Latest Comet Processing

Rex Alldredge

I have a number of questions and observations.

1.  You run the starry data through comet alignment and then remove the stars, leaving the comet to be integrated.  In seemed more natural to me to first remove the stars and then run comet alignment.  Does the order matter?

2.  You run each color separately through comet alignment.  Can I not just align all colors at once and not have to fool with selecting the reference  frame so much.

3.  I tried integration without local normalization.  It was pretty much a disaster  So this seems to be an essential step.

4.  My resulting background on the integrated comet is much wavier than yours.  Any ideas here?

5.  You seem to have a fine touch with the clonestamp tool.  Perhaps this is what 25 years experience gets you.

BlockHead

Rex,

1. I am REALLY trying to be clever here. You have neglected a possibility. What if SXT removes part of the comet nucleus? This is a common issue. if you first remove the stars... you cannot use a mask on the comet to save the nucleus because it is moving. Agreed? So you run Comet Alignment on the starry image and then once the comet is registered, IF you need to protect the nucleus... you can make a mask since now the comet is stationary. *Adam bows to thunderous applause.... * :)

What you suggest is fine if you know this will not be the case by testing in advance. But doing my method captures this without testing...and I do not think there is a downside.

2. Yes for the first pass of comet alignment. When you are doing the subtraction of the comet from starry frames no.

3. Yeah, I will again take a bow for figuring out that LN offsets will help quite a bit.

4. Wavier? Star residuals or something else? Number of (bright) stars in a frame will certainly affect cleanness of the background.

5. OK.

-the Blockhead

5.