[StephenM (Stephen)]

Hi all,

With all the clouds around, I decided to go back to the original RAW files and reprocess my image of Comet Lemmon passing the SMC and 47 Tuc on the 13th February. (This image was taken using just a tripod-mounted DSLR.) I'm much happier with this version.

In the process of doing this, I decided to put together a 3 panel image demonstrating the power of stacking images to improve signal to noise ratio and therefore image quality. I know that this is common knowledge to those who are experienced astrophotographers, but I thought there might be others with less experience who might want to capture an image of the current comets using just a DSLR and tripod. It still amazes me how much detail can be captured when you stack a few images!

Anyway, the first image shows the comparison of unprocessed RAW, processed RAW and stacked images of Comet Lemmon, and the second one is my reprocessed Lemmon/SMC/47 Tuc image.

Thanks for looking!

Cheers,
Stephen