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Old 02-12-2019, 09:34 AM
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The_bluester (Paul)
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Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: Kilmore, Australia
Posts: 3,365
Looks nice. Much nicer star shapes in the corners than my ED72 gives.

A couple of data calibration tips for the 294.

Darks are pretty easy to shoot with that cam. I create a master dark in Astro Pixel Processor for whatever length sub I am using by shooting at least 50 darks at the time and temperature (You might or might not be able to get down to -15 in summer, I used -10 last summer but have been able to get to -15 so far this spring even on those couple of really hot days) I was using the same master darks for about six months before I noticed any problems and shot new ones.

Flat frames, again you want at least 50 to make a master flat for your cam/scope combo, and they want to be 5 seconds or more which will probably require you to use a flat panel or box of some sort. I aim for 30,000ADU. Don't use bias frames but do shoot dark flats of the same length as the flats to calibrate them. You need to reshoot them more or less any time you rotate any part of the image train or if you remove anything and refit it, as new dust bunnies are inevitable. If you can stick to the same flat frame time you should be able to reuse the dark flat for months though to generate the master flat. Remember not to touch the focus position or camera rotation.

I have been using Astro Pixel Processor since about March, loosing that now would be like cutting my leg off!

I am not sure how it would go with the filter you are using but have you tried the "Calibrate star colours" tool? To use that, first you need to run the "Calibrate background" tool on the integration (tab 9 after you integrate) and make sure you select a couple of areas that do not have nebulosity for the select boxes.

The star colour tool will ask you to make at least one select box. Try to drag out a reasonable area but again, avoid nebulosity. You can select a number of areas in the image if you need to to get a good number of stars. I have found that tool to be sensitive to what outlier rejection filter you use (If you are using one) and for the 294 have found of the "LN" (Local normalisation) filters to look fine cosmetically but produce a hideous green cast when the colour calibration tool is run.

Since I have found that, for under 20 light subs I use quality/median for the integration, LNC 1 and say 5 iterations (It will usually call it quits after about 3) and no outlier rejection filter. For greater than 20 subs, use quality/average, the same LNC settings and MAD-Windsor for outlier rejection filter.
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