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_insomagent t1_j1o750z wrote

Reply to comment by TurChunkin in My progress at Astrophotography by steliosmudda

I don't know why people think astrophotography processing is difficult. The hardest part of astrophotography is obtaining the money required to acquire a guided mount with minimal bearing play, decent apochromatic scope, autoguider, software for said autoguider.

Anybody can learn how to adjust curves in Photoshop or run a script that uses somebody else's algorithm to make stars look smaller. I'd love to hear a counterpoint to this.

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MineTorA t1_j1pco4l wrote

It's immediately obvious that you have no idea what goes into the processing of astrophotos. It's not just running scripts and adjusting curves. It's not worth the time writing out a "counterpoint", people who have dedicated thousands of hours have told you it's not a simple matter. If you don't believe it, give it a try, JWST data is available for free.

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_insomagent t1_j1ptjxc wrote

I have an "entry level" setup that cost me around $2000.

Your photos are great.

I saw your setup, pretty good stuff. Equipment you used, and the price points:

TS-Optics Photoline 80mm APO Triplet ($800)
QHY 163M ($1199)
SkyWatcher EQ6-R Pro ($2000)
ZWO ASI 120MM ($134)
ZWO EAF ($248)
ZWO EFW ($269)
Optolong 7nm Ha, 6.5nm Oiii, 6.5nm Sii filters ($720 for a 3 piece kit)

So you spent... around $5,370 to take these stunning photos. That's not even taking into account what you spent on software, which is more than likely equal in value.

I could show you the images I captured with my $2,000 setup, but they aren't great, and of course my wife wasn't happy with how much I spent on this hobby. However, I'm not going to do that, because of course you're going to shit all over it with your $10,000 setup. I'm so frustrated with this talking point about "processing" skill, I'm going to download some raw data, and show you just how easy this shit is.

Take a look here:

https://astrobackyard.com/astrophotography-image-processing-challenge/

Without looking at the end of Trevor Jones' blog page, tell me which one is done by him and which one is me fucking around in GIMP for 30 minutes. https://imgur.com/a/bOTVx5g

When you're ready, scroll to the end of Trevor Jones' blog post and see if your guess was correct.

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