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Old 16-04-2020, 03:24 PM
JA
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Noise Comparison Stacking Images

Hello Everyone,

I hope everyone is happy and all's well. I've always been interested in wanting to visualize the difference between stacking more and more sub-exposures, with a view to improving the signal to noise ratio in images. In particular how much better do things get for each bit of extra effort.

Well there is plenty of information/theory out there (simplifying) to suggest that given "appropriate" sub-exposures that signal to noise ratio can be improved by as much as the square-root of 2 (an ~41% improvement) for each doubling of the number of sub-exposures.

I set about to try to see what that looks like, not that I tweaked things to the max to achieve sky-limited exposures, but just "reasonable exposures" which were not obviously black clipped on the camera histogram. Using a Modified Nikon D800 with Sigma Art 50mm f/1.4 lens on a fixed tripod/no tracking I imaged the Milky Way from my suburban Melbourne backyard. Unfortunately as this was conducted last year and I've filed/misplaced the original image details, but most likely they were 8 second exposures @f/2 at ISO800. The images were stacked in Sequator, with its Light Pollution processing applied but no specific noise reduction was applied. The final n=1,2,4,8,16 and 30 final images were somewhat adjusted to equalise brightness to facilitate comparison.

The full image is attached of the stack of 30 x 8s images of the Milky Way. There is also a comparison below this image of the Cat's Paw Nebula magnified (Yellow Rectangle) to show detail for n = 1, 2, 4, 8, 16 and 30 sub-exposures, i.e: each time doubling the number of sub-exposures. (Yes i know it should have been 32). There is clearly a benefit with each doubling in the number of sub-exposures and 30 seems a decent/realistic endpoint given the overall image size/FOV and for the conditions. I'd be interested to continue it past 30 images to see the point of no further benefit. I might do that one day. In any event it's important to recognize that some of the benefit seen will also be due to some mild "dithering", given the use of a fixed tripod without tracking.

Happy viewing. (Image TBA soon)EDIT: Now added

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JA
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Last edited by JA; 16-04-2020 at 03:56 PM. Reason: image now added
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  #2  
Old 16-04-2020, 08:52 PM
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Atmos (Colin)
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Not sure how difficult or easy there are going to be to see but the first one shows a 1,4,8,16,32,64,127 (didn't have 128).

The second shows an enlarged version of 16,32,64,127 so show that there is indeed benefit for more and more exposure.
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Old 16-04-2020, 09:04 PM
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peter_4059 (Peter)
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Worth checking out these cn posts by Craig Stark ...
https://www.cloudynights.com/article...t-part-1-r1895

https://www.cloudynights.com/article...ne-pixel-r1902

https://www.cloudynights.com/article...r-camera-r1929
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Old 16-04-2020, 10:19 PM
JA
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Thanks Peter. He in fact piqued my interest in the issue in the first place following one of his lectures.

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JA
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Old 16-04-2020, 10:21 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Atmos View Post
Not sure how difficult or easy there are going to be to see but the first one shows a 1,4,8,16,32,64,127 (didn't have 128).

The second shows an enlarged version of 16,32,64,127 so show that there is indeed benefit for more and more exposure.
Thanks Colin, Yes clearly of benefit, even though more subtle in your higher quality images.

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JA
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Old 17-04-2020, 05:53 AM
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The_bluester (Paul)
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With my ASI294, I have found 100 subs to be a good target to aim for in terms of smoothing out the read and shot noise, 100 allows the use of light drizzle processing without reintroducing an objectionable amount of noise, at least for my camera.
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Old 17-04-2020, 12:23 PM
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Tulloch (Andrew)
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I did a similar thing comparing the noise from a Canon 700D DSLR vs a ZWO ASI224MC for planetary imaging. Details here...

https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/6...ct-test-three/

The DSLR seems to have noise reduction built into the output frames, so require less frames to reduce the noise. It also runs a lot slower at 20fps, so needing less frames is advantageous.

Andrew
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Old 04-05-2020, 08:46 AM
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Thanks Paul and Andrew for your insights and Andrew for the link to your own detailed comparison.

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JA

Last edited by JA; 09-05-2020 at 08:08 AM.
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