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Creating a Variable Resolution Imaging System for Advanced Astrophotography

Processing Mosaic Deep Sky
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Steeve Body avatar
Steeve Body avatar
Hello fellow astrophotographers, 

I would like to figure out how to create super-resolution images of nebulae using three or more optical systems of various focal lengths.

The idea is to have a variable resolution system where one can zoom in from a wide field to a narrow field image and reveal more and more detail, akin to how Google Maps operates.

 Essentially I am exploring how to create a seamless zoomable image with varying resolutions. I’m not sure if such system/software already exist… but I envision an interactive interface where higher resolution images are loaded as one zooms in. 

Has anyone embarked on a similar project or have insights on the software/tools that could be utilized for such an endeavor? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.  Thank you in advance for your time and expertise!

Steeve
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Dave Erickson avatar
Dave Erickson avatar
Before star alignment was as good as it is, we would use a wide field image and star align to it to build a mosaic. Likely there are areas of interest that you will want to zoom into that will become the priority for high resolution subs, you likely will not need a complete high resolution mosaic. But in cases where you want an entire high resolution image, you will end up with a high resolution mosaic that most imaging software will allow you to zoom into.
Steeve Body avatar
Steeve Body avatar
Before star alignment was as good as it is, we would use a wide field image and star align to it to build a mosaic. Likely there are areas of interest that you will want to zoom into that will become the priority for high resolution subs, you likely will not need a complete high resolution mosaic. But in cases where you want an entire high resolution image, you will end up with a high resolution mosaic that most imaging software will allow you to zoom into.

Thanks for your response mate! Yes I was only planning on only taking narrow field high res images of structural details that would benefit from it. Making a big mosaic with a long focal length is certainly an option but that would take so much more time… 

Right now the only way I’m thinking this can be done is by upscaling and interpolating the wide field image by a lot to match the narrow field image in terms of relative scale, do the same with the mid field images and leave the narrow field images as is and blend them all into the upscaled wide field image… then no need for any variable resolution viewing software or web interface… but the image would probably be enormous in size.
Willem Jan Drijfhout avatar
Willem Jan Drijfhout avatar
Steeve Body:
Right now the only way I’m thinking this can be done is by upscaling and interpolating the wide field image by a lot to match the narrow field image in terms of relative scale, do the same with the mid field images and leave the narrow field images as is and blend them all into the upscaled wide field image… then no need for any variable resolution viewing software or web interface… but the image would probably be enormous in size.


You would still need some way to view at variable resolution. The high MP count of your upscaled image would never show its detail on a monitor unless you can zoom in. Good software to do this is KRPano. You drop your image on it and it breaks your image up in smaller and smaller tiles that show depending on how far you zoom in or out. You watch the image from an html file in your browser. This is how I always post the full resolution images on my website. Take IC5070 for example, the drizzled image is >100MP. If you click on the image itself it just shows the 4000px wide image, but if you click on the full resolution link you see the full 12,500px wide image (it's drizzled 2x) which you can explore zooming in or out.
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Steeve Body avatar
Steeve Body avatar
Willem Jan Drijfhout:
Steeve Body:
Right now the only way I’m thinking this can be done is by upscaling and interpolating the wide field image by a lot to match the narrow field image in terms of relative scale, do the same with the mid field images and leave the narrow field images as is and blend them all into the upscaled wide field image… then no need for any variable resolution viewing software or web interface… but the image would probably be enormous in size.


You would still need some way to view at variable resolution. The high MP count of your upscaled image would never show its detail on a monitor unless you can zoom in. Good software to do this is KRPano. You drop your image on it and it breaks your image up in smaller and smaller tiles that show depending on how far you zoom in or out. You watch the image from an html file in your browser. This is how I always post the full resolution images on my website. Take IC5070 for example, the drizzled image is >100MP. If you click on the image itself it just shows the 4000px wide image, but if you click on the full resolution link you see the full 12,500px wide image (it's drizzled 2x) which you can explore zooming in or out.

oh thats awesome! I didnt know about KRPano, this looks like a great tool. Thanks for the tip I will investigate this!