From: Mark Gaffney <markgaffney@me.com>

Date: February 17, 2010 10:38:49 AM MST

To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Re: [Astro_IIDC] dark frames..

Milton, 

Last time doing a dark afterwards significantly improved the quality. I figure the PA can only have improved. In Display Align last  time I was a good bit out (I think at least degree on one axis) this time it`s only 5-6 arc seconds at most. This was good enough previously to take those colour M 42`s with the Flea 2 with just a 1 star alignment! Basically now I have 3 hours of imaging M 42 from 9 pm when the sky is completely dark (it`s then past the meridian) `til it goes  behind trees & I didn`t make that deadline tonight..

Mark.

On 18/02/2010, at 3:48 AM, Milton Aupperle wrote:

Mark;

On 17-Feb-10, at 3:57 AM, Mark Gaffney wrote:

> Milton,
> I gather from the message to Willie # 1302 you`re yet to implement the
> ability to take darks before imaging except by using Avg.16 bit Frames
> etc.?

It's the same process.

The Automautically applied dark frames does the same thing as manually
taking an average frame, except it eliminates the step of needing to
do apply the dark frames afterwards to the movie you captured.

And if your experimenting for the first time with various exposures,
why complicate things with dark frames? Your not sure you even have
polar alignment down.

> At least I thought I shot my 2 minute exposure last time after
> the dark & it didn`t work. Will do some experimenting..

The CAP log file will indicate if the live darks were applied. If the
field "Dark Frame Subtraction On:" is "1", then it was applied and if
it's "0" it wasn't.

So you know if you applied them or not.

Milton Aupperle