The feeling is mutual! I love watching your videos. This community is so great because of how real all of us are. We have ALL fought through issues and cold or buggy nights. We are ALL still learning every single day. Even though this feels like a solo hobby so often as you stand out in the cold in the middle of the night, knowing that help is just a couple clicks away makes it all easier. BTW - I typically get down to Jekyll towards the end of the summer each year... I'll have to visit. :)
@@HeavenlyBackyardAstronomy Very cool! I just realized I am subscribed to your channel under another YT account. :) I'll have to add my Patriot Astro account to your list. Have a great weekend!
Finally got a mini computer. Can’t wait to get it set up and when I get some clear skies put it to use. Thanks again for yet another informative video.
I use the manual version of ArtSky panel and really like it. NINA's flat wizard if just a wonder. One thing of note is there is an issue with unlinear response in the ZWO cameras if the exposure time is 1sec or less. I have mine setup configured for a minimum of 2 seconds to stay ouit of the trouble area. Not usre about Cloudy Nights but there is a long running discussion on the issue on Astrobin's forums along with some testing done. I odn't remember for certain (I'd have to go back to the discussion on Astrobin) but I believe the 294MC/MM was more susceptible to this issue.
I think you are right. Seems to be some weirdness on sensor uniformity on real short exposures, at least on some cameras. I never quite sorted out what it could be, but I still love the ZWO's overall!
Not exactly. I wanted to put my EQ-G to work during the day, so I moved over there. I will move something to the Az-GTi soon. Possibly Canon lenses. We will see. :)
Thanks for the video and as always awesome information. Now I know what it means when I get those stoppages and what to adjust. Thanks again for making another great video, Next I expect to see one on sky flats :) LOL
I barely have the patience for regular flats. With my luck, when shooting a sky flat video, ... I would have rapidly changing sky conditions for whatever reason. :) HaHa
Go into my channel and search for Rolling Base (I think that was the video). I basically link the bottom of my tripod/mount to my base. It helps a little with stability when rolling, but also since it connects the 2 parts, helps add in the weight of the base in order to lower the center of gravity as it relates to potential for tipping.
I have a flat panel (not ascom connected) on my EDGE HD 8. I tune the brightness by a manual rotating button on the flattener. So I choose a constant brightness according to what NINA tells me is suitable according to Histogram mean target. Should I use dynamic brightness or leave it to dynamic exposure?
Awesome as always chad!!.. I've read in places that you should probably take flats longer than 1 second, apparently it takes away the refresh rate of the light panel. i try and aim for about 2.5 seconds each for mine.. Keep up the videos!
Like most things that are "Astrophotography", it depends. My panel is quite flicker free and my ZWO cameras (1600/2600) seem to do great at that length. The 1600 can get wonky if you go shorter... they hate Bias frames... Besides that, I'm always trying to shorten anything I do around Calibration. :)
Focus shouldnt matter as long as it is anywhere close to that session. The objects picked up by the flats are so close to the sensor as opposed to the imaged DSO that the amount by which they are out of focus will not change their appearance much by shifting the focuser.
Hi Chad, thank you for your excellent videos. I have a question for you: i've got a Celestron C8 XLT and when i make flats my histogram (using Asistudio only to visualize histogram) is very widened, it is not as narrow as it appears to you with your refractor. In Nina the histogram has 2 peaks and not 1 like in yours. Is this given by the type of optics that changes?
I have been using the Flat Wizzard for 2 or three years now, and was using 50% and my Samsung Tablet for illumination, I think I will try the 35% and see if it gives me better results. One question I do have is that when I select slew to Zenith the ra is an hour or two west of Zenith. And if I go east it is off by maybe an hour. Any idea what is going on with that?
Very nice video as always. A question: why is it necessary/desirable to take separate flats for all filters, especially if they have the same clear aperture so vignetting doesn't change? For NB filters I could see that maybe there is an angular dependence that makes a difference, but for RGB vs. L? Could there be differences in how the filters get positioned with the wheel? Any thoughts welcome as I would rather not run through all seven filters unless I have to...
You can actually get scratches, defects, or even dust on individual filters while in the filter wheel. This requires separate flats to deal with each of those issues and are filter specific.
@@PatriotAstro Oh, yes, that would do it. Another reason to keep the whole filter wheel assy pristine so dust doesn't fly around when you click filters around and tilt the whole telescope assy. Thanks.
Great tutorial, I was hoping you would make one about the Flat Wizard. Thank you. I was wondering if there was a way to change the file location so that I could create folders with filter name instead of exposure times?
In your profile, go to the Imaging section. On the left you can create file paths that include variables within both the folder structure. If you want to see that profile parameter configured, go into my Profile video (I think it was 2 videos previous to this one). The Flat Wizard and all image saving from NINA actually follow your profile configuration rule. Take a look.
Hi Chad following your way to do Flat Wizard method. However for some reason sending my scope to the zenith it does not slew my scope to a vertical position. I have tried my scope on its Home Position (Polaris) and horizontal position for the scope I have tried both for East and West side of the pier. But it arrives at a position of RA 17 33 14 Dec54 59 12 Altitude 89 09 03 Azimuth89 35 53 Site latitude is 54 59 23 Site longitude is 01 32 41 and the Epoch for my scope is J2000. Can you give me any pointers on this. I think your video tutorials are a great help but I am a new learner and just moved with Altair OSC cameras and moving on to use Nina so its a big learning hill for me to pick up. Cheers Chas
Hi Chad. Another great video, thank you. I wanted to ask, how do you connect your Artsky Flat Field generator via USB? I have one here and see no USB plug interface anywhere!
Hi Chad, I have a Pegasus Astro Flat Master 250 and I hate it!. Your I-Pad saturated the output at 2 seconds and I can't get my Flatmaster 250 to saturate after 60 seconds. Not even close. When I run the Flat Wizard many times it tells me the Flat Master 250 is too dim. And to increase the brightness. I've got it set at 190 out of 220 possible. Sometimes it works and the flats take about 27 seconds per flat. But this morning it was real cold. 16F and it just wouldn't work. Always too dim. No matter what I did or what I changed. I've got my minimum exposure time set to around .2 seconds and my max at 120 seconds. And this morning, it did try to work, but with an individual exposure of about 100 seconds. I have an OPT L-Extreme filter but it doesn't really impact the outcome. So I'm just not sure if the cold morning is ruining everything or what. I have the Flatmaster 250 on Super Boost too. For the price I feel I've been ripped off. Am I doing something wrong? ;o(
It almost sounds defective honestly. Almost any light should be bright enough to saturate a Lum filter in a couple seconds at most. How is it powered? If DC, is there an AC option? Could you test on another power source to see if it changes?
Hello, Patriot Astro great video, The question I have is in relation to the mean target, I have seen many people and therefore myself using 50%. Obviously, 35% will make the time shorter but was that the reason you went to 35 instead of 50? Or how do you arrive at 35%
Oh man... There are some rules about things not to discuss in groups of people: Politics, Religion, and Mean Histogram for Flats. :) As a general rule, almost anyone would be happy with you taking flats between 1/3 to 1/2 of the histogram. It is somewhat camera dependent. You need to make sure your flats don't have overly dark or bright spots. If the center is too bright, that would be bad. You also want to avoid hot/cold pixel, etc. If you are close to this range, it will work fine. There is no "Perfect" ADU per se. For me, and my cameras, I have found that going past 1/2 tends to be more problematic than going a little under 1/3, and as a result, I shoot a little lower.
Hi, why dont you put the brightnes of the flat panel to eg. 90% and then run the Dynamic Exposure flat wizard with a max. time of 2 sec. Once you find the exposure times (all
Hi Chad. I know it's not specifically flats related, but I have a strange problem with my 294mm that I'm hoping you'd be willing to help me troubleshoot. My darks calibrate out the sensor's amp glow for my Ha subs, but not for my Oiii or Sii subs. I don't know how that's possible since the subs were taken on the same night with the same camera temp, gain, and offset settings. I found that when I multiply the master dark by 1.75 (or so), then subtract that from the Oiii and Sii subs, that more or less neutralizes the amp glow. I've asked a couple astro communities on discord and no one had any ideas. I'd very much apprciate any help/suggestions you'd be willing to offer!
That doesn't make sense, as I'm sure you know. The amp glow should be consistent for all frames since it is occurring at the sensor and is unaffected by the filter, or scope, or sky, etc. Hmmm. How long are your flats? Maybe it is another one of the calibration frames that is actually causing the problem? (or darkflats?)
The question I have…does it really matter to take the flats at the same temp as the lights? I have see videos where the flats and the dark-flats are taken inside for example the following day.
Flat temperature really shouldn't matter since they are not used to remove noise (thermal or otherwise). So, Flats, Dark-Flats, and Bias are not temperature dependent. Lights and Darks are temperature dependent. As far as taking flats inside, just be careful. I have seen cases where something was on the lens and after moving the telescope and bumping it around a bit, it changed position... Then your Flats don't match your Lights.
@@PatriotAstro yes…and I do my imaging mostly from my wooden balcony….I noticed on evening that my darks had walking type of noise….elongated streams of light and I realized that I had been walking around while the darks were taken and thereby giggling the setup…silly me 🤪
I have a H-alpha modified Canon T6i. Tried the flat wizard. Targeted 30% with 10% tolerance. When I open flats in Photoshop histogram is way past 50%. Flat Wizard exposure time longer than exposure APT calculated. Not sure what I’m doing wrong. Using 1.10 (beta).
Strange, does it show the bit depth of your camera in the equipment page correctly? I'm wondering if it thinks you are 16bit but you are actually 14bit on the T6i. I think the actual rule with NINA and DSLR is that if shooting DCRAW it should be set to 16bit, but FREEIMAGE should be set to actual. If this is set wrong, it could make sense since 16bit is 65,535 while 14 bit is 16,384. It is a reach, but maybe?
@@PatriotAstro currently set to 14 bit and Freeimage. Going to try DCRAW and 16 bit to see what happens. Based on forecast, experimenting with flats is all I get to do for awhile.
Hi Chad. Your videos are great. They're really helping me along quickly switching from ASI air pro to NINA. Question for you: I saw you use Pixinsight for processing. I took my flats and flat darks for my 294MM tonight, but when I try to bring them into WBPP in pixinsight, it brings them in as flats. I tried adding them directly to the darks, but it groups them all (because they are so close in exp time). From what I can tell, it may be because the imagetype field is DARKFLAT. Just wondering if you use WBPP and if so, how you handle this. Much appreciated!
If WBPP thinks it is a FLAT, you will likely need to use the Add Custom button when loading these. Select the files by filter (assuming Mono), set the type of File as Dark, Set the filter name to match your other files, Set your Binning and exposure time. The filter part doesn't matter for the Dark file types, but since it asks, it doesn't hurt. If they are so close in time that they are getting grouped, it honestly shouldn't matter with that camera.
I gotta tell you Chad, your NINA videos are GREAT. Thank you VERY MUCH
(Patrick of Savannah)
The feeling is mutual! I love watching your videos. This community is so great because of how real all of us are. We have ALL fought through issues and cold or buggy nights. We are ALL still learning every single day. Even though this feels like a solo hobby so often as you stand out in the cold in the middle of the night, knowing that help is just a couple clicks away makes it all easier. BTW - I typically get down to Jekyll towards the end of the summer each year... I'll have to visit. :)
@@PatriotAstro Thanks Chad. We just got back from a 3-night stay at the King & Prince Hotel on St. Simons Island.
@@HeavenlyBackyardAstronomy Very cool! I just realized I am subscribed to your channel under another YT account. :) I'll have to add my Patriot Astro account to your list. Have a great weekend!
All your videos are a blessing for a beginner like me, thanks a lot!
Finally got a mini computer. Can’t wait to get it set up and when I get some clear skies put it to use. Thanks again for yet another informative video.
Great! Astronomers belong inside while the telescope is outside! :) [at least in the winter!]
@@PatriotAstro and in the summer if in Florida haha. Then again, its usually stormy during the best time of night here in summer lol
what about focus? shame there is no input for filter af position from the log!
Love the straight forward, methodological approach you have.
I use the manual version of ArtSky panel and really like it. NINA's flat wizard if just a wonder. One thing of note is there is an issue with unlinear response in the ZWO cameras if the exposure time is 1sec or less. I have mine setup configured for a minimum of 2 seconds to stay ouit of the trouble area. Not usre about Cloudy Nights but there is a long running discussion on the issue on Astrobin's forums along with some testing done. I odn't remember for certain (I'd have to go back to the discussion on Astrobin) but I believe the 294MC/MM was more susceptible to this issue.
I think you are right. Seems to be some weirdness on sensor uniformity on real short exposures, at least on some cameras. I never quite sorted out what it could be, but I still love the ZWO's overall!
Great run through on the flats wizard. Very helpful
Thanks!
Another excellent NINA tutorial..
Thanks a bunch! More to come.
Thanks Chad - rock solid as ever. I'm curious about the T-shirt - on for the tablet and not for the panel.
Great tutorial, beautifully explained! Keep this good stuff on NINA Chad! You help a lot. Thanks
Just a curiosity.. did you retire your AZ-GTi? That was such a cute set up with the SharpStar 61…
Thanks, will do!
Not exactly. I wanted to put my EQ-G to work during the day, so I moved over there. I will move something to the Az-GTi soon. Possibly Canon lenses. We will see. :)
Another great video, keep them coming.
Oh, ... they are coming! :)
Thanks for the video and as always awesome information. Now I know what it means when I get those stoppages and what to adjust. Thanks again for making another great video, Next I expect to see one on sky flats :) LOL
I barely have the patience for regular flats. With my luck, when shooting a sky flat video, ... I would have rapidly changing sky conditions for whatever reason. :) HaHa
Another great video! I'd be curious to learn about the "metal cable like" structure you are using underneath the accessory tray on the EQ6-R
Go into my channel and search for Rolling Base (I think that was the video). I basically link the bottom of my tripod/mount to my base. It helps a little with stability when rolling, but also since it connects the 2 parts, helps add in the weight of the base in order to lower the center of gravity as it relates to potential for tipping.
Thank you
Glad to help
I have a flat panel (not ascom connected) on my EDGE HD 8. I tune the brightness by a manual rotating button on the flattener. So I choose a constant brightness according to what NINA tells me is suitable according to Histogram mean target. Should I use dynamic brightness or leave it to dynamic exposure?
Awesome as always chad!!.. I've read in places that you should probably take flats longer than 1 second, apparently it takes away the refresh rate of the light panel. i try and aim for about 2.5 seconds each for mine.. Keep up the videos!
Like most things that are "Astrophotography", it depends. My panel is quite flicker free and my ZWO cameras (1600/2600) seem to do great at that length. The 1600 can get wonky if you go shorter... they hate Bias frames... Besides that, I'm always trying to shorten anything I do around Calibration. :)
Chad, nice tutorial thank you. Question, do you feel that the filter offsets for the focus should also be added to the process?
Focus shouldnt matter as long as it is anywhere close to that session. The objects picked up by the flats are so close to the sensor as opposed to the imaged DSO that the amount by which they are out of focus will not change their appearance much by shifting the focuser.
Hi Chad, thank you for your excellent videos. I have a question for you: i've got a Celestron C8 XLT and when i make flats my histogram (using Asistudio only to visualize histogram) is very widened, it is not as narrow as it appears to you with your refractor. In Nina the histogram has 2 peaks and not 1 like in yours. Is this given by the type of optics that changes?
Couple quick questions. Is this a color camera or monochrome? And what is your flat panel source?
@@PatriotAstro I use a Zwo Asi 2600 MC Pro and a dimmerable flat generator panel selled from Geoptik (Italy).
I have been using the Flat Wizzard for 2 or three years now, and was using 50% and my Samsung Tablet for illumination, I think I will try the 35% and see if it gives me better results. One question I do have is that when I select slew to Zenith the ra is an hour or two west of Zenith. And if I go east it is off by maybe an hour. Any idea what is going on with that?
Very nice video as always. A question: why is it necessary/desirable to take separate flats for all filters, especially if they have the same clear aperture so vignetting doesn't change? For NB filters I could see that maybe there is an angular dependence that makes a difference, but for RGB vs. L? Could there be differences in how the filters get positioned with the wheel? Any thoughts welcome as I would rather not run through all seven filters unless I have to...
You can actually get scratches, defects, or even dust on individual filters while in the filter wheel. This requires separate flats to deal with each of those issues and are filter specific.
@@PatriotAstro Oh, yes, that would do it. Another reason to keep the whole filter wheel assy pristine so dust doesn't fly around when you click filters around and tilt the whole telescope assy. Thanks.
Great tutorial, I was hoping you would make one about the Flat Wizard. Thank you. I was wondering if there was a way to change the file location so that I could create folders with filter name instead of exposure times?
In your profile, go to the Imaging section. On the left you can create file paths that include variables within both the folder structure. If you want to see that profile parameter configured, go into my Profile video (I think it was 2 videos previous to this one). The Flat Wizard and all image saving from NINA actually follow your profile configuration rule. Take a look.
@@PatriotAstro ok I see how it works now, thanks
Hi Chad following your way to do Flat Wizard method. However for some reason sending my scope to the zenith it does not slew my scope to a vertical position. I have tried my scope on its Home Position (Polaris) and horizontal position for the scope I have tried both for East and West side of the pier. But it arrives at a position of RA 17 33 14 Dec54 59 12 Altitude 89 09 03 Azimuth89 35 53
Site latitude is 54 59 23 Site longitude is 01 32 41 and the Epoch for my scope is J2000.
Can you give me any pointers on this. I think your video tutorials are a great help but I am a new learner and just moved with Altair OSC cameras and moving on to use Nina so its a big learning hill for me to pick up. Cheers Chas
Hi Chad. Another great video, thank you. I wanted to ask, how do you connect your Artsky Flat Field generator via USB? I have one here and see no USB plug interface anywhere!
Don't worry. I see they have a new model out which, naturally, supersedes mine. Jeez
rights, sorry. :) Some have USB - and some have a knob/dial.
Hi Chad, I have a Pegasus Astro Flat Master 250 and I hate it!. Your I-Pad saturated the output at 2 seconds and I can't get my Flatmaster 250 to saturate after 60 seconds. Not even close. When I run the Flat Wizard many times it tells me the Flat Master 250 is too dim. And to increase the brightness. I've got it set at 190 out of 220 possible. Sometimes it works and the flats take about 27 seconds per flat. But this morning it was real cold. 16F and it just wouldn't work. Always too dim. No matter what I did or what I changed. I've got my minimum exposure time set to around .2 seconds and my max at 120 seconds. And this morning, it did try to work, but with an individual exposure of about 100 seconds. I have an OPT L-Extreme filter but it doesn't really impact the outcome. So I'm just not sure if the cold morning is ruining everything or what. I have the Flatmaster 250 on Super Boost too. For the price I feel I've been ripped off. Am I doing something wrong? ;o(
It almost sounds defective honestly. Almost any light should be bright enough to saturate a Lum filter in a couple seconds at most. How is it powered? If DC, is there an AC option? Could you test on another power source to see if it changes?
Hello, Patriot Astro great video, The question I have is in relation to the mean target, I have seen many people and therefore myself using 50%. Obviously, 35% will make the time shorter but was that the reason you went to 35 instead of 50? Or how do you arrive at 35%
Oh man... There are some rules about things not to discuss in groups of people: Politics, Religion, and Mean Histogram for Flats. :) As a general rule, almost anyone would be happy with you taking flats between 1/3 to 1/2 of the histogram. It is somewhat camera dependent. You need to make sure your flats don't have overly dark or bright spots. If the center is too bright, that would be bad. You also want to avoid hot/cold pixel, etc. If you are close to this range, it will work fine. There is no "Perfect" ADU per se. For me, and my cameras, I have found that going past 1/2 tends to be more problematic than going a little under 1/3, and as a result, I shoot a little lower.
@@PatriotAstro you are doing a great job, keep it up!
@@raflores1 Thanks!
Hi, why dont you put the brightnes of the flat panel to eg. 90% and then run the Dynamic Exposure flat wizard with a max. time of 2 sec.
Once you find the exposure times (all
Hi Chad. I know it's not specifically flats related, but I have a strange problem with my 294mm that I'm hoping you'd be willing to help me troubleshoot. My darks calibrate out the sensor's amp glow for my Ha subs, but not for my Oiii or Sii subs. I don't know how that's possible since the subs were taken on the same night with the same camera temp, gain, and offset settings. I found that when I multiply the master dark by 1.75 (or so), then subtract that from the Oiii and Sii subs, that more or less neutralizes the amp glow.
I've asked a couple astro communities on discord and no one had any ideas. I'd very much apprciate any help/suggestions you'd be willing to offer!
That doesn't make sense, as I'm sure you know. The amp glow should be consistent for all frames since it is occurring at the sensor and is unaffected by the filter, or scope, or sky, etc. Hmmm. How long are your flats? Maybe it is another one of the calibration frames that is actually causing the problem? (or darkflats?)
@@PatriotAstro sorry, I forgot to add a follow-up. I figured out the problem. I was using 0 offset. Once I upped it to 30, no more amp glow. 🙂
@@TomDastrup ooo - good to know. Glad it got worked out!
The question I have…does it really matter to take the flats at the same temp as the lights? I have see videos where the flats and the dark-flats are taken inside for example the following day.
Flat temperature really shouldn't matter since they are not used to remove noise (thermal or otherwise). So, Flats, Dark-Flats, and Bias are not temperature dependent. Lights and Darks are temperature dependent. As far as taking flats inside, just be careful. I have seen cases where something was on the lens and after moving the telescope and bumping it around a bit, it changed position... Then your Flats don't match your Lights.
@@PatriotAstro yes…and I do my imaging mostly from my wooden balcony….I noticed on evening that my darks had walking type of noise….elongated streams of light and I realized that I had been walking around while the darks were taken and thereby giggling the setup…silly me 🤪
I have a H-alpha modified Canon T6i. Tried the flat wizard. Targeted 30% with 10% tolerance. When I open flats in Photoshop histogram is way past 50%. Flat Wizard exposure time longer than exposure APT calculated. Not sure what I’m doing wrong. Using 1.10 (beta).
Strange, does it show the bit depth of your camera in the equipment page correctly? I'm wondering if it thinks you are 16bit but you are actually 14bit on the T6i. I think the actual rule with NINA and DSLR is that if shooting DCRAW it should be set to 16bit, but FREEIMAGE should be set to actual. If this is set wrong, it could make sense since 16bit is 65,535 while 14 bit is 16,384. It is a reach, but maybe?
@@PatriotAstro currently set to 14 bit and Freeimage. Going to try DCRAW and 16 bit to see what happens. Based on forecast, experimenting with flats is all I get to do for awhile.
Hi Chad. Your videos are great. They're really helping me along quickly switching from ASI air pro to NINA. Question for you: I saw you use Pixinsight for processing. I took my flats and flat darks for my 294MM tonight, but when I try to bring them into WBPP in pixinsight, it brings them in as flats. I tried adding them directly to the darks, but it groups them all (because they are so close in exp time). From what I can tell, it may be because the imagetype field is DARKFLAT. Just wondering if you use WBPP and if so, how you handle this. Much appreciated!
If WBPP thinks it is a FLAT, you will likely need to use the Add Custom button when loading these. Select the files by filter (assuming Mono), set the type of File as Dark, Set the filter name to match your other files, Set your Binning and exposure time. The filter part doesn't matter for the Dark file types, but since it asks, it doesn't hurt. If they are so close in time that they are getting grouped, it honestly shouldn't matter with that camera.
y are the wizard!!!!
LOL! I don't know about that! But I'm glad I could be of help. :)
Flats should not be 0.01 sec. Minimum 0.5 sec.
Agreed, those are quite short. Although, it really comes down to the camera sensor and consistency at short exposures. No reason to rule out
@@PatriotAstro I have 294MM, and it just doesn’t generate proper flats with