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Old 27-04-2009, 09:06 AM
Hagar (Doug)
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Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: Australia
Posts: 4,646
Hi Mark, I just took a look at your image and do find your question an interesting one.
More lights does lift your signal to noise ration with each extra image you take. That is the amount of actual signal in the image increases while the noise level doesn't increase by quite as much.
With good processing skills you can use this extra signal to improve the clarity of the images and with dark subtraction or processing you can reduce the background noise level quite a bit. One thing to remember is that dark noise is often quite random so in most cases more darks will improve the image by quite a lot.
The use of full calibration ie. Darks, Flats and bias files will again lift your image to another level. The use of flats and bias files will remove any imperfections in your imaging train and also correct problems with the illumination of the entire imaging chip.

I would sugest that as the image is quite small in a semi widefield such as this that the use of Flats and bias and more darks will provide more improvement than more hours of lights.
It is all a learning game so experimentation is the name of the game. Take some more lights and darks and bias and flats and see where it takes you. You may be surprised with the end result by being more critical of the lights before stacking and the diference full calibration and more darks makes to the final image.

Good luck and keep at it.
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