Need help with image integration

[Skywatcher76]

Hi everybody. I've been using PI for almost a year, Harys tutorials helped me a lot. Batch Preprocesing tool worked just fine for me. A week ago I was imaging Elephant Trunk nebula for three nights, I've collected around 6 hrs of data. I use Canon 450D modded camera. But I got stuck here, how should I integrate images from all three nights together? Every night I took Light, Bias, Darks and Flats. One night I had meridian flip, so, some of my images are oriented differently, framing differs too. Exposure time is different also. Two nights ISO800 5 minutes frames and one ISO800 7minutes. Is there anyway to put all this together? I'm sure there is, but don't know how to do that. Sorry for, maybe, stupid question. Thank very much for your help guys.

[Juan Conejero]

Hi,

Is there anyway to put all this together?

Just put it all together Load all frames in BatchPreprocessing and let the script do the work for you. Dark frames of the appropriate exposure times will be selected automatically. Meridian flips are no problem at all with our StarAlignment tool. When you use ImageIntegration, it will automatically weigh each frame to produce an optimal result from your dataset.

[pfile]

how about the case when you use a rotator to undo the meridian flip? in that case the flats differ. can the BPP script figure out there are two variables involved in the flat to light matching? (angle and filter)

rob

[Geoff]

how about the case when you use a rotator to undo the meridian flip? in that case the flats differ. can the BPP script figure out there are two variables involved in the flat to light matching? (angle and filter)

rob

It occurs to me that if PI doesn't care about the meridian flip, it may be simpler  to abandon the rotator and only do one set of flats.
Geoff

[pfile]

yes, though some people use rotators because they want to change the framing.

also when using highly automated setups, usually after a meridian flip you do a 180 on the rotator, which puts your guide star back on the guide chip. otherwise your guider FOV is on the other side of the target where there might not be a star. of course i'm talking about systems with an OAG here...

[Skywatcher76]

Thank you very much for your help. I've used BP tool on each set of images separately, then took calibrated, debayered images and did alignment and integration manualy using star alignment and image integration tools.

[sreilly]

Thank you very much for your help. I've used BP tool on each set of images separately, then took calibrated, debayered images and did alignment and integration manualy using star alignment and image integration tools.

There should be a way for the proper flats to be used. I've had this issue for a while now and there is a difference between the East/West flats. Reading the side of pier and matching the side of pier to the images shouldn't be a big problem I would think but then again I'm not a programmer, just a user. I know my acquisition software is working on this for the next update, MaxIm. Right now I use the BatchPreprocessing tool to calibrate and not combine because of this issue.

-Steve