Eye V's Camera

[jeremy1]

Why when I view things like Saturn for example by eye it is nowhere as clear as some of the pictures that have been posted on here. Ok I understand it's many pictures stacked on top of one another to make things clearer but why does not the multiplied amount of atmospheric distortion also stacked up on these frames basically still leave the image as blurry as we see it by eye ?

[Matt Scunthorpe]

I think the general principle is if you have 100photos, some will be blurry but some wont be as the atmosphere is ever changing. So you dump the ones that are blury and stack the clear ones, resulting in a good final image.

Its another reason a webcam wins, not just the pixel size but they can take many 100s or 1000s of frames in a very short time.

Matt.

[jeremy1]

After sitting here and thinking about the question I asked. It now seems pretty obvious why.   (trying not to feel embarrassed about asking a stupid question)

[jambouk]

When i saw the title, I thought the question was going to be:

"Why is the image i see of saturn through my webcam is so much more blurry than when i look through the eye piece".

James

[Moonshane]

when you observe a planet at reasonably high magnification and watch a while you'll see that every few seconds/minutes the image 'pings' into sharpness and then blurs again. this is atmospheric inerference.  imagers use very high mags and the periods of sharpness are even fewer. however if you take enough frames you will eventually get enough sharp ones to combine and form a sharp image.

[Matt Scunthorpe]

No question is a silly question, its silly not to ask a question (or something like that) LOL

Matt.

[jeremy1]

Cheers guys.

[LukeSkywatcher]

The Human eye, as good as it is, is pretty rubbish by design compared.

[ollypenrice]

Ooooh, I think the eye is pretty good. However, its priority is to see NOW because there is a wolf (or a wazzock in a Mondeo) just about to get you from behind. Its priority is not to give you the most perfect possible view of the wolf's eyeball as it gets you.

The camera doesn't always win. Resolving 5 stars in the Trapezium is very tricky at the eyepiece. Now try it in a camera. Worse!

But the answers above have it. It's to do with time. Cameras can accumulate light and eyes can't.

Olly

[Kropster]

Assuming the blurring is random, it will tend to cancel itself out and the underlying steady image will show through when the frames are stacked..... I think!