Howdy all. I've been rather bummed with the quality of my images for the last 9 months. I have data collected for two projects that I never finished due to the poor quality. Recently I discovered that my flats were over correcting my LRGB images and generally doing a terrible job, here is a Lum example, (one hour, bortle 4, luminance),
My procedure for capturing flats hadn't changed but I did swap my filters late last year. Considering that, my first thought was that I had a light leak. I did some tests and determined that was not the issue. I did find it curious that the narrow band filters corrected fine.
I had another light panel so I gave it a go. Strangely enough the RGB and NB filters corrected fine with this panel. After that test I remembered that I had also purchased a new light panel around the time I installed the new filters which finally made me understand what was going on. The new panel was much brighter than my previous ones and my flat exposure times where too short. After adding some sheets of paper to the new panel I was able to calibrate the above image to the following,
My narrowband images were calibrating fine with the panel since even though it was brighter, the exposures were long enough.
My camera is a QHY600. The required exposure time is greater than 1 second for proper calibration. Does anyone know why this is? My only thought is that the camera is applying a gamma curve to the shorter exposures, essentially boosting contrast.
Thanks,
Dan
My procedure for capturing flats hadn't changed but I did swap my filters late last year. Considering that, my first thought was that I had a light leak. I did some tests and determined that was not the issue. I did find it curious that the narrow band filters corrected fine.
I had another light panel so I gave it a go. Strangely enough the RGB and NB filters corrected fine with this panel. After that test I remembered that I had also purchased a new light panel around the time I installed the new filters which finally made me understand what was going on. The new panel was much brighter than my previous ones and my flat exposure times where too short. After adding some sheets of paper to the new panel I was able to calibrate the above image to the following,
My narrowband images were calibrating fine with the panel since even though it was brighter, the exposures were long enough.
My camera is a QHY600. The required exposure time is greater than 1 second for proper calibration. Does anyone know why this is? My only thought is that the camera is applying a gamma curve to the shorter exposures, essentially boosting contrast.
Thanks,
Dan