From: Milton Aupperle <milton@outcastsoft.com>

Date: August 11, 2009 9:33:53 AM MDT

To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Re: [Astro_IIDC] trying again...

Hi Mark;

You can't really comment on something unless you know what the source is and what the result was, and all we have here is a stacking log file as a Jpeg instead of text. And I think I've already commented on this log too.

First off, you should not be using "Noise Reduction" with "Light Sharpening", that produces a blurry stack. The only time you should be using the Noise Reduction if your using medium or higher sharpness to reduce the noise before sharpening is applied.  I do use "Noise Reduction" with  "Light Sharpening" when stacking the R G B star / DSO images (it makes the star colors look better when I combine the L R G B image), but I turn both off for the Luma star / DSO stack. For lunar I use light or none and for some planetary, I may go as high as medium.

Secondly, save some CPU cycles and don't use high quality bayer, especially if your just trying things out to see what you get for a result.. It slows things down a lot. Once you know that you have selected good parameters, then turn it on and process final. When you've shot and processed many terra bytes of video like I have, you'll likely be able to just use high quality bayer all the time.

Thirdly, do not check mark "Adjust pixel area brightness if frame brightness changes." for lunar, solar, planetary images, that can cause poor or no pixel matching if your scope has poor tracking. I explained why in detail on page 35 of the Astro IIDC manual and also the exceptions to the rule too.

Lastly unless your camera gains / brightness slider was set really high, I would not be stacking 173 out of 533 frames. I'd probably go with 50 to 80 frames, depending on the source movie. The main reason one stacks lots of frames is to suppress noise and to bring out faint features that the noise would obscure.

HTH..

Milton Aupperle

On 11-Aug-09, at 6:01 AM, Mark Gaffney wrote:

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Astro_IIDC/files/Other/Flea%202%20stacking%20files%20May%20%6009/