Observation by Grant Privett: Astrobotic/Peregrine

Uploaded by

Grant Privett

Observer

Grant Privett

Observed

2024 Jan 09 - 18:15

Uploaded

2024 Jan 09 - 18:39

Objects

Spacecraft

Equipment

300mm VX12 f/4 Newtonian
SX Trius 694 mono
SW NEQ6

Exposure

Multiple 30s

Location

Near Salisbury

Target name

Astrobotic/Peregrine

Title

Astrobotic/Peregrine

About this image

Couldn't resist it.

It may be on the way to the Moon and spewing propellant, but it doesn't look like its tumbling yet! Also, no co-moving debris seen.

The image is a stack of 30s frames where the brightest pixel count found is the one selected for the output image. Makes for noisy images, but shows up the probe nicely.

It was about 150,000 miles distant at the time of the image.

Files associated with this observation

Peregrine_20240109_1815.jpg (205.2 kB)

Like this image

Jeremy Shears, Nick Quinn, Callum Potter, Robin Leadbeater, Dr Paul Leyland, Lars Lindhard

Comments

Dr Paul Leyland, 2024 Jan 12 - 19:08 UTC

Have you tried smoothing the resulting image? FABADA can do an amazing job, in my experience.

Grant Privett, 2024 Jan 20 - 11:01 UTC

This is as it came out of minimal AstroArt8 dark sub/flat field/align/Maximum stack processing. I could run a spatial median over it - possibly (for fun) implementing one that only ran on noise pixels surrounded by low SNR values, but the flattened background can look "odd".

I have seen lots of instances of images processed using Pixinsight (other software is available) to remove sky gradients and reduce noise where the image toppled into the astrophotography equivalent of the "uncanny valley". I try to avoid that and prefer the data eau naturelle/warts and all. :)

I find it faintly depressing that so many people doing image processing just want a tool that works and don't want to understand/care how it works/what it does. I suppose I was brought up on "How It Works" books and find understanding the whole process of creating an image more satisfying.

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