[Paul Haese]

Well did some data capture with Maxim and the QSI over the weekend. Nothing whirl wind but I have heaps of questions and wondered if you gentlemen with way more experience would mind answering if you can.

When capturing why do images look dark and only show the stars even after 8 minutes and yet in Maxim they are stretched to show the data? Are all your images dark when you look at the fits outside of Maxim?

My flats don't appear to show any vignetting or dust motes. Why is this so? I used the white T shirt method and the flat lifeless sky.

Is Luminence more essential than just using RGB data?

For data processing where do I start?

I did the set calibration and then stacking and have auto calibration set but the image is produced really quickly. I have a 4 gig Ram machine and dual core, how fast does this normally take with 6 frames in each channel? How do I know if the calibration files have been subtracted?

Is it better to use the stretch function or the histo specification to brighten images? I used the later for the image below to get it brighter than a dark lifeless image.

How do I use the levels function in process? The tutorials are not very good at covering this?

Should I use CCDsoft or Maxim for both capture and processing? What is everyones opinion?

Well that is about all the questions for now. Anyone want to point me to some tutorials?