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Something in the FastTrack Training data set

Mark Ferguson
in PixInsight
Hi Adam,

I've been working through the FastTrack training and ran across something in the debayered frames that made me go back and look at the original lights. It appears to be a star that is blinking.  It's odd in that between one from and the next it will be shown or hidden.  If it was a hot pixel it would be much smaller and it also doesn't look like a cosmic ray.  If an asteroid, I would expect to see it move between frames rather go dark.  Any idea what this might be?  

Here is a screenshot of the list of files used in blink to see this.

Here is a screenshot showing the readout x,y so you can look at the data natively on your system. 

A video of the area can be seen here which demonstrates the blinking object of interest. 

Sorry for all the links.  I thought I could embed the images directly but it doesn't appear to play nicely with Google Drive.

Curious to hear your thoughts on what this might be or if it's some type of strange sensor/capture anomoly. 

Thank you for the great training!

Mark

Comments

  • BlockHeadBlockHead
    Before I give you an answer... you might want to refine your thinking.
    Note your list of files... You blinking three different nights in sequential triads. 
    So the thing you see "blinking" is likely only appearing on one night..and not the others...right?
    Now... go back and look at the file names (they have the dates) and figure out which night it appears and just blink that night's data..and see what you find...

    -the Blockhead
  • Mark Ferguson
    I see that it wasn't present in the data from the 19th and 20th but was in the 25th.  

    I did a star alignment on all the lights from the 25th and then blinked the resulting set.  

    Given that the object is drifting relative to the background stars my guess is that this is an asteroid.  That or a comet?
  • BlockHeadBlockHead
    Did you see the last section? (The Bonus?)


    -the Blockhead
  • Mark Ferguson
    I haven't made it into the bonus sections yet, but it's good to know that I picked up on this visually and can already use what I've learned to dig in further :thumbsup:
  • BlockHeadBlockHead
    Excellent!
    (that is the point!)
    -the Blockhead
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