It’s easy to forget when we’re imaging in the backyard that the things we’re doing – polar aligning, focussing etc are exactly the same things professional observatories and even space telescopes are doing – just on a larger scale.
This was made clear this week when Gemini observatory and Hubble collaborated on this stunning Infared portrait of Jupiter where they made mention of the “lucky imaging” technique which is where many exposures are collected, then graded and selected based on the resulting quality. This allows the final image to be made of only the best frames.
The image is an aesthetic bonus of course to the actual science being done here, probing Jupiters Great Red Spot (GRS) to determine whether dark patches there were voids or dark material by comparing ground based IR images with optical ones from Hubble.
For more information check the Gemini observatory site here : https://www.gemini.edu/pr/gemini-gets-lucky-and-takes-deep-dive-jupiter-s-clouds