface detail. Very impressive!

Regards,
Stefan

August 20, 2009 04:49 AM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Solar System

Aristoteles, Eudoxus and polar. afocal (edited)

Posted By Stefan Lammel

Hi Jason,

Your comments remind me of when I was using a Nikon 4500 digicam, I would be really impressed by what I saw zoomed in on the cameras lcd but sadly when I saw them on the pc screen I was almost always disappointed, mostly by the noise. The solution for me (and for many) was to move up to a more sensitive monochrome camera like a webcam. It has made such a difference and when I think of the hours I basically wasted with the digicam I wish I hadn't waited so long to make the switch. Your results show a really nice level of detail despite the noise, but if you want to improve on them a webcam would make all the difference. To get an idea compare my old 4500 images on this page http://www.slamm.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/moon/moon.htm (I used some NR s/w to help with the noise but it looks painfully obvious to me now!) with the images at the bottom of this page http://www.pbase.com/slammel/moon taken with a DMK-21 shortly after (ok, it's a bit more than a webcam but shows the kind of improvement you can expect by using the technique used with this type of imaging, where the frames are stacked to reduce noise and deconvolved to bring out the detail). Hope that gives you an idea of what you can expect if you want to go down this route.

Regards,
Stefan

August 20, 2009 05:22 AM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Solar System