Stacking settings in DSS

[bloodhound31]

Stacking 54 images of the Helix in Deep Sky Stacker, with all manner of light pollution, seeing conditions etc over many nights of capture.

Take a deep breath........

Questions:

Under Stacking Parameters "Result" tab.

1 What if I enable 2 x drizzle? What will it do?

2 What if I enable 2 x drizzle? What will it do?

3 What if I uncheck Align RGB channels in final image?

Under Stacking Parameters "Light" tab.

1 Stacking mode choices: Average, Median, Kappa-Sigma clipping, Median Kappa-sigma clipping, Auto adaptive weighted average, Entropy weighted average (high dynamic range), maximum. These are choices. What is the best selection and why? What does any of it do?

2 When you select any of that Kappa stuff, the fields to the right are default at Kappa 2.0 and Iterations 10. What does this do? Should I change it? If so, what to and why?

3 Debloom checkbox. What is this for?

Under Stacking Parameters "Cosmetic" tab.

1 Detect and clean remaining hot and cold pixels. Should I check the boxes or not? If so, what filter sizes and detection threshholds should the sliders be set on?

If anyone has answers that can be explained to someone with a year ten education only, please help.

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

Are you using a DSLR or CCD?
Deblooming is for CCD cameras.
Are you stacking many subs or just 2 or 3?
Choose "average" if you're only stacking 2 or 3 subs.
Choose "Median" if stacking lots of subs.

I certain it won't be long before someone with much more experience than I will enlighten you further.

[bloodhound31]

Originally Posted by jjjnettie

Are you using a DSLR or CCD?
Deblooming is for CCD cameras.
Are you stacking many subs or just 2 or 3?
Choose "average" if you're only stacking 2 or 3 subs.
Choose "Median" if stacking lots of subs.

I certain it won't be long before someone with much more experience than I will enlighten you further.

Thanks mate! Even that little bit of info tells me "You Rock!"

I am using the Orion Starshoot OS CCD.

As I said, 54 subs. No flats or darks as I already subtracted them from the frames prior to putting into DSS.

Baz.

[aworley (Alex)]

Hi Baz,

I played around a lot with the parameters and didn't really see much improvement of my images, but to answer your questions.....

Stacking Parameters....
1. See a recent DSS Yahoo message.....drizzle is only used when you are trying to put more detail into a small picture....I use it sometimes with my DSP Pro II on galaxies, but usually I don't use it...

2. RGB Align - this will align the R, G, B channels in the pic when using a DSLR or CCD one-shot....I don't bother as I usually mix the colours in PS or IRIS

Stacking Parameters - Light tab ....

I use Kappa Sigma clipping - 2 and 5....there is a tutorial on IRIS that explains Kappa Sigma stuff...
www.saratogaskies.com/articles/cookbook/index.html

High Dynamic Range stuff is for when you have something really dim and really bright...again, I never use it...maybe the pro's on this site know more here...

Cosmetic tab....
I do both hot and cold pixels - 1 and 50% ....again, I fiddled with it and just leave it at that now.....

Not sure if that is helpful, but as a bit of a novice, i just set it like that and not worry too much about it......for my DSLR pics, I sometimes use RGB Channels Background Calibration......


Alex