Re: APOD: Comet Lovejoy with M44 (2013 Nov 09)
Posted: Sat Nov 09, 2013 11:05 pm
those M44ians must be very happy to have this comet gracing their skies...........wait a minute .!!!
APOD and General Astronomy Discussion Forum
https://asterisk.apod.com/
The shape of the diffraction pattern is determined by the shape of the aperture. While there times when apodizing masks or specially shaped apertures are desirable (for example, to separate close double star pairs), for most scientific applications an unobstructed circular aperture is generally the ideal. For aesthetic images, it's a matter of choice. Personally, I prefer images without diffraction spikes. But other people like them- enough that they will add them, either optically (by stretching string across the aperture) or by some image processing trick.Nitpicker wrote:I realise that any unresolvable point source of light can only ever be observed as a diffraction pattern. But are some patterns better (or more natural) than others?