Author Topic: how to remove dust with artificial flats or other technique  (Read 8311 times)

Offline afigueroa

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Hi all

I am not able to take darks, bias or flats with my orion color camera so my photos i have always taked without this important steps. Yesterday we had high wings during exposure and a lot of dust was in the air and in the optics.

After processed my photo in PI with DBE i founded that it removed vignetting very well but not dust glowing marks...

What ideas or recommendations can you give me to remove them without using flats??? :sealed:

Regards
Antonio


Offline sreilly

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Re: how to remove dust with artificial flats or other technique
« Reply #1 on: 2011 December 31 11:30:18 »
What prevents you from taking these calibration frames? I mean all the software I'm familiar with that controls CCD cameras allow these frames to be generated. What software are you using? Is it that you don't understand how to take these calibration frames? I'm at a loss here. If your software is that limiting maybe you need a better camera control software like MaxImDl. You can get a working demo by going to their site and filling out a request form and they e-mail the download demo link to you. Not affiliated with MaxIm at all. I also use ACP for automated imaging which also includes sky flats. Of course it needs to be perfectly clear to do these. You could also look up building a flat box to use.
« Last Edit: 2011 December 31 11:44:54 by sreilly »
Steve
www.astral-imaging.com
AP1200
OGS 12.5" RC
Tak FSQ-106ED
ST10XME/CFW8/AO8
STL-11000M/FW8/AO-L
Pyxis 3" Rotator
Baader LRGBHa Filters
PixInsight/MaxIm/ACP/Registar/Mira AP/PS CS5

Offline sigurd

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Re: how to remove dust with artificial flats or other technique
« Reply #2 on: 2011 December 31 11:38:29 »
Ummm, I realize what I'm about to say may seem less than helpful... but why can't you take calibration frames? You should be able to take calibration frames with an OSC camera. Just capture them as monochrome, and use those just as you would a monochrome camera, then convert to color later... I used to do this with my DSLR all the time. This should be fairly easy, especially if using MaximDL to capture, since it should be capturing the raw monochrome (with Bayering pattern embedded).

Those look fairly large to me, so there are probably a couple of dust specs on your field flattener? you might try dusting them off. You can calculate what optical surface they are on by using this handy-dandy online calculator:

http://www.ccdware.com/resources/dust.cfm

-esy
”My punctuality is well known. When The Revolution takes place, I'll be late, and I'll be shot as a traitor.”

Offline afigueroa

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Re: how to remove dust with artificial flats or other technique
« Reply #3 on: 2011 December 31 13:43:53 »
 :) sorry let me explain better, i dont take flats, darks because i dont have time to do it :) i can use my telescope very specific times and when i can i use all the time for light frames, and have the optics equal to take in another day flats or darks is near to impossible, so it is not a tecnical limitation.

Nevertheless, meanwhile i can do it, what can i do with my recent photos, is any way, method in PI you can recommend to remove them?

I appreciate your help, feel free if you want to show me an example with my photo.

Regards
Antonio

Offline sreilly

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Re: how to remove dust with artificial flats or other technique
« Reply #4 on: 2011 December 31 14:18:03 »
Darks and bias frames can be taken anytime and aren't subject to same focus, in fact the camera doesn't even need to be mounted on the telescope. As for flats, the focus does need to be reasonably close but not critical so noting the focus position at the end of any session or simply not moving the focuser should get you close enough. Then you simply need to find a means of evenly illuminating the CCD chip like by using a light box, tee shirt flats or any number of other ways. In fact I'm taking flats now in the observatory using a piece of display graphics backlit film over the end of the telescope with a white cloth illuminated by means of two lamps about 5' back with one on each side at maybe a 45 degree angle. The only reason being that I now have some high clouds and that doesn't do well for sky flats. There are plenty of ways to do these calibration frames but it will take some time and not necessarily quality imaging nights. Darks on cloudy nights indoors and same with bias frames. Build a library of re-usable frames. I usually image with 15, 20 and 30 minute exposures and can easily do -35 degrees during winter months but usually do -35, -30, -25, -20 and so on depending on the season. My darks and bias frames are usually done about every 5-6 months depending on temperature range of the current season. I only take bias frames yearly. Flats as needed. I use a rotator so sometimes I take at different rotated angles if the other flats aren't working satisfactorily. Depends how much of a purist you are. But you need calibration frames for decent images or in my opinion you're wasting your time.
Steve
www.astral-imaging.com
AP1200
OGS 12.5" RC
Tak FSQ-106ED
ST10XME/CFW8/AO8
STL-11000M/FW8/AO-L
Pyxis 3" Rotator
Baader LRGBHa Filters
PixInsight/MaxIm/ACP/Registar/Mira AP/PS CS5

Offline marekc

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Re: how to remove dust with artificial flats or other technique
« Reply #5 on: 2011 December 31 15:59:39 »
I don't know how big the aperture of your telescope is, nor how big the dew shield is, but if it's small enough, you might be able to use an iPad as a light box for shooting flats. I have gotten good results using my iPad and a medium-grey image as a light box. I use an 80mm refractor, and the dew shield is smaller than the iPad screen. It's probably worth losing some light-frame time in order to shoot flats.

- Marek

Offline afigueroa

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Re: how to remove dust with artificial flats or other technique
« Reply #6 on: 2012 January 01 00:29:36 »
Ok guys thanks for your replies, i will try with the ipad i am usign a megrez 90.

I am still dealing trying to figure out how to correct the photo, righ now i tried to use a star mask and thenuse clone stamp to work with the background but it not respet the mask and it is very slow and detailed work  :-X so any idea to correct it with some proccesing technique is appreciated.

Best regards
Antonio

Offline skoop

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Re: how to remove dust with artificial flats or other technique
« Reply #7 on: 2012 January 10 10:50:42 »
Afigueroa, what you need is this: http://www.gerdneumann.net/v2/english/eng_aurora_flatfield_panels.html
You can take your flats when ever you have time and you do not have to wait for clear blue sky.
Our weather, over here, is so bad that I average about 5 hours of clear sky per 30 days (Once I had to wait over 90 days in a row!). Obviously, I can not waste it for sky flats :)

Cheers!

Offline jmtanous

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Re: how to remove dust with artificial flats or other technique
« Reply #8 on: 2012 January 10 13:56:41 »
Antonio,

IMHO the easiest way to deal with dust donuts is with  flats. If you are careful you can take flats at another time different from you image session.

Anyway, this is a technique useful for removing dust donuts from an image.

http://pixinsight.com/tutorials/master-frames/en.html
Take a look to this section:
2. Multiscale Image Integration

Hope this help!

Cheers,

Jose