Darks from the Fridge?

[budguinn]

I went and turned off all of the computers.....five in the house, and still no joy. Turned off the one in the OBS and I was able to download them. Everything is setup on a wireless system......I've never had a problem before...could be having a problem with the Belkin router. Anyways, i've got them and will fuss with them during the Nascar race.

bud

[KenMiller]

Originally Posted by budguinn

Everything is setup on a wireless system......I've never had a problem before...could be having a problem with the Belkin router.

Glad you managed to get them downloaded.

The wireless router is a very likely candidate. You may want to check to see if there is newer firmware available for it.

None of the consumer models (Linksys, Belkin, D-Link, NetGear, etc.) ever get all the bugs worked out - I've had them all. The manufacturers essentially abandon support for the older models as the new ones come out and that happens so frequently that often the easiest solution is just to buy a newer model.

If this is the first problem you've experienced you are VERY fortunate.

I've had problems with 2.4GHz phone and microwave interference, VPN connections not working, random anomolies that require reset to fix, and more.

Fortunately, I have a Cisco Certified networking specialist as a business partner

[budguinn]

Ken, no joy. I was able to download the files and played with them for about 150laps of the race. I was able to get a pretty good picture of the main bright nebula, but unable to remove much of the outer noise. It's just going to take more time/exposures.
In all of the frames the tracking seemed very good, as well as the focus. I tried various combinations of combining but still no joy with the noise.

best,

bud

[KenMiller]

Thank you Bud for trying.

How wonderfully perplexing.

[KenMiller]

Originally Posted by budguinn

...I tried various combinations of combining but still no joy with the noise.

Thanks for making the comment about the noise!

I figured something had to be wrong if the S/N ratio wasn't improved by more than doubling the lights.

So, I took a close look at the original exposures. Turned out there were two that looked like they were grossly overexposed - despite the fact I used IP to auto-capture and the file names were correct. Maybe a helicopter flew over with their spotlight on when I wasn't looking

Anyway, lesson learned. Sorry for wasting so much of your time.

I recombined everything and took those two out of the mix.

Here's what I was able to get out of the result - which is substantially better than what I was able to produce from the source of the originally posted image. My workflow was almost the same as it was for the first image so I guess the improvement has come from better S/N.

I'd like to confirm that so I've posted the source image here on the off chance I haven't already bored you to death with this:

www.astrobeginner.com/images/m42/M42KCM.zip
and
www.shootingsolution.com/images/m42/M42KCM.zip

I posted a zip of the .fit version so it would *only* be 25MB

[Gary Beal]

Ken,
that's a cracker shot, well done. Good having old timers to call on like Bud etc, huh? Helicopter? Picking on them for a reason, LOL.
Gary