PythonImageStacker

PythonImageStacker about results code

about

Stacking is a popular method of image processing for astrophotography. By literally adding the pixels from many pictures together one can improve the signal to noise ratio in digital photographs. These photos generally suffer from random noise due to photo element ADC conversions and other causes, however, the noise is random so using multiple frames of the same target allows the signal (stars, planets, celestial bodies) to be reinforced since it is always present, and the noise to be reduced since it changes from frame to frame. A less desirable result is that the entire image becomes brighter since the noise is fairly evenly added into the entire resultant image.

results

Initial results are very promising. I am taking pictures with my point and shoot, digital camera to gain real data but without magnification there isn't much to see. Still it is incredibly rewarding to take a bunch of black images and watch stars that are invisible to the naked eye start to appear.

This example is a small snippet from the whole image. I was excited when I started to get results; I was amazed when I saw stars that I couldn't see with the naked eye.

	This is a single shot from my camera, you can barely make out a couple dim spots.
	This is the result of taking 8 shots and then stacking them on top of each other. Notice the couple of blue stars. Is this doppler, or is the light source really blue, or is it a false coloring?

code

not yet. I am using the Python Image Library and have written a little code but there isn't anything worth releasing yet. If you are interested let me know: cpepe [a] tearsoffire dot org.

-- ChristopherPepe - 17 Oct 2007