Quote:
Originally Posted by alpal
Excellent picture Ray,
it's sharp, detailed and colorful.
Some of the background looks a bit too dark.
When I checked it in Photoshop it's a bit clipped
in the dark areas at about a level of 9 out of 255 bits.
I like the dark areas to read about 20 to 26.
cheers
Allan
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Hi Allan,
I too think that Ray has produced a wonderful image (BTW Hello Ray
) : wonderfully sharp and contrasty. I would suggest that in addition to his skills , the reason for the darker darks /contrast is Ray's wonderfully dark location.
I'm always curious so I often check on LightPollutionMap for images I like and in that location, based on 2015 World Atlas data, an SQM reading of 21.7 to almost 22 is not uncommon, both in and around the township. We can both, I would suggest, dream about that level of sky brightness in Melbourne. Homebase for me in Melbourne has an SQM of 18.7 mag/arcsec^2 (Bortle 7) or a sky brightness of 3130 µcd/m^2 which equates to about 18 times brighter than a typical ~172µcd/m^2 darksky background). In Ray's location the sky brightness is much darker than Melbourne at ~231µcd/m^2 (~Bortle 4) and is even darker within 5km out of town(Bortle 2) at ~ 180 µcd/m^2, which is very close to a perfectly dark sky of ~172µcd/m^2 darksky background. His area is ~ 13 times darker than the Melbourne data I quoted and that's why, for the same exposure, same camera/QE and without any stretching, his "darks" will always be darker - much less light pollution.
Best
JA