by Chris Peterson » Sat Jul 28, 2018 2:41 pm
alter-ego wrote: ↑Sat Jul 28, 2018 5:00 am
No doubt the telescope is a critical element for determining the limiting resolution. However, atmospheric turbulence due to thermal gradients is a general problem all earth-based observers.
Where I live, the skies are among the darkest possible. Great for deep sky objects. But we're typically underneath the jet stream. Very bad for high resolution. And the planets are often fairly low, just adding to the problems. Much of the time my telescopic view of Mars resembles a burning oil derrick. There are moments of clarity, though, which is what skilled visual observers learn to pick out (and potentially sketch). I'm not very interested in visual astronomy, though. For me, imaging is the thing. But again, all is not lost. Planets are bright, which means it's possible to make very short exposures- tens of milliseconds. And then, to pick through hundreds or thousands of images for those with good seeing, and stack them together mathematically to reduce the noise that goes with short exposures. Basically, to automate in the computer what sketchers are doing at the eyepiece.
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- mars_action.gif (90.38 KiB) Viewed 3400 times
- mars_steady_sm.jpg (6.34 KiB) Viewed 3400 times
[quote=alter-ego post_id=284478 time=1532754007 user_id=125299]
No doubt the telescope is a critical element for determining the limiting resolution. However, atmospheric turbulence due to thermal gradients is a general problem all earth-based observers.
[/quote]
Where I live, the skies are among the darkest possible. Great for deep sky objects. But we're typically underneath the jet stream. Very bad for high resolution. And the planets are often fairly low, just adding to the problems. Much of the time my telescopic view of Mars resembles a burning oil derrick. There are moments of clarity, though, which is what skilled visual observers learn to pick out (and potentially sketch). I'm not very interested in visual astronomy, though. For me, imaging is the thing. But again, all is not lost. Planets are bright, which means it's possible to make very short exposures- tens of milliseconds. And then, to pick through hundreds or thousands of images for those with good seeing, and stack them together mathematically to reduce the noise that goes with short exposures. Basically, to automate in the computer what sketchers are doing at the eyepiece.
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[attachment=1]mars_action.gif[/attachment]
[attachment=0]mars_steady_sm.jpg[/attachment]