PhotometricColorCalibration

[armyortho]

Howdy, all.  First time poster here.

I am trying my damndest to get PhotometricColorCalibration to work, but haven't had any success on 6 different images, all attempted at several different times though processing.  I get the message that it can't plate solve the image.

I'm on a Tak FSQ-106EDX4 and am shooting a Canon 70D with a CLS filter.  Nothing fancy.

It won't solve M1, M5, IC 2177, IC 443, The Veil, or M42.

I'm setting the date, focal length, pixel size, and am searching for the coordinates with the process, but when it runs, all I get is an error message.

Any tips?  I can find zero documentation online about how or even when to use it in the processing.

Many thanks.

Bill Jordan

[vicent_peris]

Hi Bill,

Please could you upload one of your images?

Please take into account that PCC should be applied before stretching the image.

I'm preparing an online article about this tool.

Best regards,
Vicent.

[RickS]

Have you tried using the ImageSolver script to plate solve the image?  Then you can use the Acquire from Image button in PCC.

I have sometimes had problems getting colour images to solve.  It may be worth extracting the Lightness and solving the resulting monochrome image.  Another option, and what I normally do, is to plate solve the original registration reference image.

One other thought: you might need to adjust the Limit Magnitude in ImageSolver.

Cheers,
Rick.

[armyortho]

Have you tried using the ImageSolver script to plate solve the image?  Then you can use the Acquire from Image button in PCC.

Can't get imageSolver to see it either.

Can't do PCC with a lightness extraction as it requires a color image, but I did try ImageSolver with a lightness extraction and it wasn't successful either.

[armyortho]

Hi Bill,

Please could you upload one of your images?

Which image?  RAW.cr2?  a .jpg of that RAW, or the 890MB Drizzle Integration?

[RickS]

If it's a drizzle integration did you adjust the plate solve parameters to match the new image scale?

[armyortho]

Probably not, as I'm not quite sure what that means.  Lemme see if I can play with it a bit to figure that part out.

Are there inputs in the plate solving section of the PCC that I can adjust to compensate for the drizzle integration?  I'm not seeing any.

[RickS]

If you did a drizzle with a scale of 2 then put in half your actual pixel size.  I have 9um pixels on my camera and if I drizzle with a scale of 2 I need to specify a pixel size for plate solving of 4.5um.

[armyortho]

If you did a drizzle with a scale of 2 then put in half your actual pixel size.  I have 9um pixels on my camera and if I drizzle with a scale of 2 I need to specify a pixel size for plate solving of 4.5um.

Gave it a shot.  No luck.

 I can plate solve them as astrometry.net.  just can't get it solved here.

http://nova.astrometry.net/user_images/1731801#annotated

[RickS]

Gave it a shot.  No luck.

 I can plate solve them as astrometry.net.  just can't get it solved here.

http://nova.astrometry.net/user_images/1731801#annotated

astrometry.net is a blind solver and uses a lot more data and probably computation time.  ImageSolver relies on the parameters being approximately correct and may require some tuning of parameters.

Can you compress your drizzle integration down to a reasonable size (e.g. extract lightness so it is monochrome and convert to 16-bit integer format with SampleFormatConversion) and make it available for download?

[chrisvdberge]

In my experience it can make a huge difference what magnitude stars you limit to and what catalog you are using.
Make sure it matches approximately what you have in your image.

[armyortho]

Managed to get it to solve.

I think it was the time.  I had the correct date, but not the time (didn't change it to Zulu).  Managed to run accurately foc IC 443.  If I run into any other issues, I'll post back here.

Thanks again so much for all your help!

[Marzio]

Hi, I apologize for using "google translate".
I have the same problem, Taka FS106 EDX IV with Eos 60d CentralDS.
On image shot with other optics no problem PCC works correctly and fast (Canon EF 200 f / 2.0 and SamYang 135 f / 2.0m) (Eos 6d and Eos 60d).
This is the link to the image today that I can not process with PCC, hope not be too big, http://www.marziobambini.it/images/photoscratch/mb_20170822_60c201708230242_pi_v1.xisf
The data I used was derived from astrometry.net.
I also tried to change the sensitivity parameter to reduce the star number, but nothing.
For more help I also attach two screen save and the link below to AstroBin http://www.astrobin.com/308654/?nc=user (the published image has been calibrated to the old ... ColorCalibration).

Can you help me?

Thank you so much, CS.

Marzio

[Marzio]

Sorry I saw the file does not allow access to the file, how can I send it?

[vicent_peris]

Hi Marzio,

Could you please upload the file to Dropbox? I will take a look to see what happens. The parameters in PCC seem OK to me.

Thanks,
Vicent.