Good morning AB,
Wanted to toss this out and se if I can obtain some feedback on where to trouble shoot. I imaged M42 (yes I know boring) a few nights ago under clear skies but medium+ moon intensity (I've never really imaged before with a bright moon). I am using an ES127CF w/ William Optics .8x FF/FR, Nikon D5300 (unmodified) and guiding with ASI Air Pro (ASI cam on a 60mm finderscope). This was also my first attempt at an HDR composite with PIX Insight. I calibrated the 300s and 60s lights with darks, bias, and flats following a few tutorials on line. I realize there is some recent buzz about dark flats (took those too) and what to calibrate the flats with (either dark flats or bias, but not the regular darks, etc). Anyway, on my integrated images, STA stretched I noticed some really bad vignetting/haze. Never noticed this before, so I wasn't sure if it was a result of the moon, bad flats (my first round of flats weren't so good (underexposed) so I took another set (albeit at a slightly warmer temp), or after reading some other threads here, possibly a poorly matched FF/FR.
I think my William Optics .8x Flattener II is made for a smaller FL scope, it seems to work well on an 80mm scope years ago and I never purchased another "made" specifically for the 127m scope I now have. I tried several different pre-processign routines. Tried with flats (at first the "bad"flats and then "good" flats), tried without flats, etc. Didn't seem to make a different to the halo of shame....I tried my manual method of preprocessing and also the WBPP routine in the latest PIS software. All turned out about the same.
Anyway, here is a jpeg image of the auto stretched 300sec integrated image, with background removed. The 60sec is about the same. I was able to remove machine Post Proc, but would like to figure out the capturing issue so Idont lose so much detail in post proc Thoughts? My plans to take some images without the FF/FR and compare, but it's cloudy now thus Im asking for help as well to make sure Im not barking up the wrong tree.M42_300s_Integrated_ABE.jpeg
Wanted to toss this out and se if I can obtain some feedback on where to trouble shoot. I imaged M42 (yes I know boring) a few nights ago under clear skies but medium+ moon intensity (I've never really imaged before with a bright moon). I am using an ES127CF w/ William Optics .8x FF/FR, Nikon D5300 (unmodified) and guiding with ASI Air Pro (ASI cam on a 60mm finderscope). This was also my first attempt at an HDR composite with PIX Insight. I calibrated the 300s and 60s lights with darks, bias, and flats following a few tutorials on line. I realize there is some recent buzz about dark flats (took those too) and what to calibrate the flats with (either dark flats or bias, but not the regular darks, etc). Anyway, on my integrated images, STA stretched I noticed some really bad vignetting/haze. Never noticed this before, so I wasn't sure if it was a result of the moon, bad flats (my first round of flats weren't so good (underexposed) so I took another set (albeit at a slightly warmer temp), or after reading some other threads here, possibly a poorly matched FF/FR.
I think my William Optics .8x Flattener II is made for a smaller FL scope, it seems to work well on an 80mm scope years ago and I never purchased another "made" specifically for the 127m scope I now have. I tried several different pre-processign routines. Tried with flats (at first the "bad"flats and then "good" flats), tried without flats, etc. Didn't seem to make a different to the halo of shame....I tried my manual method of preprocessing and also the WBPP routine in the latest PIS software. All turned out about the same.
Anyway, here is a jpeg image of the auto stretched 300sec integrated image, with background removed. The 60sec is about the same. I was able to remove machine Post Proc, but would like to figure out the capturing issue so Idont lose so much detail in post proc Thoughts? My plans to take some images without the FF/FR and compare, but it's cloudy now thus Im asking for help as well to make sure Im not barking up the wrong tree.M42_300s_Integrated_ABE.jpeg

