What a difference two years makes
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Please upload large images to photo sharing sites (flickr, etc) rather than trying to upload them as forum attachments.
Please share the equipment used and if possible camera settings to help others.
Please upload large images to photo sharing sites (flickr, etc) rather than trying to upload them as forum attachments.
Please share the equipment used and if possible camera settings to help others.
What a difference two years makes
Two years ago I had the same telescope as today. So what's the difference? The camera, but not what you think. It was how I was using the camera.
The top image, the one in color, was taken with the Atik 314E CCD, and the bottom image with the Altair 290M CMOS camera.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not making a pitch for CCD over CMOS. I am saying that the exposure you choose makes all the difference in the world.
The bottom image used the subframe exposure of 4.7 seconds. Total integration time was 60 minutes. It may not be clear in this small image but it suffered from a severe case of "raining noise". This was a common ailment of my early images. Without going into a lengthy explanation the cure was to increase the exposure.
The question is always "How far do I increase the exposure?" You can always experiment. A good test is to keep the total integration time the same, in my case 60 minutes, but you can choose 30 minutes if you want to test a greater range of exposures in one evening.
For the Altair 290M and my Bortle 5 skies it turns out that 30 seconds is optimal. You can increase it farther but image quality, signal-to-noise (SNR), won't improve that much. You can decrease the exposure but then you will see a dramatic drop-off in SNR. If you decrease exposure too far then "raining noise" will rear its ugly head.
Of course the "optimal" exposure is completely dependent on your skies, your telescope, and camera.
The top image was taken with the Atik 314E using a 90-second exposure over 11.6 hours and LRGB filters. The signal-to-noise ratio is high due to the long integration time so comparing it to the bottom image is not entirely fair. The important point is that "raining noise" was never a problem. I chose a 90-second exposure because a CCD has higher Read Noise than a CMOS camera. I could have gone down to 60 seconds but below that the image would have suffered.
Brian
Re: What a difference two years makes
"Evolution is a tinkerer." Francois Jacob
Well done Brian, keep them coming
Well done Brian, keep them coming
Re: What a difference two years makes
True. Progress would be faster with a greater number of clear nights. We get so few of them that we rush to image rather than experiment.
I do have a website for anyone wishing to tinker while it's cloudy. With it you can model your telescope, camera, and seeing conditions, and then see how a target's signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) changes with exposure and total integration time.
https://snrcalc.now.sh/
Right now the output is numerical so it is difficult to visualize where your optimal exposure really is. In an upcoming version I will add reactive graphs that will update as you change the inputs.
I do have a website for anyone wishing to tinker while it's cloudy. With it you can model your telescope, camera, and seeing conditions, and then see how a target's signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) changes with exposure and total integration time.
https://snrcalc.now.sh/
Right now the output is numerical so it is difficult to visualize where your optimal exposure really is. In an upcoming version I will add reactive graphs that will update as you change the inputs.
Re: What a difference two years makes
Minos,
Something like this would be very helpful:
I remember seeing a similar graph the last time I used SharpCap's Smart Histogram/Brain but it has been a while. I do remember that the graphs were only available at the telescope when you were preparing to image. My graphs will be available online any time of day for planning and experimentation.
Regarding "optimal" exposure my experience says to choose the exposure at or around the "knee" of the curve. For the Atik 314E that would be in the range of 50-100 seconds. For the Altair 290M that would be in the range of 20-50 seconds.
One very interesting thing that you can see that might be upsetting is that it looks like the CCD can achieve a higher SNR than the CMOS camera. How can this be since CMOS cameras have lower Read Noise than a CCD? It isn't obvious but the answer is that the CCD has a pixel size of 4.65 microns and the CMOS camera has a pixel size of 2.9 microns. Therefore the CCD is capturing more photons per unit time than the CMOS camera. If I were to switch to a longer focal length telescope for the CCD then the CMOS camera would become the winner. These are things that you need to consider when you plan to buy a new telescope or camera. You may think that you are gaining but in fact you lost. You can experiment with this at the website before you make a purchase.
Brian
Something like this would be very helpful:
I remember seeing a similar graph the last time I used SharpCap's Smart Histogram/Brain but it has been a while. I do remember that the graphs were only available at the telescope when you were preparing to image. My graphs will be available online any time of day for planning and experimentation.
Regarding "optimal" exposure my experience says to choose the exposure at or around the "knee" of the curve. For the Atik 314E that would be in the range of 50-100 seconds. For the Altair 290M that would be in the range of 20-50 seconds.
One very interesting thing that you can see that might be upsetting is that it looks like the CCD can achieve a higher SNR than the CMOS camera. How can this be since CMOS cameras have lower Read Noise than a CCD? It isn't obvious but the answer is that the CCD has a pixel size of 4.65 microns and the CMOS camera has a pixel size of 2.9 microns. Therefore the CCD is capturing more photons per unit time than the CMOS camera. If I were to switch to a longer focal length telescope for the CCD then the CMOS camera would become the winner. These are things that you need to consider when you plan to buy a new telescope or camera. You may think that you are gaining but in fact you lost. You can experiment with this at the website before you make a purchase.
Brian
Re: What a difference two years makes
I just released a new version of the website that generates charts.
For this example I selected M81, my William Optics ZenithStar 71, Altair 290M CMOS camera, and Bortle 5 skies.
Each chart shows how the image quality changes over a range of exposures given 2.5 hours of total integration time.
The first chart ends at 120 seconds of exposure time. Notice that the curve becomes flattened. There isn't much improvement between 60 seconds and 120 seconds. Personally I would not image at 120s. There is ample opportunity for a frame to be spoiled by aircraft, satellites, and clouds, plus you have to be concerned about star saturation:
The second chart ends at 60 seconds of exposure time. You can see that image quality trails off significantly between 30 seconds and 60 seconds, I would consider 60 seconds but then that's just me:
The third and final chart ends at 30 seconds of exposure time. I would suggest not going much below this. You can if you want but you will need to stack a lot more to achieve high picture quality:
The website URL is here:
https://snrcalc.now.sh/home
Please send me a PM if you have questions or issues.
Brian
For this example I selected M81, my William Optics ZenithStar 71, Altair 290M CMOS camera, and Bortle 5 skies.
Each chart shows how the image quality changes over a range of exposures given 2.5 hours of total integration time.
The first chart ends at 120 seconds of exposure time. Notice that the curve becomes flattened. There isn't much improvement between 60 seconds and 120 seconds. Personally I would not image at 120s. There is ample opportunity for a frame to be spoiled by aircraft, satellites, and clouds, plus you have to be concerned about star saturation:
The second chart ends at 60 seconds of exposure time. You can see that image quality trails off significantly between 30 seconds and 60 seconds, I would consider 60 seconds but then that's just me:
The third and final chart ends at 30 seconds of exposure time. I would suggest not going much below this. You can if you want but you will need to stack a lot more to achieve high picture quality:
The website URL is here:
https://snrcalc.now.sh/home
Please send me a PM if you have questions or issues.
Brian
Re: What a difference two years makes
Hey Brian, sorry for the late reply, that's great work!
Minos
Minos