From NT$100,000 to NT$5 Million in Gear, It All Points to the Same Thing: Image Processing

Over my years in astrophotography, I’ve used gear costing under NT$100,000, and I’ve also used gear in the NT$5 million class. These two wildly different extremes share one thing in common: no matter how expensive the equipment, it all comes down to the same thing in the end—image processing.

And the more you spend on equipment, the more you need image processing. Image processing is probably the part of this hobby that costs the least yet is most worth investing in—and yet it also happens to be the part fewest people are willing to invest in.

When I first started shooting a few videos and writing a few articles, it honestly wasn’t to teach anyone—it was to keep a record for myself, in case I forgot something later and could go back and review it. That decision has proved well worth it: more than once over these two years, when I’d forgotten some step, I brought the memory back by leaning on the videos I’d recorded and the articles I’d written; they served as a great reminder.

My sources of learning were mainly a handful of professional and amateur astronomers abroad, and I essentially started from scratch. Over these two years I’ve put in hundreds of hours—just practice, and more practice.

I’ve always believed it’s not impossible for a beginner to learn to do image processing with advanced software; it all depends on how much time and money you’re willing to put in. Nor is there any rule that software must be learned step by step—you don’t have to learn DSS first, then APP, and only touch PixInsight last. It’s rather like a beginner buying a Takahashi telescope right out of the gate: not many people do it, but that doesn’t make it unworkable.

Everyone understands their hobbies differently. For my part, I run this one as though it were a job. As for whether you can actually make money from this hobby? Personally I think it’s very hard, though not entirely out of the question.

I greatly admire many of the senior enthusiasts, at home and abroad, who—though most of them don’t work in an astronomy-related industry—are willing to pour so much effort into sharing information and techniques; that selflessness moves me deeply. And so, in what time I have outside of work, I hope to share a little of the relevant knowledge in my head, so that teaching and learning may enrich each other—which is really a gain for both the one who shares and the one who learns.