Creating And Enhancing Digital Astro Images

by Privett, Grant

• ISBN13: 9781846285806
• ISBN10: 1846285801
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-02-16
• Publisher: Springer Verlag

Summary

The book will, in jargon-free blow-by-blow terms, describe how to create the best astronomical images you can with the digital camera equipment at your disposal. It will explain the steps we go through to extract results from the raw-and-dirty original imagery, and then transform them into high quality pictures that you could hang on your wall.The advent of CCDs, and more recently inexpensive webcams, has led to a much greater proportion of amateur astronomers becoming involved in digital imaging. The low price of the new Meade Deep Sky Imager - $299 (2005) ''‚¬" suggests that within a few years a simple digital camera will become a standard accessory for any telescope.There are as yet few books available on this aspect of amateur astronomy. This situation is likely to change in the next few years and there are going to be lots of people out there asking questions like "Flat field? What does that mean?", and trying to work out how to get the best out of their webcam, CCD or Digital SLR. They will also be wondering what is the best software to use.To summarise; this is a book that tells practical astronomers (and that includes some but not all professionals) what is needed to get from standing in the dark with a telescope and a camera, to showing your spouse, local society friends or even supervisor the astonishing images that can be obtained with simple equipment but the right software and knowledge of how to use it.(Grant Privett works for the Ministry of Defence in the UK, heading up the Advanced Image Processing Team.)

Author Biography

Grant Privett works for the Ministry of Defence in the UK, heading up the Advanced Image Processing Team.

Table of Contents

The Joy of Image Processing	p. 1
A Digital Image - The Basics	p. 3
Choosing Your Camera	p. 9
Acquiring Images	p. 19
What Is Best for...	p. 27
The Moon and Planets	p. 27
Deep Sky	p. 29
Aurora and Meteors	p. 30
The Sun	p. 31
Comets	p. 32
Displaying Images	p. 35
Image Reduction	p. 37
The Importance of Dark Frames	p. 37
Taking Your Dark Frames	p. 40
Creating Master Darks	p. 41
Flat-Fields	p. 44
Processing Your Flat-Field	p. 47
Bias Frames	p. 48
Image Transformations	p. 50
Image Stacking	p. 51
Image Mosaicing	p. 56
Automated Image Reduction	p. 61
Image Handling	p. 63
Histograms	p. 65
Brightness Scaling	p. 67
False Color Rendition	p. 71
Other Techniques	p. 75
Statistics	p. 75
Fits Editor	p. 76
Pixel Editing	p. 77
Bloom and Fault Correction	p. 77
Night Visualization	p. 79
Profiles	p. 79
Isophotes	p. 79
Polar Representation	p. 79
Bas Relief and 3D	p. 81
Blinking	p. 82
DDP	p. 84
Edge Detectors	p. 84
Masks and Blending	p. 86
Image Enhancement	p. 87
Background Gradient Removal	p. 88
Image Sharpening	p. 91
Image Smoothing	p. 92
Median Filtering	p. 93
Unsharp Masking	p. 95
Image Deconvolution	p. 97
Handling Color Images	p. 101
Acquiring Color Composites	p. 101
Processing Color Composites	p. 104
Achieving Color Balance	p. 106
Narrow-Band Filter Composite Images	p. 108
Handling Image Sequences	p. 113
Image Acquisition	p. 113
Image Quality Techniques	p. 115
Astrometry and Photometry	p. 121
The Problems	p. 127
Postscript	p. 129
Notes on Image Contributors	p. 131
Appendix	p. 133
Software	p. 133
Hardware	p. 137
Further Reading	p. 138
Acronyms and Abbreviations	p. 139
Index	p. 141
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