Comet Videos

Bruce Donzanti

Hi Adam

I watched all of the comet videos posted and they are excellent, containing a wealth of information/learning tips.  It is a shame that the workflow involving StarXterminator, which I use a lot these days, along with the resampling, does not seem to be practical with my full frame (3.67 pk) camera + Baby Q (1.69 arcsec/pk) setup, as the processing time was going to be over 5 mins a frame, a total of 7.5 hrs (despite having a fast computer).  My first attempt was with 30 sec exposures of30 frames each of RGB, so not much data (45 minutes).  I had to use the alternate (more traditional method of Comet Align only) workflow in your last comet video and I got an OK initial test result (attached).  I've just collected over 2 hrs of data last night so I am hoping to get a much better result with the tail. I guess I can strongly crop the images but that would defeat the purpose of a wide field view.  One question I have: Why does StarXterminator have to be run on each individual frame vs. integrating the all R, all G, and all B, then run StarXterminator 3 times- once on each color group?  I hope I'm explaning myself clearly.

Bruce    

BlockHead

You cannot integrate the RGB stars with stars right? The comet will be rejected.

If you integrate the comet aligned frames..the stars are streaks and SXT will not remove.

I am currently making my BEST method right now. It still does rely on SXT because it does such a great job minimizing star residuals. So look for another tutorial soon.

Your comet image could be brighter...but I understand if star residuals are an issue.

-the Blockhead

Bruce Donzanti

Looking forward to it.  I collected 1.5 hrs of data under thin clouds in B7 skies and did my best with what I had to work with using the traditional method.  Still not good as the core is bright but no tail to speak of.  Also, Since I do not have the cuda GPU accelerator, doing StarXTerminator on individual frames from a full frame camera isn't practical.