Initial Processing Advice

Affiliation
American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO)
Thu, 03/22/2018 - 18:33

Folks,

   I am now officially asking an embarrassing question. 

   I have an observatory in New Mexico with 17” and a 24” CDK PWI scopes. I tend to capture and do early processing via CCD Stack. However I am confused as to what I need to do with it. I wonder if anyone could share the specifics of exactly how you process. I understand pretty picture processing, but I want to be sure I don’t “mess up” by using the wrong process...stretching, normalizing etc. I am willing to move to Maxim if that makes it simpler. For example should I normalize the background? Do I register all of the images at once, vs registering each filter’s images for each time point?

 

   Any advice would be most welcome.

 

Thank you,

Professor Stanley Watson PhD, MD

University of Michigan

Affiliation
American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO)
Give us some additional details, and we'll help

Stan,

    I'd like to help.  Can you provide some details on the data you are acquiring?  What sort of camera do you have?  Are you using filters?  Long or short exposures?  What is the target?  Is your goal to make deep images of a faint object, or measure the brightness of a variable object over time, or ... what?

    Once we know what your final goal is, we might be able to answer some of your questions more clearly.

               Michael