I figured out a way in MaximDL Pro to check 20-frames at one time with the 'Information Window'-'Area' to check the 'StdDev' of each 'dark' frame to find the highest 'StdDev' in one of the 'darks' … I had 40-'darks' to check so I could set in the "Set Calibration" command for 'Remove Pedestal' to 3 times the highest 'StdDev' found so data won't be clipped which might be the 'dark-current' statistics . To make it easy you 'open' the "Settings" page and for 'General' you toggle down to ' 6.25% ' for a 'default' when you 'open' an image into the MaximDL 'buffer' the image will be small, … and you can then 'select' 20-frames at one time and they all will 'open' into the 'buffer' as small images . Then with the "Information Window"-'Area' you look at the 'StdDev' and write it down for the active image . Then press the 'red' X to remove the image and the next active image will show it's 'StdDev' and if it's more than the first then write it down and 'red' X it out and the next is ready … you are looking for the 'dark' with then most 'StdDev' in it for the total amount of all the 'dark' images you have . I used 40-'dark' frames and I did this twice by 'opening' two different 20-frame amounts . _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ I made twentyfour[24] more 5minISO6400 'darks' and made them into a 64-frame DARKMaster .. but it is minimal on the change in appearance compared to a 40-frame DARKMaster I have . The Bubble image here was done that way as one 200secISO6400 'Calibrated' CR2. and one 570secISO6400 'Calibrated' CR2. I 'stacked' them as Sum and did various commands to show as much as I could with the Baader 7nm Ha 950mmF/L 'Calibrated' 64-frame DARKMaster image . ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ In MaximDL Pro's Manual for 'Imaging with MaximDL Pro' is has a section on 'Spatial Filters' that says a 'Low-Pass' filter will smooth the image a little to show faint light extending from a galaxy . But I tried it and you will still have to use "KernalFilter-Median5x5" first and then the "KernalFilter-'Low-Pass' filter second . They say you can make a 'Used Defined' filter so I tried a 5x5 version and set into the 'middle' square a ' 1.0 ' and all the other squares to ' 0.25 ' except for the square above , below , and to the left and right side of the 'middle' square that has the ' 1.0 ' in it to ' -0.9 ' for the squares next to the ' 1.0 ' . Then press 'Close' and the filter is active … you can also name it . This filter will smooth pretty good without over-smoothing and can be used after the other two filters mentioned above . I looked on the 'Internet' for what a 'boxcar' filter looks like and the only thing I can assume is it has the values on one side of the 'squares' graph and a value in the 'middle' square and ' 0.0 ' values in all the other squares so the filter would be one-sided for a mild effect .?. x __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The FITS here as "Resize" to 6.5micron pixels with the Rebel T7i using the Baader 7nm Ha filter and then "Half Size" two times … wouldn't "PinPoint Astrometry" 'solve' till I put the 'StdDev: 3.0' and it immediately 'solved' with the USNO-A2 .???. x
