How do I flip mirrored astrophotography images from eyepiece projection on a Sony a6000?
Asked 11/9/2017
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I’m using a Sony a6000 attached to a Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope for eyepiece-projection imaging of solar system objects. With this setup, the captured image appears mirrored compared with the normal orientation I get at prime focus. Is there a camera setting that can correct this, or do I need software to flip the files after capture? If software is the answer, what should I use, especially for JPEG vs RAW files?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
8y ago
2 Answers
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Sure. Just about any editing software can do this. If you are producing JPEG images, one easy way is to use jpegtran, which has an option to mirror either horizontally or vertically, and will do this without any reduction in image quality. (If you open a JPEG image in a photo editor and flip it and resave as JPEG, you will probably get recompression artifacts. But jpegtran will avoid this.)
There are many, many other pieces of software that do this, but watch for the "lossless" gotcha. Or, if you are using RAW, you don't have this worry; just flip the image as part of RAW conversion.
Originally by user1943. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user1943
8y ago
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There usually isn’t a camera setting to correct this in-camera for eyepiece-projection imaging. The practical solution is to flip the image in software after capture.
For RAW files, this is easy: just flip horizontally or vertically during RAW conversion. RawTherapee is a free option that can do this, and it also supports batch processing.
For JPEGs, you can flip them in editors like GIMP, but re-saving a JPEG may introduce recompression artifacts. If you want a lossless JPEG flip, use a tool such as jpegtran or nconvert with JPEG transform options.
If your issue is mainly the live view or preview being reversed while framing, the answers suggest that cameras generally don’t offer that feature. A workaround is to use an external monitor that supports image flipping over HDMI.
So: no known in-camera fix, but flipping afterward in software is straightforward, and RAW is the most flexible workflow for astrophotography.
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