I took many photographs of comets from my balcony ten years ago. Can I make them better with more modern image editing software ?
Most important, can I align the more complicated images with not linear moves.
This is the first image I tried it on and I could handle all four series of images I took, not only one:
Sweden, Stockholm, Hagsätra.
Bortle 9
Free view Az: 20o to 90o, 165o to 185o, Alt: 20o to 55o
Comment :
This photo is the first I took of the comet Lovejoy, it was in November 2013.
Bad weather limited it to only 8 sub images.
It reached magnitude 5 at most which is bright.
Sweden, Stockholm, Hagsätra.
Bortle 9
Free view Az: 20o to 90o, 165o to 185o, Alt: 20o to 55o
Comment :
I have a lot of photos of this comet. With the old software it was difficult to align them.
Now with Siril I can do this.
The exposure time is shorter for this set of images, only 30 seconds, it could make the tail sharper.
In reality it got softer, I think the tail is a bit rotated that make this soft look.
The noise is at least lower because of the big number of images.
Date :
2013-12-02
Comment :
Analyzing what caused the soft tail.
This sequence has been taking in two series with a time gap between.
During this time the comet have moved a long way, I can also see that the polar align wasn't perfect and that cause a rotation of the field.
The image is stacked on sub frames that has been aligned on the stars.
With that the rotation between the images is eliminated.
Now I stack it once again, now aligned on the comet core.
Date :
2013-12-02
Comment :
New image now aligned on rotation corrected and on comet core.
The tail got a little bit sharper now.
Much can be done to the background.
align, resize, level, cal dark and gamma image processing
Site :
Sweden, Stockholm, Hagsätra.
Bortle 9
Free view Az: 20o to 90o, 165o to 185o, Alt: 20o to 55o
Comment :
This is is photos taken with longer exposure time, twice compare to that alone above, 60 seconds.
This photo is taken from my balcony, it's not very often they are in the right position to do this.
From my balcony I also have a lot of light pollution.
This was the only set of images that I could align with the old software.