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There are a number of remote observatory companies in Spain apart from Roboscopes and overall we are very similar in how and what we do, one
small difference between us however is when humidity is very high we do
not close the roof. We still gather data rather than simply close the
roof. The man reason for this as UK astronomers is dew and humidity is
something we deal with 12 months a year and in the UK and if we closed
the roof for humidity we would never open the roof a single night in all
365 of them. So we firmly believe that some data is far better than no data. Others amongst you may disagree with this philosophy and that's the point of this post
This approach mind does come benefits and issues
Let’s start with issues
us work wise because we have to keep on top of High humidity, dew, high
haze, not to mention sub standard data where we simply have to just
resubmit it for the group as a whole.
Every data set get checked with blink and we monitor the weather very
closely this time of year because high haze has a tendency of slipping
past the IR based weather systems because it may only alter the sky
temperature but 1º above clear and for the most part we leave a 3º
differential so the roof is not bouncing open/closed all night like a
yoyo.
Roboscopes staff will always do our best to keep on top of things and
let you know when we have foibles etc however you must also take into
account remote diagnosis of issues takes time unlike popping out into
your backgarden/yard with mark1 eyeball.
So at present we are in a quandary, do we mirror all the other remote
observatory operators we know and close the roof when the humidity is
high or do we leave it open and keep collecting data ?
Obviously for us closing the roof is by far the easier option but in the
very beginning Roboscopes chose not to do this as in our opinion even
with the extra work involved for us and you the members, you can still
get some good data/images during the wet season.
I know some of you are long standing members and will remember last
season was very extending rain wise and the roof remained firmly shut
for long periods. This season seams to be high haze and humidity instead
so far.
However we feel the time has come to draw a line under it being our
decision to make alone and as the members we want your opinion.
So a vote from each member would be fantastic please
High humidity times
1 - Roof open and keep imaging despite it being extra work for all concerned etc etc?
Or
2 - Close the roof until the nudity and other atmospherics get to a lower level
Whichever option gets the most votes on each pier we will simply go with what you ask
Ray, Mike and other dual subscribers may we be so bold as to presume
that your vote would count on any pier you are a subscriber ?
Foot note:
I will say that this year has been the worst of 5 years I have been in
Spain, Pier 3 as well as some others we have never had to even turn the
due control on in previous years so its been a little bit of an eye
opener, Not to mention the complexities of getting extra items stuck in
Spanish customs in this wonderful post Brexit world we now live in
Extra dew control was posted out weeks ago and fingers crossed it should land very soon.
However if we don’t get it right or we mess up then you have our
apologies but believe me it’s not for the want of hard work at our end
but we are only human as dedicated as we are
Steve and the team
small difference between us however is when humidity is very high we do
not close the roof. We still gather data rather than simply close the
roof. The man reason for this as UK astronomers is dew and humidity is
something we deal with 12 months a year and in the UK and if we closed
the roof for humidity we would never open the roof a single night in all
365 of them. So we firmly believe that some data is far better than no data. Others amongst you may disagree with this philosophy and that's the point of this post
This approach mind does come benefits and issues
Let’s start with issues
- Not all subs are good[/*]The user has more work to sorting through and removing below par subs[/*]Overall the data is not as good as it is the rest of the year due to atmospherics[/*]You get all the data warts and all so yes some manual labour is 100% required[/*]
- The roof is open so you get data you would never receive with a closed roof[/*]
us work wise because we have to keep on top of High humidity, dew, high
haze, not to mention sub standard data where we simply have to just
resubmit it for the group as a whole.
Every data set get checked with blink and we monitor the weather very
closely this time of year because high haze has a tendency of slipping
past the IR based weather systems because it may only alter the sky
temperature but 1º above clear and for the most part we leave a 3º
differential so the roof is not bouncing open/closed all night like a
yoyo.
Roboscopes staff will always do our best to keep on top of things and
let you know when we have foibles etc however you must also take into
account remote diagnosis of issues takes time unlike popping out into
your backgarden/yard with mark1 eyeball.
So at present we are in a quandary, do we mirror all the other remote
observatory operators we know and close the roof when the humidity is
high or do we leave it open and keep collecting data ?
Obviously for us closing the roof is by far the easier option but in the
very beginning Roboscopes chose not to do this as in our opinion even
with the extra work involved for us and you the members, you can still
get some good data/images during the wet season.
I know some of you are long standing members and will remember last
season was very extending rain wise and the roof remained firmly shut
for long periods. This season seams to be high haze and humidity instead
so far.
However we feel the time has come to draw a line under it being our
decision to make alone and as the members we want your opinion.
So a vote from each member would be fantastic please
High humidity times
1 - Roof open and keep imaging despite it being extra work for all concerned etc etc?
Or
2 - Close the roof until the nudity and other atmospherics get to a lower level
Whichever option gets the most votes on each pier we will simply go with what you ask
Ray, Mike and other dual subscribers may we be so bold as to presume
that your vote would count on any pier you are a subscriber ?
Foot note:
I will say that this year has been the worst of 5 years I have been in
Spain, Pier 3 as well as some others we have never had to even turn the
due control on in previous years so its been a little bit of an eye
opener, Not to mention the complexities of getting extra items stuck in
Spanish customs in this wonderful post Brexit world we now live in
Extra dew control was posted out weeks ago and fingers crossed it should land very soon.
However if we don’t get it right or we mess up then you have our
apologies but believe me it’s not for the want of hard work at our end
but we are only human as dedicated as we are
Steve and the team
Please ignore my dylexia wherever possible, just be thankful I can control my Tourettes ;)
Things to do, so little time!
Steve
Roboscopes Tea Boy
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Thanks for this post. I am in favor of 1. In my opinion, data should be collected as often as possible. You can still sort out bad data afterwards and keep the good ones. If the amount of good data is not enough, you can request new ones again.
Regards and CS
Darius
Regards and CS
Darius
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>>2 - Close the roof until the nudity and other atmospherics get to a lower level<<
my vote is to keep the roof closed till nudity gets to a lower level ....
Ha Ha
vikas
my vote is to keep the roof closed till nudity gets to a lower level ....
Ha Ha
vikas
>>2 - Close the roof until the nudity and other atmospherics get to a lower level<<
my vote is to keep the roof closed till nudity gets to a lower level ....
Ha Ha
vikas
Noted Vikas
Pier 5 now seems to be coping well with dew now to be honest but atmospherics are still high at present
Steve
Please ignore my dylexia wherever possible, just be thankful I can control my Tourettes ;)
Things to do, so little time!
Steve
Roboscopes Tea Boy
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I do not understand the reason to close the roof when the telescope can handle dew well.
My vote remains 1.
Darius
My vote remains 1.
Darius
I'm for option 1.
It's better to get some good subs even if you have to delete a significant amount of them
If so then you resubmit them.
With the roof closed you don't get a sub at all.
And in PixInsight there is the oppertunity to do image analyses so it doesn't take a whole lot of work.
For the record my choise is also valid for all the other piers involved.
Best regards
Mike
It's better to get some good subs even if you have to delete a significant amount of them
If so then you resubmit them.
With the roof closed you don't get a sub at all.
And in PixInsight there is the oppertunity to do image analyses so it doesn't take a whole lot of work.
For the record my choise is also valid for all the other piers involved.
Best regards
Mike
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My vote is for option 2. I am not convinced that Pier 5 can handle dew well. Many of the images I have looked at over the past month were completely compromised by dew.
Taking lots of poor subs does places extra pressure on the system, including people. More work for us in reducing (and throwing away) the data, more work for the Roboscopes staff in putting the data up for ftp, and more work for all in the re-submission process. I do not think this extra work justifies the marginal gain of maybe getting a few acceptable subframes , when we could all be doing more useful things.
I also worry about the long-terms effects of regularly dewed optics in reduced reflectivity and/or dirty mirrors. Most professional ground-basedobservatories have strict humidity limits. This provides clear guidelines to the staff to close, even when an observer wants to cary on.
For all these reason, the "data at all costs in marginal/poor conditions" is a model that has never been acceptable in professional observatories Hence, I vote for option 2.
Taking lots of poor subs does places extra pressure on the system, including people. More work for us in reducing (and throwing away) the data, more work for the Roboscopes staff in putting the data up for ftp, and more work for all in the re-submission process. I do not think this extra work justifies the marginal gain of maybe getting a few acceptable subframes , when we could all be doing more useful things.
I also worry about the long-terms effects of regularly dewed optics in reduced reflectivity and/or dirty mirrors. Most professional ground-basedobservatories have strict humidity limits. This provides clear guidelines to the staff to close, even when an observer wants to cary on.
For all these reason, the "data at all costs in marginal/poor conditions" is a model that has never been acceptable in professional observatories Hence, I vote for option 2.
[size=100]Personally, I am in favour of Option 1 (not that my vote counts) and my reason is that I firmly believe getting something is better than nothing.
Brian, you joined at a bad time but I asure you when the Weather goes back to it's perfect standard again, you'll be getting more data than you can cope with - which is what we have been saying. And the data is awesome during those times. Steve has pointed out numerous times that the dew this year has been terrible.
Your quote of: For all these reason, the "data at all costs in marginal/poor conditions" is a model that has never been acceptable in professional observatories
Please remember that our prices are a fraction of the cost of other remote imaging institutes and that yes, that means you as users need to do a bit more work and evolve your processes. Your decision is based purely on your experience of the images you received during a terribly dewy period, whereby you highlighted an issue we have never had in the 3 years we have been open and we have taken action according to your feedback. Customs, Brexit and Covid are the current cause of delays. Just remember, as our users have already said, the data is usually extraordinary. You won't be disappointed.
Our practices have evolved over time acording to user feedback and I myself have implemented many features to the user experience to make things easier and more user friendly.
[/size]
Brian, you joined at a bad time but I asure you when the Weather goes back to it's perfect standard again, you'll be getting more data than you can cope with - which is what we have been saying. And the data is awesome during those times. Steve has pointed out numerous times that the dew this year has been terrible.
Your quote of: For all these reason, the "data at all costs in marginal/poor conditions" is a model that has never been acceptable in professional observatories
Please remember that our prices are a fraction of the cost of other remote imaging institutes and that yes, that means you as users need to do a bit more work and evolve your processes. Your decision is based purely on your experience of the images you received during a terribly dewy period, whereby you highlighted an issue we have never had in the 3 years we have been open and we have taken action according to your feedback. Customs, Brexit and Covid are the current cause of delays. Just remember, as our users have already said, the data is usually extraordinary. You won't be disappointed.
Our practices have evolved over time acording to user feedback and I myself have implemented many features to the user experience to make things easier and more user friendly.
[/size]
Phil McCauley
Roboscopes Website Admin
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Hi Phil,
Great points - and frankly I think you should have a vote! I also recognise that your practices are evolving due to feedback. Not least the ability to request removal of submissions, driven _ I suspect - by my own clumsiness I would put significant wieight on what the support staff think is the best apprach.
While my time on the syndicate has been dominated by bad weather, that is not driving my position in this. I would say close in marginal conditions whether it is 10% of the time or 100% of the time. For me QC is at the heart of the issue. I fully recognise the Roboscopes model of a user-driven QC strategy to keep costs, it is just that there are aspects of this approach that don't quite match up (in my view) with the Pier 5 experience i.e. small syndicate, inability to provide weather telemetry.
Some folks like doing it on their own, whereas others prefer the wisdom of crowds (and what info they can access). I am firmly in the latter camp. Vive la difference.
At the highest level, I would note that the Roboscopes mantra is Great location, Great data, great prices. The third is certainly true. But under the current QC model, the second isn't always true (a partial menta perhaps?) which also srisks undermine the first claim. Actually I have no doubt that the site is pretty great for most of the year, but it is not shown in the best light (no pun intended) by the provision of poor data. Actually one great missing from this list is great equipment. Excluding weather events, I was very impressed by the reliability and quality of the rigs.
All this is just feedback, which I hope is helpful. Not trying to sway the vote away from option 1, which I suspect be adopted.
Brian
Great points - and frankly I think you should have a vote! I also recognise that your practices are evolving due to feedback. Not least the ability to request removal of submissions, driven _ I suspect - by my own clumsiness I would put significant wieight on what the support staff think is the best apprach.
While my time on the syndicate has been dominated by bad weather, that is not driving my position in this. I would say close in marginal conditions whether it is 10% of the time or 100% of the time. For me QC is at the heart of the issue. I fully recognise the Roboscopes model of a user-driven QC strategy to keep costs, it is just that there are aspects of this approach that don't quite match up (in my view) with the Pier 5 experience i.e. small syndicate, inability to provide weather telemetry.
Some folks like doing it on their own, whereas others prefer the wisdom of crowds (and what info they can access). I am firmly in the latter camp. Vive la difference.
At the highest level, I would note that the Roboscopes mantra is Great location, Great data, great prices. The third is certainly true. But under the current QC model, the second isn't always true (a partial menta perhaps?) which also srisks undermine the first claim. Actually I have no doubt that the site is pretty great for most of the year, but it is not shown in the best light (no pun intended) by the provision of poor data. Actually one great missing from this list is great equipment. Excluding weather events, I was very impressed by the reliability and quality of the rigs.
All this is just feedback, which I hope is helpful. Not trying to sway the vote away from option 1, which I suspect be adopted.
Brian
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Just had a look at the data for NGC1555. It is not good. Two issues 1) halos again, 2) data won't flat field any longer. I can't really tell which are the bad frames, I suspect all are equally bad. And without weather data, I am not prepared to waste my time in trying to unpick all this. Please re-take entire data in good conditions
Thanks
Birian
Thanks
Birian
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Ok that is new information. I was previously told that Pier 5 had dew bands installed with the implicit message come right when the weather improved.
Indeed, this data was taken shortly after Steve put out a call to submit to the queue because there was a run of good weather coming up.
Evidently not.
You should also look at the flat fields. I cant rule out a mistake on my part, but this is the first time that i have ended up with a grossly non-flat final image using the calibration frames supplied. Indeed you can see the non flatness in the original subs - showing pattern very different to what i have seen before.
I dont want to sound like a difficult customer, but this user-driven QC model essentially puts me
in the uncomfortable position
I want to get good data, and I am trying to
provide feedback. However, U do feel
pretty much a lone vouce and this is making feel really unhappy and stressed.
I think it best if i took no further part in Roboscopes.
i leave it up to you whether you feel an obligation to refund my money.
Indeed, this data was taken shortly after Steve put out a call to submit to the queue because there was a run of good weather coming up.
Evidently not.
You should also look at the flat fields. I cant rule out a mistake on my part, but this is the first time that i have ended up with a grossly non-flat final image using the calibration frames supplied. Indeed you can see the non flatness in the original subs - showing pattern very different to what i have seen before.
I dont want to sound like a difficult customer, but this user-driven QC model essentially puts me
in the uncomfortable position
I want to get good data, and I am trying to
provide feedback. However, U do feel
pretty much a lone vouce and this is making feel really unhappy and stressed.
I think it best if i took no further part in Roboscopes.
i leave it up to you whether you feel an obligation to refund my money.
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Hi Brian,
Of course it is up to them if they want to withdraw from Roboscopes. But I would not recommend it to them. I have also only been a member since mid-October. Unfortunately an inconvenient time due to the bad weather. But bad weather periods happen everywhere. The Roboscopes team is trying hard to make the best of it. I am sure that the data will be better again as soon as the weather is better or the new dew bands are installed.
I also have the problem with the flats at NGC1555. But I was able to fix it with a dynamic background extraction (DBE). I am sure if we ask for new flats, we will get new ones quickly. I still subscribed to Pier 1 at the same time. There were even bigger problems with flats there. Within 1 - 2 days we got new ones. The team is very eager to fulfill the wishes of the customers and reacts quickly to criticism.
Last but not least, we must not forget about the price. Roboscopes is the cheapest remote telescope provider I know. I would recommend you to stay and see the quality of the future images.
Best Regards
Darius
Of course it is up to them if they want to withdraw from Roboscopes. But I would not recommend it to them. I have also only been a member since mid-October. Unfortunately an inconvenient time due to the bad weather. But bad weather periods happen everywhere. The Roboscopes team is trying hard to make the best of it. I am sure that the data will be better again as soon as the weather is better or the new dew bands are installed.
I also have the problem with the flats at NGC1555. But I was able to fix it with a dynamic background extraction (DBE). I am sure if we ask for new flats, we will get new ones quickly. I still subscribed to Pier 1 at the same time. There were even bigger problems with flats there. Within 1 - 2 days we got new ones. The team is very eager to fulfill the wishes of the customers and reacts quickly to criticism.
Last but not least, we must not forget about the price. Roboscopes is the cheapest remote telescope provider I know. I would recommend you to stay and see the quality of the future images.
Best Regards
Darius
Hello Brian,
I am really sorry hear that you feel this way. Please let me go over a few points you have made.
Pier 5 has always had dew bands and as we explained we try to keep them running at a minimum as not to introduce other issues such as tube currents, poor seeing or pinched optics. This year we have seen a huge increase in the amount of humidity and dew. As soon as we knew there was an issue we took no time to send addition dew control to the observatory. We did decide to keep the roof open and get whatever data we could as data can always be resubmitted. With the syndicate piers you can always submit extra data if you feel you are short of usable subs for any object.
New flats were scheduled for this week but after seeing your post I have done a fresh set and these have been uploaded already. However I did have a look at NGC1555 and have calibrated the data with the old flats and found them to be correcting very well. Please see the example of a single frame calibrated only no DBE correction at all. (I am using Pixinsight and calibrating fully manually with non of the third party scrips, I found I have more control this way. The down side it is long winded).
NGC1555 is an extremely challenging object and does require the best conditions possible. The site is more than capable of delivering good data but with the recent conditions we have seen it makes it a bit more of a challenge to process. I have taken a good look at the data and this is what I have come up with. It has a slight haze to it but nothing that detracts especially considering the season we are in. It is well worth you having a go at processing it yourself as I consider the data pretty good.
We do encourage feedback good or bad as we are a very passionate team who only want to improve our services. The whole idea of Roboscopes is to bring affordable imaging to everyone and not just those with deep pockets. Spain will never have skies like Chile and so weather will be an issue from time to time I think our pricing reflects that.
It would be a shame to loose you as a customer but equally you should not be feeling stressed about it, imaging should be fun and not stressful.
Kind regards
Peter Shah
I am really sorry hear that you feel this way. Please let me go over a few points you have made.
Pier 5 has always had dew bands and as we explained we try to keep them running at a minimum as not to introduce other issues such as tube currents, poor seeing or pinched optics. This year we have seen a huge increase in the amount of humidity and dew. As soon as we knew there was an issue we took no time to send addition dew control to the observatory. We did decide to keep the roof open and get whatever data we could as data can always be resubmitted. With the syndicate piers you can always submit extra data if you feel you are short of usable subs for any object.
New flats were scheduled for this week but after seeing your post I have done a fresh set and these have been uploaded already. However I did have a look at NGC1555 and have calibrated the data with the old flats and found them to be correcting very well. Please see the example of a single frame calibrated only no DBE correction at all. (I am using Pixinsight and calibrating fully manually with non of the third party scrips, I found I have more control this way. The down side it is long winded).
NGC1555 is an extremely challenging object and does require the best conditions possible. The site is more than capable of delivering good data but with the recent conditions we have seen it makes it a bit more of a challenge to process. I have taken a good look at the data and this is what I have come up with. It has a slight haze to it but nothing that detracts especially considering the season we are in. It is well worth you having a go at processing it yourself as I consider the data pretty good.
We do encourage feedback good or bad as we are a very passionate team who only want to improve our services. The whole idea of Roboscopes is to bring affordable imaging to everyone and not just those with deep pockets. Spain will never have skies like Chile and so weather will be an issue from time to time I think our pricing reflects that.
It would be a shame to loose you as a customer but equally you should not be feeling stressed about it, imaging should be fun and not stressful.
Kind regards
Peter Shah
Hi Darius,
If you can let me know your calibrating work flow, I maybe able to help you with the flat issue you are getting.
Cheers
Peter
If you can let me know your calibrating work flow, I maybe able to help you with the flat issue you are getting.
Cheers
Peter
Peter Shah - Collimation & Telescope servicing.
Visit my personal imaging website at astropix.co.uk
For Image Processing Tutorials
Contact: pete@ccdimaging.co.uk
We can supply your new high quality Newtonian or Dall Kirkham Astrograph
Visit my personal imaging website at astropix.co.uk
For Image Processing Tutorials
Contact: pete@ccdimaging.co.uk
We can supply your new high quality Newtonian or Dall Kirkham Astrograph
Peter Shah
Roboscopes Observatory Controller
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Hello Peter,
I use Astro Pixel Processor for stacking. I load all images there and the program does the rest for me. After stacking, the image of NGC1555 looked a bit uneven. But I could solve the problem with a DBE. Therefore I don't need any further help for the calibration. The only thing that still bothers me are the halos. Do you have any tips how to reduce them in Photoshop or Pixinsight?
Regards
Darius
I use Astro Pixel Processor for stacking. I load all images there and the program does the rest for me. After stacking, the image of NGC1555 looked a bit uneven. But I could solve the problem with a DBE. Therefore I don't need any further help for the calibration. The only thing that still bothers me are the halos. Do you have any tips how to reduce them in Photoshop or Pixinsight?
Regards
Darius
Hi Darius, That's a lovely process, This type of object will always show any haze that is present as generally the signal sits very close to noise floor, its just the way dark nebula is....because you have to push the process so much further the glow in the brighter signal areas tend to show more....
One way to tackle it is in Photoshop, Set the gradient tool to 'radial' in quick mask mode. Then you can make a selection to the bright star regions then reduce the glow with levels, curves or even brightness and contrast, sometimes adding a little contrast helps. If you are using curves you will need to reduce the saturation slightly. It is best to tackle each star separately. That's one way.
Hope this helps you
Peter
One way to tackle it is in Photoshop, Set the gradient tool to 'radial' in quick mask mode. Then you can make a selection to the bright star regions then reduce the glow with levels, curves or even brightness and contrast, sometimes adding a little contrast helps. If you are using curves you will need to reduce the saturation slightly. It is best to tackle each star separately. That's one way.
Hope this helps you
Peter
Peter Shah - Collimation & Telescope servicing.
Visit my personal imaging website at astropix.co.uk
For Image Processing Tutorials
Contact: pete@ccdimaging.co.uk
We can supply your new high quality Newtonian or Dall Kirkham Astrograph
Visit my personal imaging website at astropix.co.uk
For Image Processing Tutorials
Contact: pete@ccdimaging.co.uk
We can supply your new high quality Newtonian or Dall Kirkham Astrograph
Peter Shah
Roboscopes Observatory Controller
0
Undo
Votes
Dear Peter and Darius,
Thank you so much for you helpful feedback. This responsiveness to feedback and willingness to help other member members of the syndicate is exactly how I imagined it would be.
I will stay on, but probably take more of a back seat in suggesting targets, since I an probably pushing the rig a little to far in terms of challenging targets.
I am delighted to see the new flat fields for Pier 5, although I also concede Darius' point about solving the problem with DBE. However, I am pretty much old school on this, i.e. the flat fields should take out all the non-flatteners and if there is a gradient of large-scale non-flatness left, then your flat wasn't good enough or you have light pollution from somewhat on site. In this case is was clear that the flats had changed, and I was providing the feedback in the spirit of the user-driven QC model.
I think Peter has done a remarkable job in reducing the halos (and in the image reduction overall), but iii it takes Photoshop to do this then II might give this a pass. I don't have and have never used PS. Following earlier suggestions that I could do better with my initial processing (on the Helping Hand), I purchased APP, but discovered no appreciable difference in the result. As a result,I am also a bit wary of getting into more software and more expense. [No doubt Roboscopes is very affordable, but less so if more and more software packages are needed to make use of the data].
If only there was a way to remove halos in PI. I know there a number of recipes using a combination of masks and wavelet transforms out there (and also HDR MultiscaleTransform) but I have never found those readies very effective.
Thanks for all the help.
Brian
Thank you so much for you helpful feedback. This responsiveness to feedback and willingness to help other member members of the syndicate is exactly how I imagined it would be.
I will stay on, but probably take more of a back seat in suggesting targets, since I an probably pushing the rig a little to far in terms of challenging targets.
I am delighted to see the new flat fields for Pier 5, although I also concede Darius' point about solving the problem with DBE. However, I am pretty much old school on this, i.e. the flat fields should take out all the non-flatteners and if there is a gradient of large-scale non-flatness left, then your flat wasn't good enough or you have light pollution from somewhat on site. In this case is was clear that the flats had changed, and I was providing the feedback in the spirit of the user-driven QC model.
I think Peter has done a remarkable job in reducing the halos (and in the image reduction overall), but iii it takes Photoshop to do this then II might give this a pass. I don't have and have never used PS. Following earlier suggestions that I could do better with my initial processing (on the Helping Hand), I purchased APP, but discovered no appreciable difference in the result. As a result,I am also a bit wary of getting into more software and more expense. [No doubt Roboscopes is very affordable, but less so if more and more software packages are needed to make use of the data].
If only there was a way to remove halos in PI. I know there a number of recipes using a combination of masks and wavelet transforms out there (and also HDR MultiscaleTransform) but I have never found those readies very effective.
Thanks for all the help.
Brian
[size=100]Hi Brian, I am happy to see that you have decided to stay.
We work with everyone to try and find amicable solutions to the issues that arise and it is indeed nice that our Syndicate members are happy to help each other out as they do
I understand your reluctance to pay for something like photoshop as I myself share that reluctance, however I do know there are a multiude of programs out there and it's pretty much "try them out until you find one your comfortable with" - Just keep at it, you'll find something - Perhaps some fellow users can recommend a suitable alternative.[/size]
We work with everyone to try and find amicable solutions to the issues that arise and it is indeed nice that our Syndicate members are happy to help each other out as they do
I understand your reluctance to pay for something like photoshop as I myself share that reluctance, however I do know there are a multiude of programs out there and it's pretty much "try them out until you find one your comfortable with" - Just keep at it, you'll find something - Perhaps some fellow users can recommend a suitable alternative.[/size]
Phil McCauley
Roboscopes Website Admin
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Hi Phil and Peter,
I thought I would attach the Helping Hand image that I finished up with.
1) I used the new flats to reduce the last set of data. And they worked perfectly. Thank you.
2) The last set of data still had halos, but I did the trick of restricting myself to only those frames before midnight which helped reduce the halos. [in PI, I find it really pick to pick the dew affected frames from any parameters in SubFrameExtractor, or even visually using Blink.]
3) I combined these frames with the "before midnight' frames from the previous two runs to give me a total of 230 frames. A little over 19 hours. Wow.
4) The ifinal stacked image was still a little noisy - much noise than I expected from 19 hours - but I guess this is indicative of the thin fog/haze that must have been about during the observations - even before the dew set in.
5) However, with some post-processing I managed to get the noise down, without I hope making it look too plastic-y,, and tried to replicate what Peter had done in Photoshop using my more cruder knowledge of PI (a combination of PixelMath, Convolution to produce a bespoke mask for each star and Histogram Transformation to subdue them/
Overall its been a bit of work, but thanks to the advice and the new flats, I think the result is not bad given the conditions. No doubt the rest of the syndicate will be able to do a lot better and I look forward to seeing the results. But for now, this is now an image I think does the rig justice on Astrobin.
Brian
I thought I would attach the Helping Hand image that I finished up with.
1) I used the new flats to reduce the last set of data. And they worked perfectly. Thank you.
2) The last set of data still had halos, but I did the trick of restricting myself to only those frames before midnight which helped reduce the halos. [in PI, I find it really pick to pick the dew affected frames from any parameters in SubFrameExtractor, or even visually using Blink.]
3) I combined these frames with the "before midnight' frames from the previous two runs to give me a total of 230 frames. A little over 19 hours. Wow.
4) The ifinal stacked image was still a little noisy - much noise than I expected from 19 hours - but I guess this is indicative of the thin fog/haze that must have been about during the observations - even before the dew set in.
5) However, with some post-processing I managed to get the noise down, without I hope making it look too plastic-y,, and tried to replicate what Peter had done in Photoshop using my more cruder knowledge of PI (a combination of PixelMath, Convolution to produce a bespoke mask for each star and Histogram Transformation to subdue them/
Overall its been a bit of work, but thanks to the advice and the new flats, I think the result is not bad given the conditions. No doubt the rest of the syndicate will be able to do a lot better and I look forward to seeing the results. But for now, this is now an image I think does the rig justice on Astrobin.
Brian
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