90%, Waxing, gibbous Moon in 16 bits, with AstroDMx Capture for Linux

90%, waxing, gibbous Moon tonight. Captured as 2 overlapping 16bit SER movie files, using AstroDMx Capture for Linux, an f/5.5 ED refractor mounted on an iOptron Cube Pro, AZ GOTO mount and a QHY 5L-II-M camera. The SER files were stacked in Autostakkert! 2.6, stitched in Microsoft ICE and wavelet processed in Registax 5.1, all running in Wine. The final image was processed in the Gimp 2.9 and Pinta. It should be noted that the QHY camera has a 12 bit ADC not a 16 bit ADC. This means that images are captured with 4,096 levels of brightness (not 65,534 levels as with a 16 bit ADC) The 12 bit data are however, placed in a 16 bit container at capture time. Nevertheless, 4,096 levels are an improvement on 256 levels of 8 bits. 12-16 bits will be more valuable for deep sky images with wide dynamic range objects.

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