Factors for high resolution lunar and planetary photography.

[Radman40]

It is interesting when reading the forums how folk (and I include myself in this) spend a lot of time agonising over which camera or scope to use in seeking to produce the high quality images of the moon and planets we all drool over. We hear of ‘aperture fever’ and all feel slightly inadequate when the next new camera comes to market which pushes our own towards the scrap heap of obsolescence.

Having gained a little experience I am starting to think that we should not spend too much time worrying about some of the factors that impact on the quality of imaging as their impact is marginal compared to others. 

I have therefore produced a list of factors (in no particular order) which impact upon the quality images. It would be interesting to see the views of the views of the community as to which factors they feel are the most important when it comes to imaging the moon and planets. Place the factors in order of importance (high to low) and give each factor a score out of 10 which indicates how much impact  that factor has (10 high impact, 1 low impact). Feel free to add, modify, remove or combine factors at your discretion. I have not included cloud cover for obvious reasons. 

 

Exposure time.

Pixel size.

Sampling.

Instrument Focal length.

Choice of image acquisition software.

Collimation  very slightly out.

Collimation more significantly out.

Chance imaging/stacking etc.

Choice of image processing software.

Seeing conditions.

Altitude of object.

Aperture of instrument.

Quality of Barlow etc.

Type of computer used to acquire images.

Image processing techniques.

Filters (state type).

Colour vs b/w camera.

Being dressed properly.

Ease/time of setting up equipment.

Motivation following a day at work.

Sensor size.

Demands of family.

External Temperature.

 

It will be very interesting to see how much agreement there is in the lists! 

 

 

 

[vlaiv]

I would say that we can divide factors into two distinct categories:

- ones that you can influence

- ones that you have no control over

Then concentrate on first group and understand what parameters are the best and how to obtain them.