[Aavso-photometry] Cosmic Rays

[Michael Newberry]

Back to the "cosmic ray visualization" thread...

A few days ago, Wolfgang Renz suggested some modifications to the Maximum 
operator as a way to make cosmic rays stand out in a collection of images. 
Yesterday morning I promised to do some tests of his suggestions and get 
back to all of you later in the day. I'm sorry that I wasn't able to do it 
yesterday, but I did spend a good part of today looking into it in some 
detail. I don't have results posted on the web yet, but I wanted to offer 
some preliminary impressions.

The bottom line is that Wolfgang's additions to the Maximum operator appear 
to work more effectively than I had anticipated. True, it is a scaling down 
effect that does leave in bright stars to some degree, but it really does 
make the cosmic rays pop out quite strikingly, especially after a little 
fiddling with the display. In fact, provided the images are "well 
bahaved"--- that is, the background is pretty stable, seeing is not changing 
too much, and a fairly good dark correction has been applied---the results 
are downright outstanding.

Great work, Wolfgang!

I will try to put some results with pictures on the web tomorrow.

Regards,

Michael Newberry



<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
Michael Newberry, PhD, President
Mirametrics, Inc.
mnewberry at mirametrics.com
http://www.mirametrics.com/