Messages

1

General / Re: Bug in the "Save as..." function?

« on: 2012 January 31 23:05:06 »

You know what?  just a more informative error message would help. We are big boys out here (well, I dare believe ) it's much easier to correct on our end than on yours.

The "known issues" list would also be a very helpful feature.

My 2 cents,

Rodolphe

2

Tips & Tricks / Re: (very) noisy Red layer, G and B layers just fine - how to handle this?

« on: 2012 January 31 23:00:45 »

For now the right advise for Rodolphe is to go for longer exposures and to remove the IR filter if possible. Once he's getting exposures that are long enough that he's catching planes and loosing star color, let's tackle that.

That sounds a pragmatic and reasonable advise I just need some clear night sky to be able to test, as snow is not helping much right now!

Thanks Nocturnal and others helping me out in this thread, much appreciated.

Rodolphe

3

Tips & Tricks / Re: (very) noisy Red layer, G and B layers just fine - how to handle this?

« on: 2012 January 30 20:46:36 »

So, in summary, the consensus looks like this:

• subs should follow the 20-30% rule of thumb (histogram read from the back of the camera) - take enough to get a good SNR; bright stars, if any in the FOV, might be over-exposed
• if there are bright stars in the FOV, a series of shorter (faster) subs are taken to do the bright stars and not loose their color, in which case you would do an HDR composition to merge the 2 results

Correct?

4

General / Bug in the "Save as..." function?

« on: 2012 January 29 14:46:03 »

Hi,

I've noticed that if the characters "(" or ")" are present in the full path name, then I receive an error when saving the file:

Writing file:
C:/Users/rodolgo/Pictures/Astro/2012-01-16 IC 434 (Horsehead Nebula)/Traitements/IC 434 DSS test.FTS
*** PCL Exception: PCL FITS Format Support: Unable to create FITS file:
C:/Users/rodolgo/Pictures/Astro/2012-01-16 IC 434 (Horsehead Nebula)/Traitements/IC 434 DSS test.FTS
<* failed *>

Opening it is not an issue, though:

open "file:///C:/Users/rodolgo/Pictures/Astro/2012-01-16 IC 434 (Horsehead Nebula)/Traitements/IC 434 DSS.FTS"
Reading 1 file(s):
C:/Users/rodolgo/Pictures/Astro/2012-01-16 IC 434 (Horsehead Nebula)/Traitements/IC 434 DSS.FTS
Reading FITS: 32-bit floating point, 3 channel(s), 4279x2748 pixels: 100%

Removing the "(" and ")" characters in the path name solves the issue. I've not tried other exotic characters nor other formats...

I'm running this version of PixInsight:

version
PixInsight Core 01.07.04.0759 Starbuck (x86_64)
PCL 01.00.97.0383
Copyright (C) 2003-2011 Pleiades Astrophoto

HTH,

Rodolphe

5

General / Re: What display would you recommend?

« on: 2012 January 29 14:34:02 »

Hi folks,

Thanks for the good advices

Best regards,

Rodolphe

6

Tips & Tricks / Re: (very) noisy Red layer, G and B layers just fine - how to handle this?

« on: 2012 January 28 17:34:43 »

Thanks for your good suggestions guys,

I checked the histogram, the red is not stuck to the left part. Increasing the sub exposures is clearly a way to go, I'll try that next time.

Splitting the channels is another option, but I'm not sure - when recombining, will the color balance be changed compared to before the split?

Thanks!

Rodolphe

7

Tips & Tricks / (very) noisy Red layer, G and B layers just fine - how to handle this?

« on: 2012 January 27 20:50:31 »

Hi everyone,

Using a non-defiltered 1100D Canon DSLR, most of my stacked and pre-processed images reveal a very noisy red layer (not surprisingly though).

Until I get my DSLR modified... do you have any hints on reducing the noise in the red layer, separately from the green and blue layers which are both OK?

Thanks!

Rodolphe

8

General / What display would you recommend?

« on: 2012 January 23 12:16:58 »

Hello everyone,

So far, I'm doing all my image processing on my laptop, a Lenovo W500. I now see the limitations with the display (and in other areas such as processing speed but this is not today's matter). I'm running Win7 64 b, and I'm considering investing in a quality display with a good resolution, but I have no idea of what to look for.

Do you have any "affordable" advice/recommendation ?

Please note I'm living in France (Europe) this would limit the search to widely distributed devices. I'm also familiar with the calibration process, so don't be shy

Thanks in advance for your help,

Rodolphe

9

General Discussion / About Banding Noise reduction (Canon)

« on: 2011 October 19 13:52:17 »

Hello to everyone,

I'm shooting with a Canon 1100D (T3 in the US) and I start seeing noise banding on my shots when exposing over 60 seconds. I'm wondering what is the most appropriate step in the workflow to apply the banding reduction script, and to which frames : light, bias, darks, flats, before or after calibrating/stacking/noise reducting them?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts and precious experience,

Rodolphe