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The Andromeda photo from my $200 scope looked better than the Hubble version

Bought a used 8-inch Dobsonian off Craigslist six months ago and finally got a clear night to stack 50 frames of M31. The detail in those dust lanes was sharper than any high-res NASA shot I'd seen online. Anyone else find their cheap setup outperforms expectations on specific targets?
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2 Comments
grant_allen85
Wait, you stacked 50 frames on a used 8-inch Dob? That's genuinely wild. Those dust lanes are the hardest thing to pull with cheap gear. Light pollution usually kills them dead. Did you use any kind of filter or just straight stacking? I've got a beat-up 10-inch that somehow pulls out the North America Nebula way better than my friend's fancy refractor. But Andromeda is a whole different beast. The core is so bright it washes everything else out. You must have some crazy dark skies too. Or you're a wizard at processing. Either way that's impressive as hell. Hubble's shots are usually overprocessed to show one thing. Real detail in the dust is way harder to fake.
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the_joel
the_joel19d ago
You're comparing a processed stack to a single shot from space. Not really the same thing.
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