a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment
Scythels  ·  4166 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Astrophotography: M42 without a Mount or Telescope

talking about "photon gathering" is pretty legitimate, so long as you're shooting RAW, you're literally counting photons. For a normal daytime exposure where there are billions hitting the sensor per second, big deal. But for astrophotography where there are so far fewer, it's a pretty big deal.

Think of each photosite as a bucket. Each time a photon hits it, it fills a little more, and the recorded exposure is a little brighter for that pixel.

Electronically, each photon disrupts the electric field present on the photosite, and the amount of disruption is the # of photons, and thus exposure level.

So yes, photon gathering is something to think about indeed, you just have to be super nerdy. Not that there's anything wrong with that ;)