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Stacked a Hubble shot against my own 12 inch Dob and it wasn't even close

Spent 3 hours capturing M51 with my backyard rig last Saturday and the detail was decent but nothing compared to the same target from the Hubble archive. I know it's a space telescope versus a consumer scope but the difference in sharpness and color depth is honestly kind of discouraging. How do you guys stay motivated when your best images look amateur next to professional data?

2 comments

2 Comments

allen.william1mo ago

Isn't the whole point of backyard astronomy more about the hunt than comparing to space telescopes anyway?

amyr571mo ago

Gotta push back on that a little. The eye candy matters because that's what keeps a lot of us coming back to the eyepiece or the computer screen after a long week. If the only payoff is saying "well at least I tried" while your stacked image looks like a blurry cloud next to Hubble's crisp clarity, motivation takes a real hit. I get the appeal of the process but pretending the final product doesn't matter feels like giving up on the whole point of imaging in the first place. Doesn't it bother you that your work will never measure up no matter how many hours you put in?

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