StarTools

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

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.

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...

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

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/