New Flats Question :)

[JayTee]

Sensor cleaning is only a factor if you turn off your camera in the middle of your imaging session. Personally, I don't turn my camera off in between my lights and my flats. I'm trying to get everything using the same conditions so that my flats actually do their job.

Turning off sensor cleaning makes sense if you have a permanent set up and you never separate or change the orientation of the camera with regards to the scope. I dream of having a permanent set up, I'm not there yet.

Cheers,
JT

[fatboy1271]

Sensor cleaning is only a factor if you turn off your camera in the middle of your imaging session. Personally, I don't turn my camera off in between my lights and my flats. I'm trying to get everything using the same conditions so that my flats actually do their job.

Turning off sensor cleaning makes sense if you have a permanent set up and you never separate or change the orientation of the camera with regards to the scope. I dream of having a permanent set up, I'm not there yet.

Cheers,
JT

That makes sense JT; however, I do have the 70D set to power off after a half hour of inactivity. I generally don't remove the camera from the OTA, so the orientation is always the same but it's not a permeant setup

fat

[JayTee]

Patrick,

Are you powering you camera with external power? If not, you really should. It has several advantages:
1) It makes your camera lighter
2) Your circuitry will generate less heat
3) You don't have to worry about running out of battery "juice" in the middle of an imaging run
4) And you don't need to auto-power-down if you don't want to

Cheers,
JT

[fatboy1271]

Hey JT,

Yes, I have a power adapter! I've been using it for years. Using BYEOS the auto shutoff never kicked in. Using NINA I would get disconnected all the time. I set it to 30 minutes so at the end of a NINA Sequence it shuts off after a half hour. It's probably better this way as that allows me to sleep a little longer and the camera isn't just draining power, even though it's a small amount.

Patrick

[Baskevo]

Good point JT! What I was doing was tearing down and bringing everything in side to do my calibration frames, so the automatic sensor cleaner would go off during that time, which is why I think my flats were not working. I started doing the flats and bias frames outside, but I'm still turning off the automatic sensor cleaning just in case, and I'll do the manual sensor cleaning before each session

Another thing I noticed was when I have my white balance set to daylight, for some reason the histogram on the flats change slightly from each flat to flat, which I don't know if that's a problem or not, but when I set it to automatic, it's the exact same color/brightness each time... I don't know if that will help me but I thought I'd give it a try! I took a bunch of sets of flats last night to test and see which ones work best.

[Stuart]

and I'll do the manual sensor cleaning before each session

Another thing I noticed was when I have my white balance set to daylight, for some reason the histogram on the flats change slightly from each flat to flat, which I don't know if that's a problem or not, but when I set it to automatic, it's the exact same color/brightness each time... I don't know if that will help me but I thought I'd give it a try! I took a bunch of sets of flats last night to test and see which ones work best.

A couple of points
1) No need to manually clean your sensor before each session. As long as your flats are good, the donuts should correct out. I haven't cleaned my sensor in 3 years.

2) The white balance shouldn't matter at all if you're shooting in RAW. The white balance is only applied to a processed RAW image.

[Baskevo]

and I'll do the manual sensor cleaning before each session

Another thing I noticed was when I have my white balance set to daylight, for some reason the histogram on the flats change slightly from each flat to flat, which I don't know if that's a problem or not, but when I set it to automatic, it's the exact same color/brightness each time... I don't know if that will help me but I thought I'd give it a try! I took a bunch of sets of flats last night to test and see which ones work best.

A couple of points
1) No need to manually clean your sensor before each session. As long as your flats are good, the donuts should correct out. I haven't cleaned my sensor in 3 years.

2) The white balance shouldn't matter at all if you're shooting in RAW. The white balance is only applied to a processed RAW image.

Thanks for clarifying that, Stuart! I have a massive dust donut that keeps showing up in my images, I think it's in my telescope where I can't get at it, so I'm glad my flats work now! lol

So should I adjust the white balance in my light frames before stacking? Or does it not matter?

[Stuart]

Thanks for clarifying that, Stuart! I have a massive dust donut that keeps showing up in my images, I think it's in my telescope where I can't get at it, so I'm glad my flats work now! lol

So should I adjust the white balance in my light frames before stacking? Or does it not matter?

As long as your flat has the same dust donut it should flatten out fine. It is important to calibrate your flats correctly, however. Not sure what you use for processing.

In terms of the white balance, don't mess with it. It doesn't matter. The white balance is applied to the RAW image to display a .jpg. You're not working with jpgs, but with RAW images. You're not hurting anything by messing with the white balance but it's a waste of time.

The only time a white balance is an issue is if you have a modified DSLR and you're taking terrestrial photos. The display will look off because your cut-IR filter has been removed. Then you use a custom white balance to fix it--but you don't even need to do that if you shoot in RAW--you can correct the white balance in post.

[Baskevo]

Cool good to know. I was using Deep sky stacker before, but I've been going through light vortex astronomy's guide, and it's giving me way better results. I don't know if DSS calibrated the flats or not, but I am definitely calibrating them now.

Thanks again for the help Stuart!