On Sun, 05 Mar 2000 19:44:18 -0800, Ken <tyl### [at] pacbellnet> wrote:

>I am not altogether convinced that multiple exposures are necessary. For
>example I was watching a PBS program the other day that talked about the
>formation of new stars. One thing that I noticed in the actual star images
>they were showing was that perhaps one in one thousand stars shown were
>bright enough that they had star shaped flares coming off of them. These
>were present not only in the center of the image but reaching out to the
>edges as well.

To generate the effect in the rendering in question, via photography,
one will need two different star filters to achieve the effect
reliably and predictably. Of course, there is almost always another
way, but what I outlined is probably the most practical method.

One thing you curiously don't address is the idea of some stars having
a different number of "points"compared to other stars in the same
image. Did that PBS program show an image such as that? I doubt it.
Normal lens flare, star filters, and such, produce the same number of
points on each flared highlight. Not all highlights are bright enough
to exhibit the effect noticeably. Of the ones that are, you will find
that they have the same number of points.

Later,
Glen Berry

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