Camera Labs

Hi folks,

Forum member phani_astronomy has been illustrating the use of image stacking for lunar photography in his thread My First decent pics. Rather than drag that thread off in a direction not intended I thought it might be useful to create this one to partner it.

So what is "Lucky Imaging"? Nope, it's not Kylie knocking unexpectedly at the door, saying that she admires your work and asking to have her photograph taken.

Spot the difference! The images are from Amateur Lucky Imaging and, to précis their description, the first image is what we see through a telescope and is a clip from a longer video sequence which was processed by the free software Registax v4. The images in that sequence were processed and analysed for different sharpness criteria with the best ones being selected, shifted and added to give the final image.

Impressive stuff and with the new generation of HD video enabled DSLRs appearing the technique should become even more accessible as there are standard adaptors available for attaching DSLRs to the observing end of telescopes. Unfortunately the downside is that, without very specialised detectors of the sort not found in DSLRs, the technique is only applicable to bright objects such as the Moon or the planets.

Further reading

Bob.

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OM-D E-M5 + ED 12-50mm, H-PS14042E, H-F007014E, L-RS014150E, M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 45mm 1:1.8.
Gitzo GT1541T, Arca-Swiss Z1 DP ball-head.
Astrophotography: TEC 140 'scope, FLI ML16803 camera, ASA DDM60 Pro mount.

Nice post Bob, thanks! And that first image is great for illustrating what we see through a telescope...

You should be so lucky.... lucky lucky lucky......

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Roy
EOS 350D, 40D + BG-E2N, EF 24-105mm f/4 L IS USM, EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro USM, EF 100-400 f/4.5-5.6 L IS USM, 430 EX Speedlite




My Fotopic

Great links Bob - thank you!
Greg

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Nexstar 11 GPS, 2 x Sky 90, M25C, MaximDL, Photshop CS3, Noel Carboni's Photoshop actions, 7 foot Pulsar fibreglass dome, Canon 40D, 100mm macro lens, 28-200mm zoom lens, 17-55mm f#2.8 zoom lens, 100-400mm zoom lens, 1.4x converter, 2x converter.
http://www.newforestobservatory.com/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/12801949@N02/

i wonder if anyone could find and take a photo of the american flag on the moon someday

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Canon 450D
Tamron AF 18-200mm F3.5-6.3 XR Di-II LD IF
Manfrotto 718B