This is the second summer in a row that I have imaged this particular field. The repetition in such short order was entirely accidental; I simply forgot that I had imaged this region so recently. Nor did I detect the repetition until I had completed processing this year's data set. This state of affairs allowed me to compare this year's and last year's product. By all accounts, last year's effort (which may be seen
here) should have been the better product. The integration time was considerably greater (4 hours compared to 90 minutes), and the conditions were significantly better. Nonetheless, to my eye at least, this year's image looks better. How might this difference be accounted for? There has been one equipment change since last year: I replaced my old Orion SSAG with a new ZWO ASI120mm-mini to guide my rig. There has also been one software change: To process this year's data set, I used the new and improved version of StarTools that was released earlier this year, which contains functionality that was unavailable in the version I used on last year's data set. And of course, my processing sensibility and skill might have changed over the course of the year. I would be curious to know which of the two images viewers prefer.
Comments