what am I doing wrong? Issues with image calibration/integration

[georgian82]

Hi guys,

I have not been able to process any good images after upgrading to the last version of PI which is really frustrating and I hope that someone can point me in the right direction.

My data was consists of 85 x 3 min frames taken with a Nikkor 180mm f/2.8 at f/4 and Olympus EPM2 (micro four thirds). I am attaching three pictures, one is a single light frame that was debayered, stretched and I applied DBE to it, the second is the fully processed image and the third is a crop of the second one. I did processed the second image slightly to accentuate the issue...For some reason, the data gets really distorted in the stacked image...is almost as the pixels got damaged for lack of better description. It just doesn't look natural and it is really hard to process it.

I know the data is good judging by the single frame. I put the camera inside my cooling box and was taking pictures at 35F and the night had been very clear with great transparency.

Here is what my processing looks like (following Light Vortex tutorial):

1) Make super bias frame
2) Calibrate dark frames with super bias
3) Make master dark with super bias calibration
4) Calibrate light frames with master dark and super bias
5) Debayer calibrated light frames
6) Register debayered/calibrated light frames
7) Stack aligned/debayered/calibrated light frames (local normalization and drizzle option checked)
8) Drizzle 2x2

I have been using this method since the previous version (except local normalization) with great success so I am not sure what I am doing wrong. I can make my data available to anybody who wants to play around with it.

I appreciate your help!

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/w8vjgbmzh8z6lht/AAAy82cgTMXT6wFH9y-rYULLa?dl=0

[jamesRC]

Christopher,

I'm afraid I may be too much of a newbie to offer you help. I don't understand exactly what your problem is except that you say your results are inferior to what you did before your upgrade.

Me, I'm a total newbie and struggling with really basic things.

My problem is not the same as yours. I have just worked out that defective darks were responsible for my hassles, so I'd say that is appears to be very different from your problem. You certainly put a lot of care into what you do. I'd like to see what you consider a successful image, but I still might not have much useful to tell you. I'm sorry! Success be with you.

James

[georgian82]

Hi James,

I appreciate your reply even though you were not able to provide much help. This is what I consider a clean image (taking into account my limited equipment):

http://www.astrobin.com/full/310852/0/?nc=user

That is the last image I was able to process with the previous version of PI before I upgraded to the new version of PI. That picture was taken with exactly the same equipment as the one I am having issues with and the processing was kept the same as well.

Thanks again,

Sebastian

[pfile]

i am guessing that your settings in DSLR_RAW got reset when you installed the new version. assuming you were opening the raw files as mono CFA files, try going into the Format Explorer tab on the left, double click DSLR_RAW and then click the button for "pure raw" and click OK.

rob

[georgian82]

Hi Rob,

I checked the settings that you mentioned and they are correct. As a matter of fact when I transfer the pictures to PI console it opens them as monochrome and I have to debayer them first.

Thanks for the help!

Sebastian

[georgian82]

I may have solved part of the issue. During image integration process, I changed the normalization tab over to "additive with scaling" instead of "additive" and that gave me a good result. This was without any local normalization data by the way.

Now the issue is that when I went to drizzle that integrated image that looks pretty good to me (the way I was expecting it to be), the drizzled data come out distorted again...