Keep Track of ADU Values When Imaging!

[@rickbria8420]

Thanks for the advice… like you, I have a meta data document I fill in for every object l’m imaging. It includes sky transparency, with a scale from 1 to 10. Your idea of ADU is better, I don’t know why I didn’t think of that before. I will add that to my documentation. By the way, I also image from Connecticut. Lost many a good night to smoke!

[@AstroQuest1]

Thanks Rick. I wish I was diligent enough to do a meta doc. It seems I am always in a hurry and barely keep up with the written log. Yeah Connecticut has many sky issues but Canadian wildfires was one I never expected. Cheers

[@HeavenlyBackyardAstronomy]

Hi Kurt, Good info from this video. I need to pay more attention to that ADU value. Now that I know, via your video, what it is, I will keep an eye on it. I always wondered what those values were in NINA. Thanks. BTW, great final image of the Sunflower.

[@AstroQuest1]

Glad it was helpful Pat! - PS: I like your your weather forcasts and watch them occasionally eventhough they are pretty away from me. Cheers

[@jesuschrist2284]

This is a very useful video for me and im sure many others. Ty again

[@AstroQuest1]

Glad to hear it Ty! Cheers

[@siegfriednoet]

Great informative video Kurt, and you are absolutely right. I always look at my mean value in NINA, I have the HFR history set to follow the mean with a curve, nice to see this after a night of imaging how it drops down and rises again in the morning hours. It's also possible to save an image of that histogram, so it's easy to look into it afterwards and save them all into a separate folder. This time of the year we don't get astronomical dark where I live, only nautical dark during three hours, so not a good mean value, but it doesn't keep me from imaging .... if the night is clear of course

[@AstroQuest1]

Thanks for the added info Siegfried. That is great idea to collect the HFR history in addition to the ADU values. You must be pretty high up in the latitudes and like the cold weather. Cheers Kurt

[@siegfriednoet]

@@AstroQuest1 No not really Kurt, I personally hate the cold and love warm weather 🙂My latitude is about 51°; so not really high up in the latitude I guess

[@tamrich7762]

Very interesting Kurt! Thank you for sharing.

[@AstroQuest1]

Thanks for the feedback Tam. Cheers Kurt

[@douglasfleming1]

Thanks Kurt. Very useful. BtW: where did you get your observing journal?

[@AstroQuest1]

Thanks Doug! Actually it is just bank notebook that I fill out. Some people create documents on the computer to record sky conditions (see Rick's comment) and such but this works for me. Cheers

[@douglasfleming1]

@@AstroQuest1 will do something similar, then. The wildfires have impacted observing up here in Ottawa as well.

[@anata5127]

SharpCap evaluates exposure according to ADU. What is your bortle? I like that notebook. It is so old fashioned. I use Word and computer. Do you record FWHM, eccentricity and SNR? I will. They are much more important than ADU.

[@AstroQuest1]

High Ana. The skies in my area are bortle ~5.5. I do all the FWHM and etc. in PixInsight`s subframe selector. Recording the ADU was specifically just for sky brightness. The other stuff is very important and is valuable if you keep track along the way if you can do it. I just collect the data and do it later. - Cheers

[@anata5127]

@@AstroQuest1 Very similar style for data monitoring and recording. This highly contributes to improvement. My zone is 7, so I get well higher ADU. What about your FEHM and eccentricity after integration of files in Pixinsight? By the way, have you decided to retire in Chile? You will not have high ADU there.

[@AstroQuest1]

@@anata5127 Yep I definitely use the FWHM, star Numbers, and Ecc. Yeah retiring to Chile would be a great solution. Cheers