Ever Feel Like It's A Battle You Can't Win?

[brenski]

so fresh from the "dust" and "zigzags" there's a brand new phenomena "streaks"

♦ Zwo ASI 183MC Pro (cooled) ♦ Skywatcher Evostar 72ED DS-Pro ♦ SW Star Adv Pro 2i ♦ Optolong UHC LPF 2" ♦ Stellamira Field Flattener / 0.8 Reducer
♣ Lights are 30s 150gain (x60)
♣ Darks are 30s 150gain (x15)

They appear to move from 5 O'Clock toward 11 O'clock across the image in a uniform manner.
There's definitely something going on with my setup. Either that or I'm a simpleton.
These Images have been "lightened" to highlight the "streaks". Any ideas?

[Menno555]

Hi

Could you maybe share a ZIP or RAR with some lights, darks and flats in it to test? You can use for example WeTransfer, a free file sharing website.
It's easier then to see what might be the problem.

Menno

[brenski]

Hi

Could you maybe share a ZIP or RAR with some lights, darks and flats in it to test? You can use for example WeTransfer, a free file sharing website.
It's easier then to see what might be the problem.

Menno

thanks for the reply.

I've uploaded
10x lights, 5x darks, 5x flats to my Google Drive:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

[turfpit]

brenski

I have loaded lights-1 and darks-1 into PixInsight and applied a 'stretch (autoboosted)'. The dark looks like the light frame but flipped vertically. This might be a good place to start looking.

Note: If you capture as FITS, the files will contain a lot of detail such as capture settings, histogram and pixel values - this can help with debugging

lights-1.JPG (159.71 KiB) Viewed 1906 times

darks-1.JPG (67.84 KiB) Viewed 1906 times

Dave

[Menno555]

Do you have this all in FITS format by any change? I can't get the TIF files to work over here.
Also, your flats seem very bright. What are the settings you use for your flats?

Menno

[brenski]

Do you have this all in FITS format by any change? I can't get the TIF files to work over here.
Also, your flats seem very bright. What are the settings you use for your flats?

Menno

I stupid captured in tif mode, but did darks in fits.
I've converted captures to Fits, but doubt that'll help any. (shared folder contents updated)

One thing though, these "streaks" are identical and almost perfectly spaced/distributed across the image from bottom right toward top left.

This is strange.

[brenski]

brenski
Note: If you capture as FITS, the files will contain a lot of detail such as capture settings, histogram and pixel values - this can help with debugging
Dave

thanks Dave.
I don't use Pixinsight so unfortunately - being limited to Photoshop, FITS files are incompatible with the app.
I know that Deep Sky Stacker can handle them, but if I capture Lights/Darks & Flats as FITS files, I'll still need to output the stacked file from DSS as a tif to be able to edit in PShop.

[turfpit]

brenski

2 posters have now suggested using FITS as an aid to debugging deep sky captures. The software used for processing is irrelevant to the data you have presented.

The main point of my post is that your first dark is actually a light frame (it has stars in it). That will not have helped with the quality of your master dark and potentially produces the problem you are seeing.

Dave

[brenski]

The main point of my post is that your first dark is actually a light frame (it has stars in it). That will not have helped with the quality of your master dark and potentially produces the problem you are seeing.
Dave

my mistake, will restack with that one image removed. that could be the problem itself - thanks for spotting it.

[Menno555]

There is a free program called SiriL. It has some good functions to do processing, especially with FITS files. I use it to do the basic processing steps like applying color calibration, histogram (basically a first stretch action to get all visible) and background extraction. I then save it as TIF and then I do the main processing in Photoshop. You can also stack with it but I myself use mostly DeepSkyStacker for that. Info and download: https://siril.org

And saving your light and calibration files during capturing as FITS files, is always recommended. A lot of data is saved then also, which programs like DeepSkyStacker, PixInsight, SiriL, and so on use for their processing.

Menno