Chris L Peterson wrote:
On Sun, 05 Oct 2008 03:20:19 GMT, David Nakamoto
wrote:


On this last point, about planets and the Moon, I'll concede that with
the Moon you'll see more with the unaided eye through most telescopes
than with imaging, but my own experience is that you see more with
stacking images from a video taken with good optics and good seeing than
with the eye through the same telescope, perhaps twice the resolution,
although I admit I've not measured it objectively yet.


I agree. There might be some advantage to visual planetary astronomy
with poor seeing, or certain kinds of seeing. But even that is giving
way to video imaging, I think.

My point, really, was that planetary and lunar viewing is probably the
only case where visual observation and imaging are at least in the same
ballpark so far as comparisons go. With everything else, imaging is
unarguably far beyond visual, even where the imaging aperture is much
smaller than the visual.
_________________________________________________

Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com

Total agreement. Through a 5 inch SCT, Omega Centauri was a glow with
some stars visible. 30 seconds later with a monochromatic imager, it
"resolved" into hundreds of stars. First light for that camera too.

--- Dave