Quote:
Originally Posted by lazjen
So my takeaway from this is:
* I'll need a lot more subs to compare to the deep single subs (ignoring the extreme 1sec comparison being used for the match, but more realistic exposure durations)
* I'll need to be able to process a lot of subs (I am getting used to it already)
* I won't be as concerned about losing an hour sub versus a 10 or 5 min sub
* And I need to pick appropriate targets for my system and location and not expect Hubble deep field imaging from an inexpensive setup (that cost probably much less than 10-20% of the system that can do 1 hour subs).
Seems reasonable to me. 
Q: Although truly extreme, would it be possible to process those 36000 x 1 sec subs? Could they be grouped into batches of say 100, integrated, then those results integrated, etc until down to the final single integrated result? |
Hi, Chris,
I think your comments, and Ray's and Glen's, help focus my mind on what it is I'm really trying to say. It's:
(a) When doing your testing, try some faint things. The big advantage of the CMOS chip's low read noise shows up with really faint things.
(b) Once you've got your CMOS chip, it is always better to do the longest subs that are practical given all the real-world issues like wind buffet, clouds, aeroplanes, guiding and tracking, etc.
Huge stacks: Suppose we went for something more reasonable like 600 one minute subs. My own software, GoodLook 64, would have to do that in say 10 batches of say 60 subs (depending on chip size), producing 10 partial 32 bit FITS stacks. (It needs to hold all the subs in memory for good reasons unrelated to the task at hand). But that set of 10 partial subs would be very easy to stack to a final image. I already used that technique for a big mosaic on the Tarantula.
Cheers,
Mike