better way of seeing noise before image is printed?

Chris L Peterson wrote:

On Sun, 4 Mar 2007 15:34:56 -0800, "Starlord"
wrote:

I have seen planetary photos done with film that would blow away most ccd
ones.
remember, one pic with film has over 3 megs of data in it.

Then you've never seen any good digital images. They are so far beyond
film there's no comparison. Film itself is lower resolution, lower
dynamic range, lower sensitivity, and higher noise. Good planetary
imaging requires taking many (ideally, hundreds) of very short exposure
images (to reduce seeing), and summing them (to reduce noise). Film
isn't sensitive enough for the short exposures, and even if it were,
scanning and stacking that many images for noise control would be a
nightmare.

People with webcams are routinely producing planetary images these days
that are far superior to the best film shots ever made, by anybody.


Including the Catalina planetary series!? (A Saturn from that
series was published by S&T and remains to this day one of their standard
pricy Saturn photos.)

Your certification of common "webcams" is way off the mark.
....



_________________________________________________

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

Starlord wrote:

Use Film.


Sure but the route to routinely better-cheaper planetary shots
is with digital today. Far far cheaper for the amateur, especially
for the herd of morons seeking photographic fame in three photos
per year they post to 'famous' websites and get accepted, thinking
they are nbow in God's Honor Roll of Famous Astro Photographers. My club has one
of those. Big fat blowhard guy
who did everything but land at Normandy alone and whip the
Japs and the Germans, with his left hand only. Webcams for these
morons was just an invitation to trouble and it has driven a lot of
good people out of the hobby because they cant stand the stench of self
promotoing FAME in the Information Media Age..

....




--
There are those who believe that life here, began out there, far across the
universe, with tribes of humans, who may have been the forefathers of the
Egyptians, or the Toltecs, or the Mayans. Some believe that they may yet be
brothers of man, who even now fight to survive, somewhere beyond the
heavens.

The Lone Sidewalk Astronomer of Rosamond
Telescope Buyers FAQ
http://home.inreach.com/starlord
Sidewalk Astronomy
www.sidewalkastronomy.info
The Church of Eternity
http://home.inreach.com/starlord/church/Eternity.html

"Jason Albertson" wrote in message
ink.net...
I like to print photos of images I've taken during planetary imaging
sessions. I have been printing images for several years, but I always
have
the same problem: I can't seem to see the noise very well until after an
image is printed. Many, many times I have wasted initial prints because
noise rears its ugly head in the image. Then I have to go back and try to
gaussian blur the image at the risk of loosing sharpness when the image is
reprinted. My question is this: is there any easy way to see noise in
images before they are printed? If I zoom in 200% or better and readjust
brightness/ contrast, this helps somewhat, but I am usually still
disappointed once the image is printed. There must be a better way of
seeing/ predicting noise that will show up in photos. Any help would be
greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance,
Jason

why are you putting everything on the digital side of this large
equation!? Noise is as optics and conditions do. Crap in -
Crap out. People always want to blame the software, the camera, the
technique........................ 99% of the time the
noise was there when the photo was taken and webcams are noisy to begin with.
Try better optics on better nights as a starter.



Jason Albertson wrote:

I like to print photos of images I've taken during planetary imaging
sessions. I have been printing images for several years, but I always have
the same problem: I can't seem to see the noise very well until after an
image is printed. Many, many times I have wasted initial prints because
noise rears its ugly head in the image. Then I have to go back and try to
gaussian blur the image at the risk of loosing sharpness when the image is
reprinted. My question is this: is there any easy way to see noise in
images before they are printed? If I zoom in 200% or better and readjust
brightness/ contrast, this helps somewhat, but I am usually still
disappointed once the image is printed. There must be a better way of
seeing/ predicting noise that will show up in photos. Any help would be
greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance,
Jason

On Tue, 06 Mar 2007 00:21:03 -0600, Ron wrote:

Including the Catalina planetary series!? (A Saturn from that
series was published by S&T and remains to this day one of their standard
pricy Saturn photos.)

Do you have a link to an image?


Your certification of common "webcams" is way off the mark.

Certification? All I said is that common webcams are producing images
that are far superior to what is possible with film. I didn't say that
you could use any webcam for this, but there are many good ones, and
there's nothing special about them.

_________________________________________________

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

Chris L Peterson wrote:

On Tue, 06 Mar 2007 00:21:03 -0600, Ron wrote:

Including the Catalina planetary series!? (A Saturn from that
series was published by S&T and remains to this day one of their standard
pricy Saturn photos.)

Do you have a link to an image?

Your certification of common "webcams" is way off the mark.

Certification? All I said is that common webcams are producing images
that are far superior to what is possible with film.

Then God was digital all along. The Christians are right!


I didn't say that
you could use any webcam for this, but there are many good ones, and
there's nothing special about them.

_________________________________________________

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