Lucky imaging - stacking faint stars

[vlaiv]

I think that you can get there with time and practice.

Here is my M57 that I took quite some years ago. It was taken with 5" scope and planetary camera. I think I also used rather short exposures and image is very aggressively processed - but it can show what level of detail you could expect and probably even more than this:

[Ags]

Here is my lucky M57 with some adjustments to the process following the feedback on this thread. I ditched drizzle after doing a side-by-side comparison: it only added noise not resolution (except maybe on the stars inside the ring). I also changed to 400 ms frames - 500 ms was too much for my mount but I could do better than 333 ms. At 400 ms I was able to retain 65% of the frames. I processed as 12 bit in AS!3 using the Global setting and Noise Robust 8. I also increased sub time to 3 minutes and got away with no field rotation. Maybe I could go for 4 minutes? Is there an online field rotation calculator? Work night so I only shot 10 subs and a dark sequence. No flats because I am only able to shoot antiflats - I apply them and the image less flat than before. Quick stretch in Gimp and some sharpening on the nebula.

I will add a few more nights to this if I can. But I have a new 6.3 reducer to play with and this is not the target for it I think.

My initial issue was stacking the faint stars and looking across the field I think all the stars are coming out ok.

Edited May 19, 2020 by Ags