Perusing the Past

[pixelsaurus]

Last night I was flicking through some old copies of S&T (some from the 70's), Sky and Space, Southern Stars and Deep Sky magazines. I did this as I have a scope to refurbish and was looking for useful ideas. Some of these mags I bought originally simply because I enjoyed just looking at the astropics. In most cases, these were shot on film (the early digital was just awful) and I realized how todays digital generation are thoroughly spoilt for quality. Whilst I still have a fondness for film, I'm afraid that the quality of most of the images (professional and amateur) are rubbish compared with todays crop of digital imagery. In 20 years, amateur produced images has gone off the scale.and It is time for me to get serious again.

[Qualia]

...I realized how todays digital generation are thoroughly spoilt for quality.

Although not strictly on topic, the same idea arose when chatting to an older fellow this summer. I really don't think he was exaggerating when he pointed out that forty-odd years ago a 6" was considered a big scope and generally way out of the means of someone with an average sallary in Spain.

I thought about what he told me and figured that we're kind of blessed on the one hand but crippled on the other. As quality and price drop, as technology and expertise and development increases, by some relative degree so too the general levels of LP and contamination. Most of our tools of stargazing have been produced and designed - one way or another - in factories and office blocks that many of us around the world must be cursing at night when trying to observe the night sky.

A paradox - if I've been understood?

[breezy]

i get your drift,

its kind of like a catch 22

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

As most of the kit is made in China, I doubt they affect LP in my back garden (pull up the ladder, Jack, I'm alright).

Another point is that affordable filters and better processing allow us to mitigate the effects of LP.

[Capricorn]

And in another 20 years they will look back at the poor quality images we produce now on our 14 and 18 megapixel cameras and imagers and think to themselves how much things have moved on.

Will they think how quaint the idea of taking several images and then having to stack them on top of each other and then spend 2 days processing them. Could be by then that a 10 second snapshot shows more then we can produce now. Darks, lights and noise all things in a photographic history book.

10 years back a 2 megapixel camera was fairly good.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

.......

Will they think how quaint the idea of taking several images and then having to stack them on top of each other and then spend 2 days processing them. Could be by then that a 10 second snapshot shows more then we can produce now. Darks, lights and noise all things in a photographic history book.

.....

Not really: "Ye cannae change the laws of physics, capt'n!" as Scotty would say. A 10 s snapshot will show photon noise, unless you have optics the size of the E-ELT combined with a 500mm focal length (F/0.0128 ). Photon noise is a fundamental property of light (both emission and detection). Of course, higher sensitivity CCDs help, but back-lit CCDs already reach quantum efficiencies of 85%, so we might gain 15% beyond that, but no more (50% q.e. is more common, so we might double sensitivity, but no more). Long exposures are here to stay, even if all other noise sources are brought down to zero (and the 2nd law of thermodynamics has something to say on that point).