Orpington Astronomical Society

Astronomy => Astrophotography => Topic started by: Roy on Sep 24, 2020, 16:57:03

Title: Question?
Post by: Roy on Sep 24, 2020, 16:57:03
One for the imagers: if you operate a CCD camera binned e.g. 2x2 which means you loose 50% of linear resolution but effectively increase the sensitivity by a factor of about 4, but then you apply drizzle when processing, do you ultimately get an increase in sensitivity without any loss of resolution, i.e. something for nothing?  :D

Roy
Title: Re: Question?
Post by: Roberto on Sep 24, 2020, 17:44:15
Roy

No free lunch I'm afraid.  It really depends on the seeing and the sampling resolution you can achieve with your (binned) camera/telescope. 
See the original paper here:  https://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/9808087.pdf
You would benefit if at 2x2 you are still sampling well for your average seeing though.


Roberto
Title: Re: Question?
Post by: Carole on Sep 25, 2020, 09:39:46
I sometimes wondered the same thing, but then reasoned it could not possible work. 

I reserve binning for the colour component only and use x1 for luminance and Ha where all the detail is.  The colour then needs to be resized to match the Lum/Ha.

Generally it speeds up my ability to capture in colour, to do colour x 1 would take me several sessions to build up a colour image and with UK weather even longer.

Carole