Odd speckles in flat files

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Craig Dixon avatar
Has anyone seen anything like this before in flat frames? This is a single flat with an STF applied and I have these speckles on one side of the sensor. I've tried a number of different exposure lengths as well as twilight flats and using a flat panel.
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andrea tasselli avatar
ice crystals, possibly.
Willem Jan Drijfhout avatar
Looks indeed like condensation on your sensor. If you look closely, you will probably find them on your lights as well. Turn off cooling for a bit, until they're gone. Then turn cooling back on but try to cool down very slowly.
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bigCatAstro avatar
Willem Jan Drijfhout:
Looks indeed like condensation on your sensor. If you look closely, you will probably find them on your lights as well. Turn off cooling for a bit, until they're gone. Then turn cooling back on but try to cool down very slowly.

Indeed and alternatively, letting the camera stabilize at its cool down temperature for 15-30 minutes before imaging can help with icing.
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TiffsAndAstro avatar
Look like stars to me
Craig Dixon avatar
That's it thanks guys. It was dew. problem solved.
TiffsAndAstro avatar
Surely these are stars?

Have you tried plate solving this ? smile
Tony Gondola avatar
If this is a sky flat then I vote stars, the dots are too well defined to be dew. When you do sky flats you have to make sure that the sky is bright enough and the exposure short enough that this doesn't happen. You could use a diffuser but that just makes it more complicated then it needs to be. I've recently started using NINA's flat wizard and it's great. In multi mode when you tell it to go it will step through all your filters and automatically find the right exposure for the percentage of the histogram you want. I generally run it about 10 min. after sunrise and it works a treat.
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ScottF avatar
Does your camera have a dew heater ? If not invest in one of those zwo stick on heaters. Also craft stores/Amazon sell wooden hoops for needlepoint. Stretch a white cloth over an appropriate sized one for your scope, pull out the wrinkles and tighten and use that for your sky flats. It’ll get rid of variations in lighting and any possibility of stars. I have several that I use for my scopes. 
like these. https://a.co/d/hLPbCWM
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