In the last 10 years, astrophotography has advanced hugely

On 09/18/2016 12:59 AM, RichA wrote:
Never mind the Milky Way scenics, this is a "movie" of Mars (actually, dozens of finished shots compiled from tens of THOUSANDS of individual shots) taken with a 3900mm mirror-lens f/10 (probably acting at an effective focal length of around 20,000mm with additional optics).
The resolution of detail is on the order of 0.16 arc seconds (about twice as good as the lens is theoretically capable of) or 1/22500th of a degree. The planet's visual diameter is only about 23 arc seconds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_SL...ature=youtu.be


Not to rain on the parade here, but I've always wondered about this
guy's results--- no one, anywhere else seems able to repeat it. I
remember his results from years ago being far more resolved than any
other imager at the time and I seriously wondered then. Oh, there were
some guys from Hong Kong and, later, areas of Australia, but still not
quite the results of Peach. Either he's incredibly lucky or, shall we
say, adds some favourable manipulation to his results. It really
wouldn't be that difficult and Photoshop has been around well long
enough to be able to do the job quite easily. I remember a guy posting
a "live" animation of the Venus transit across the sun a few years ago.
Folks marvelled at the resolution and clarity and he came out a year
later and demonstrated how he did it using both Photoshop and After
Effects. So, these days, great cameras or not, the atmosphere still
limits what we do, period. If you throw in some curve balls during
processing, it can make a tremendous "artistic" difference.

John

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_SL...ature=youtu.be

John Abnarthy:
Not to rain on the parade here, but I've always wondered about this
guy's results--- no one, anywhere else seems able to repeat it.

Not so. Alan Friedman of Buffalo, NY, is easily in Peach's league. He
doesn't use fakery, either.

Either he's incredibly lucky or, shall we say, adds some favourable
manipulation to his results.

Wrong. You omitted incredibly skilled, practiced, and patient. You
ought to attend NEAIC one year when Peach is on the program teaching
his techniques.

--
I agree with almost everything that you have said and almost everything that
you will say in your entire life.

usenet *at* davidillig dawt cawm

On 10/08/2016 09:29 PM, Davoud wrote:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_SL...ature=youtu.be

John Abnarthy:
Not to rain on the parade here, but I've always wondered about this
guy's results--- no one, anywhere else seems able to repeat it.

Not so. Alan Friedman of Buffalo, NY, is easily in Peach's league. He
doesn't use fakery, either.

Yes, I am familiar with Alan, but, IMHO, still not in the same league as
Peach. And he has written about his techniques from time to time that
can be repeated in Photoshop. I agree, at least as far as Alan's
concerned, *probably* not faked.


Either he's incredibly lucky or, shall we say, adds some favourable
manipulation to his results.

Wrong. You omitted incredibly skilled, practiced, and patient. You
ought to attend NEAIC one year when Peach is on the program teaching
his techniques.

And how much are people paying for such conferences? If $ is the
motivator, I guarantee that even I could scribble something relevant
down, add the cake and ice cream to it, and pass it off as a great work.
I still stand behind my opinion that what Peach posts is at least
questionable, especially in this age of digital technology. Who else,
in the UK for example, where Peach lives, has been able to reproduce his
results FROM THE UK as he does? I've never seen anyone come close...
even those who live near him.

I will give Rich some credit here though about the atmospheric
correctors maybe being used later on, but I don't believe they were
around in the most earliest days of planetary imaging when Peach was
coming up with out of this world results... and he was starting off with
astro CCD at the time and not webcams as used later... even more
impossible.

I've seen people challenge Peach too in the past with same day or at
most three day results and he's not able to attain it. One challenge I
remember was an Italian amateur astronomer, who also sold the now
infamous Lumenera cameras for planetary imaging, and he would post lunar
shots taken with the Lumenera that consistently exceeded Peach's
resolution and the key I noticed here was always SHORT TERM... same
evening acquired AVI, same evening processed, same evening posted.
Peach was never able to compete. This delay helped convince me that
perhaps what we were seeing wasn't the genuine image. It takes time and
effort to warp something average into something out of this world.

Aren't you and Peterson among the very ones in the other group insisting
that man is causing global warming? Many of the factors causing such
warming can easily be demonstrated and documented in the lab using the
scientific method? Well, what about the people living in nearly
identical locations to this guy, using nearly the same equipment, under
the same atmospheric conditions, not being able to attain the very
highest resolution results like he has? Sort of goes against the
method, eh?