StarTools

Hi All,

I've been ready to give up on startools for months now as I cannot get past the first few stages without my data being worthless (the data shouldn't too bad)...I'm searching for some advice saying that my data is bad and not to worry or to be told that I'm doing it wrong, currently it's just failure after depressing failure with ST for me so far.

I don't really have anywhere else to ask as the astro guys I can chat with don't use ST unfortunately.

I don't want this to turn into a software vs software battle - but I feel that I should be able to achieve workable output as I can use the exact same data in 'other' software (examples of output below)

After I wipe this dataset (with or without a mask)...based on a Autodev ROI I get the below : (or worse variations of)- would anyone know where I am going wrong please?
here's what I managed with just a quick stretch, star reduce and curves transformation with 'other' software :
FTS file is below - if anyone could take a quick look and help out (tell me my data is bad etc.) I'd be very grateful.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PECy0t ... sp=sharing

I had a quick look before going to work all seems fine nice clean data I will take a stab that your not cropping the borders as what your results shows is wipe backing off causing the result shown , I did a quick auto dev >crop >wipe > auto dev with roi all should be fine , Ivo will confirm ,I will have a better look this evening, always post camera specs and aquasition, stacking used , filters etc did you take calibration frames ,heal module will be able rid the trail in the bottom left of image too.

Regards Dave

Hi,

I'm having some trouble replicating the issue you are experiencing. Are you sure you are preparing your dataset properly as depicted in most tutorials, videos and the quick start guide? To get Wipe to work, cropping away the minor stacking artifacts in your dataset (which StarTools even alerts your about when you open the dataset) should suffice.

While it appears the dataset was not calibrated with flats, the Uncalibrated 1 or Uncalibrated 2 presets (meant for uncalibrated datasets like these) yields expected results; From there you can process with moslty defaults to quickly arrive at, for example, this; It shows most of the expected features and their coloring (though one or two purple stars seem to come through).
(you will definitely want to tweak the defaults used here, but I just wanted to demonstrate that the software is behaving as expected with your dataset)

You will definitely want to start taking and applying flats though, as it just becomes very hard to discern artificially introduced uneven lighting and faint celestial detail. There is a lot of dust and faint emissions in the immediate surroundings of M78, and though I do believe you have picked up some Ha emissions, it is hard to have confidence in its signal being real when attempting to bring this out.

I hope this helps, but if you continue to have trouble, do let us know!

firstly... thank you for taking the time to reply and have a go at my data!

...this data unfortunately only contains 2 hours of lights and about the same of darks and nothing else. (just starting out with my first OSC Cooled CCD the ZWO ASI533 on a WO Z73)

this is just a new moon shot with no filters applied, and the seeing wasn't too great

The stacking was using the method described in the tutorial section, I was able to improve things by binning before the wipe - I guess you know how to drive the software better than most

n0de wrote: ↑Mon Feb 22, 2021 6:46 am I guess you know how to drive the software better than most

That's why I used mostly defaults, warts and all, to take that out of the equation. You should be able to get close by just following the quick start tutorial, and generally just visiting the modules left-to-right, top-to-bottom.

n0de wrote: ↑Mon Feb 22, 2021 6:46 am firstly... thank you for taking the time to reply and have a go at my data!

...this data unfortunately only contains 2 hours of lights and about the same of darks and nothing else. (just starting out with my first OSC Cooled CCD the ZWO ASI533 on a WO Z73)

this is just a new moon shot with no filters applied, and the seeing wasn't too great

The stacking was using the method described in the tutorial section, I was able to improve things by binning before the wipe - I guess you know how to drive the software better than most

Excellent start I thought you were using that camera good choice, make a darks library and bias library, so on the night you’ll only need to take flat frames very important, look on forums on taking flats with this camera depending on which software you use there may be a flats aid to help .

I have not looked at your data yet, just looked at your linear image.
The first thing you must do is crop your image as you have drift in your stack, your guiding shifted every minutes. When this happens, the border of your image creates an unwanted light gradient. That is the first issue with your dataset. Crop the borders, start with 50 pixels and it may be more. I willl look at your data and come back here, later.
StarTools works fine and very powerful. Take the time to prepare your datawith calibration.

This is what i can get with StarTools. I am showing you this, so you can see what is possible.


removed link, see image below

R

Here is the process final image. I also removed 2 satellite trails in your image using Heal module. Before stacking, remove these artifacts as they will produce unwanted gradients... But here it is and done in under 10 minutes. Clear skies to you. If you want the workflow let me know..

Nothing wrong with the data...

Thanks again for taking the time, I'd very much appreciate if you could summarise the steps please?

The workflow is pasted below, step by step.
I have erased your data and image from my PC.
Clear skies

Workflow deleted
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StarTools 1.7.449beta
Tue Feb 23 09:44:53 2021