Luck Imaging

[Fborzager]

Robin, I am interested in obtaining high resolution images for myself and contribute to the BAT project thru Lucky Imaging.. Are there any specific filters and settings that would alow me to shoot 1 or 2 second subs, filter out all but the best 5 percent, and keep livestacking without overwhelming my PC? I am just in the early phase of attempting this but it seems if we could eliminate all but the best resolved subs from the beginning, it would open this imaging technique up to a larger audience. Thanks, Frank

[admin]

Hi Frank,

I think the only thing that would help you significantly here is the FWHM filter setting in live stacking - this will reject frames with average star FWHM values higher than the specificied limit.

Now, the problem is that the analysis of each new image to find the stars and the FWHM of them is often the part of live stacking processing that takes the most time, so if you have a high resolution camera you will need a fast PC to keep up with your goal of 1 or 2 second frames without losing frames because the processing cannot keep up.

Another thing to be aware of is that if the frame is rejected by the filter then there is relatively little extra processing to do, but for the frames that are added to the stack there is the extra work of alignment and stacking - this could leave you in a situation where you fail to process every frame that comes after a good frame if the timings are on the limit.

You can try to speed up the star detecting/filtering process by any or all of the following

* Reduce resolution using ROI
* Reduce resolution using binning
* Turn down the star detection sensitivity in live stacking (as long as you still get enough stars)

Hope this helps,

Robin