383L+ Mono - binning

[DMouse]

HI,
Just curious if there has been a firmware fix, or a workaround for the horizontal blooming seen when binning images 2x2. I am getting my 383L+ mono next week, so was just curious if I should expect this to still happen?

Clear Skies

Paul

[geoshare]

I have been shooting 2x2 a few night with 600 sec subs and have had no issues with the same camera. See my first image in the Deep Sky Images forum...(geoshare)

Good luck ... Robert

[Kaidan]

Robert, can you post a non-processed FIT subframe with the brighest star in it of one of your sub ?

The 8300 horizontal blooming in bin2x2 is a well know issue discussed on the QSI board and also reported here. I noticed that it's somehow random so addition with Sigma Clipping will mostly "vanish" the issue but it's still here for sure. I guess that in Ha, the stars are so extinguished that you don't reach the blooming limit even with 600s subs. Try it with Lum filter.

[DMouse]

Very nice image Robert, but as Kaidan said, the stars may not have been bright enough to push them to bloom to the left.
Anyway, my camera should arrive early this next week and once the rain goes away I hope to get some images soon so I can test this out for sure.

Clear Skies

Paul

[geoshare]

My unprocessed fits files are 4 mb binned at 2x2 so exceeds the posting limit.

[DMouse]

Hi, managed to get some images last night, no filters, but I did have a go at some binning 2x2. There are a couple of stars in this image I think are starting to bleed to the left, but only longer exposures will tell. This image was a 3min exposure with an ED80.

Clear Skies

Paul

[geoshare]

Looks pretty good to me...
Robert

[Kaidan]

The bright stars bleed to the left for sure.

[bwa]

...I think are starting to bleed to the left...

I downloaded your image, stretched it to the max and see no bleeding from any of the stars.  Image looks great!

bwa

[Kaidan]

That's because you get bigger stars when you stretch to the max (i also get round stars when i stretch to the max, even my guiding is not good) and you don't see the problem. It's visible on the image he posted however.

[bwa]

It's visible on the image he posted however.

Much better eyes than mine!

bwa

[rhedden]

Has there been any progress on fixing this issue?  I image at 1200 mm or 2000 mm focal length with a SCT, so 2x2 binning is important to me.  It makes no sense to image 1x1 at 0.55" per pixel.  The blooming is present even in 5 min. subs with no bright stars.  It looks similar to what's been posted here previously: bleeding to the left on the brighter stars. 

I was wondering if it is a suitable "work around" to image 1x1 and then use software to artificially bin the data 2x2 after the fact.  Has anyone tried this approach, and what software is useful to convert the FIT files to 2x2 if so?  The downside is of course that one has to suffer the long download times and huge file size of the 1x1 subs.