
Views of the Solar System - xioxox
http://www.damianpeach.com/best.htm
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jkot
There are many amateur astronomy images, sometimes even better then
professional. For example checkout this corona pictures, author started as an
amateur, not sure about his current status:

[http://www.zam.fme.vutbr.cz/~druck/eclipse/Ecl2001z/0-info.h...](http://www.zam.fme.vutbr.cz/~druck/eclipse/Ecl2001z/0-info.htm)

[http://www.zam.fme.vutbr.cz/~druck/eclipse/](http://www.zam.fme.vutbr.cz/~druck/eclipse/)

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bjd2385
Damian is using cutting edge equipment and processing software, so it's no
wonder he's got such great results. Many times it's more about the equipment
than the observer; give an observer the necessary tools and they shall do
wonders with enough motivation, experience and willingness to learn.
Nevertheless, his images are great, and I've looked over them many times in
the past.

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splat
Shri Kulkarni said something along the lines of "Given a sufficiently large
telescope even an arbitrarily idiotic astronomer can make a discovery."

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sixbrx
Where by "views" is meant hundreds to thousands of raw images selected with
bad ones removed, then aligned and combined via software to enhance features
:) Don't expect to see anything close to that level of detail in the eyepiece.

Super nice images though, way beyond what the pros were doing with the biggest
scopes only a few decades ago.

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privong
For those who want more information, this technique is called "lucky
imaging"[0].

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucky_imaging](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucky_imaging)

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eps
Woah. This certainly deserves an HN post of its own.

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privong
Per your request:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10258272](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10258272)

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ThePhysicist
From an amateur astronomer's perspective these are absolutely amazing images.

I think anyone who already did astronomical observations using a
"conventional" telescope can probably attest how difficult it is to even get a
very basic image of a planet let alone an extra-solar object in the night sky.
The images shown in the article probably make extensive use of long exposure
times and computer-aided merging of photo series taken over a long observation
time. This technique usually requires a telescope with an equatorial mount and
a motor that allows you to "follow" an object in the sky while taking pictures
of it, which by itself is already quite challenging to build (except of course
if you can simply afford to buy one). Also, vibrations, trigger timing and
many other factors need to be taken into account in order to get a reasonable
image quality. Hence those are some really great photos!

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exDM69
> The images shown in the article probably make extensive use of long exposure
> times and computer-aided merging of photo series taken over a long
> observation time.

More and more amateur astronomy images rely on stacking images digitally from
several relatively short exposures. Not having to deal with long exposures
makes this quite a bit more approachable as a hobby.

> This technique usually requires a telescope with an equatorial mount and a
> motor that allows you to "follow" an object in the sky while taking pictures
> of it, which by itself is already quite challenging to build

When we're dealing with stacking images digitally, an azimuthal mounting can
work. A computerized "goto" alt-azimuth telescope mount suitable for amateur
astro/planet photography is well within the budget of a hobbyist (a few
hundred bucks is enough for an entry level mount).

This is also how the giant telescopes operate, they all are alt-azimuth
mounted these days. The last equatorial giant telescope built was the Mt.
Wilson observatory built in the 1930s or so.

The issue with alt-azimuth mounts is that the image gets "rotated" as the
mount tracks the object in the sky. This can be corrected digitally by
rotating the image and aligning it to background stars. Equatorial mounts
don't have this issue and they can be used with long exposures on photographic
plates.

Despite all this new fancy digital technology, astrophotography is still a
very challenging task and a fun hobby!

~~~
ThePhysicist
Thanks for updating me on this! Has been a while since I've done any
astronomical observations myself. Back in the day I used a Dobson telescope
which made it a bit challenging to follow objects as you said, but which was
much cheaper than a telescope with a professional mount.

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ilurk
Related: Thierry Legault
[http://www.astrophoto.fr/](http://www.astrophoto.fr/)

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Rooster61
Oh boy what I wouldn't give for seeing conditions that nice here in the
Southeast US. Gorgeous shots. Amazing what someone can do with a 14' CAT these
days.

