Devin-M said:
@Andy Resnick I was wondering do you convert straight from RAW to 16 bit tif with noise reduction disabled, then stack along with dark, dark-flat, flat & bias calibration frames (also converted from raw to 16 bit tif), then histogram stretch the resulting tif? which software do you use?
Good questions! For stacking software, I used
Deep Sky Stacker for many years until I needed more and recently migrated to
Astro Pixel Processor. I'm not entirely sure how either one converts the RAW files into 16-bit TIFFs, but in any case, I learned a lot about flat/dark/bias frames from using DSS and recommend that package to anyone starting out. I typically stack somewhere between 100-200 images at a time, resulting in a 32-bit/channel FITS image that I histogram stretch/compress down to 16-bit/channel TIFF.
I have a set of master flat/master dark/master bias/bad pixel images for each different lens (400/2.8 FX and 400/2.8 DX, 800/5.6 FX, 105/1.4 and 15/2.8, both FX) that I use as opposed to acquiring those frames every time I image. Something I struggled with for a looooooong time was getting a good flat: as the f/# gets lower, performing a flat field correction becomes more and more difficult. When I stop down a lens, say 400/4 or 105/2, I don't need to use flat files. In the end, I acquired my flats by imaging a computer display, about 40 frames per. Dark and bias frames were done with the lens cap on, also about 40 frames per. All calibration frames were obtained using the lowest ISO setting.
Fortunately, with APP I don't need 'perfect' flat files- APP has a clever post-processing step that I use after stacking called "remove light pollution". Working with the 32-bit/channel FITS image, 'remove light pollution' is flat-field correction on steroids- think of it as iteratively burning and dodging the background until it's flat to within 1 part in 10^8 (limiting case, my stacks are around 1: 10^6) or so across the entire frame (it also corrects for vignetting). This step can take several hours, but most of the time the software is chugging along in the background.
At this point, each target now has a set of corrected FITS files, one for each night of imaging (for example, I have images of M51 going back to 2015). As I acquire additional nights of imaging, I stack those FITS files to get the final stack, perform a quick 'remove light pollution' again, and I have the final image.
Then, I save the stretched 32-bit/channel FITS as a 16-bit/channel TIFF and perform additional post-processing as needed: noise reduction (I use Neat Image), background subtraction and color correction (I use Fiji or Preview), etc. etc.
Looking back over this post, I think I should also mention the need to have a highly organized file system!