Removal of Spikes from Reflector Telescope Images

[astronomynut]

I was wondering if there is a way to remove the spikes from the images I will soon be taking through my Third Planet Optics RC8 telescope. I know some people love seeing those spikes. I am not one of those people. I like round stars. I feel the spikes are distracting, especially the very bright to medium bright stars that occasionally pop up in images. Caley

[Amaranthus]

Best best is to use the "Synth" module - this allows you to modify the stars in various ways, including removing or modifying diffraction spikes, and even completely replacing your originals. YMMV.

[admin]

Removing diffraction spikes completely is pretty difficult and YMMV indeed with the tools available (Heal and Synth). The best answer is - unfortunately - "use a refractor"...

There are nice aspects of having diffraction spikes though. They can help with color calibration, converying color temperature and give a better sense of stars' luminosities. But then, I'm one of those weird people that actually like them...

[astronomynut]

Thanks so much. Guess I will have to live with the spikes. I only got the 8" RC so that I could get a bit more focal length to make some of these tiny objects a bit bigger. Even some of the Messier objects are small, and my 102 APO refractor just barely lets me see them well enough for me to extract a little structure. Caley

[Amaranthus]

You can always drizzle-stack your APO images to improve their pixel resolution. I managed to image a fairly small planetary nebula at 480mm focal length, thanks to drizzling! http://www.astrobin.com/125368/