StarTools

Hello,

Though my images are shot with an OSC (One Shot Color), I never shoot them color-processed ahead of time. The initial image capture is in whatever Orion's weird variant of the FITS format happens to be.

My question is this. Should I debayer the light/dark/flat/bias frames prior to doing the dark subtracts and so forth, or debayer all of them first and then do the subtracts and so on?

Hello

I also use an OSC, and never debayer anything prior stacking.
I think is best to leave it to the stacker software to do it when it has to do it.
Not sure if Flats, for instance, are debayered to correct the light and dust etz.. my flats for example usually come out pretty red , and debayering shows also different colour. So I don't think you should debayer anything before hand.

the only time I debayer some sub is to check for uneven light or similar.. and is just temporary without saving it.

usually stacking software will give you "Score" or other clues to know if a frame is good or not.

i don't know if anyone else will have differen opinion ^^; .

Just wondering, why do you ask? do you have troubles stacking?
Hope it helps.

Carles.

Hi Carles,

Stacking is actually the one process that always goes smooth as silk. Debayering has been kind of hit-or-miss unless it's done through the actual Orion Camera Studio software, which is also what I use for subtracting subs. What I'll do is calibrate all my images in one shot, save copies of the pre-debayered/post-calibrated images, then reopen them to run my own custom script to handle converting from RAW to CYMK (yeah, it's one of 'those' cameras), saving that, then handling exporting to JPG and TIFF because for some stupid reason, colors are completely wonky in the output files unless you do all those steps. It's buggy but it works. I'll possibly be able to eliminate all of that when I start using SharpCap, as soon as the clouds finally break at night (it's been almost two months).

Then the already-calibrated and debayered images are loaded up in deepskystacker which always does a fabulous job stacking these. The final stacked 32 bit integer FIT file heads over to StarTools.