66 replies to this topic

[GaryCurran]

As summer ends, and we head into the cloudy season here in the Pacific Northwest, it's going to be harder and harder to find nights to get out with a telescope to collect data.  This may apply to other regions of the country, as well.

 

For those of us who are new to Astrophotography, this means less and less opportunities for us to learn and hone our skills in the post processing area.  I am wondering if those of you who have been around longer and have collected data on multiple DSOs would be willing to share unprocessed files with us so that we can learn the post processing routines we'll need.

 

I'm sure we could all use RAW images from your DSLRs, or other images right out of your CCDs, but those tend to be huge is size, requiring a lot of online storage for them.  What I was thinking was stacked files, .tif or .fts files right out of stacking, with nothing done to them.  This would allow new people, like myself (and others) the opportunity to work on data that has been accumulated in the past, just to see how we can do with it.

 

I realize that some people are like 'Oh no, not with MY data!' and that's totally understandable.  But, others may see that this is a good tool for teaching others.  This would be up to the individuals who might consider sharing data.

 

Because of the size of the .tif or .fts files, I would recommend something like a Google Drive account, Dropbox or other online sharing services.

 

I hope that people will take this opportunity to help people who are new to Post Processing.  If this offends you, I'm sorry, it wasn't meant to be that way, just looking for some people to help us newbs out.  

[anismo]

I am more than happy to post my NB or RGB integrations . I will put it up and post the link.

[Jon Rista]

I would be happy to share my data as well.

 

I am actually working on something that I was hoping to post today. I wanted to start a new thing here in BII where everyone could collaborate on teaching and learning on the same data, doing one single thing, such as NR or star reduction or color correction or what have you, in whatever way they please, and sharing their procedures. I think it would be interesting to see how everyone works the same data for the same purpose, and learn how and why they did it. I was thinking of starting a new thread like that once a week, on Fridays or maybe Saturday, so everyone had a week to take a crack at it. That might be another way we could share data and have something to do on all these cloudy nights.

[kraegar]

If space or bandwidth is a concern for sharing files, I have a dropbox account I pay for with a large amount of space free.  Nearly 1TB.  I'm sure we could find some way to give folks access to a folder to upload their data.

[kraegar]

How about this - I've made a folder in dropbox called cloudy nights.  Anyone who wants to put their images in it can (well, up to my TB that I have available!)

 

Here's the link: https://www.dropbox....UUK5AbDkua?dl=0

 

To get write access, just PM me your dropbox email, and I'll add you as an editor and create a subfolder for you.

 

To start it off, I've put the integrated stacks of my M31, M16 and M8/M20 shots in there.  (I know, my data is weak compared to a lot of it on here, but those are the best 3 I have).

 

I think this is a great idea, Gary.

[ckagy]

 I wanted to start a new thing here in BII where everyone could collaborate on teaching and learning on the same data, doing one single thing, such as NR or star reduction or color correction or what have you, in whatever way they please, and sharing their procedures. 

 

Jon, I do this with some of my film photographer buddies to develop our experience and artistry with printing.  Each person shoots 4 or 5 negatives of the same subject, then we exchange negs and share the eventual prints. It's neat to see how different people interpret the same negative.

 

After all, the negative (or data) is the score, but the print (or image) is the symphony.

 

-Chris

[ElGato]

I'd appreciate this as well.  Good idea, Gary.

[Goofi]

You can also browse the forum - many of us make FITS files available from our images. My Veil Nebula posted earlier in the week has FITS available.  Plus, some of us share files on our websites - you can click on "My Links" on mine and there are masters for some images there I've made available.

[GaryCurran]

Thanks Goofi!

 

kraegar, I tried your Dropbox earlier, but it said it wouldn't work.  However, I just tried it again, and it works fine.   

 

I hope one of the mods sees this and considers making it a sticky.

Edited by GaryCurran, 28 August 2015 - 03:54 PM.

[kraegar]

You couldn't see me images from that link? Hmm.  I tried it with an anonymous browser session and can see / download all 3 fits files from a browser.

 

If you mean you couldn't upload to it, you're correct.  Anyone wishing to store files there would need to PM me their email address, and I'll add them so they can upload their own data.

[gjewison]

Awesome idea, I need all the help I can get with processing.  

[qbool]

I have some data that I could contribute to this effort. But I don't dislike you guys enough to do something that terrible to you.

[GaryCurran]

I have some data that I could contribute to this effort. But I don't dislike you guys enough to do something that terrible to you.

 

All the better, maybe some of the old guys will get in on this and try it out.  Come up with something really exciting.  

 

Besides, I love a challenge.  

[WonderMellon]

I added the .fit file for my M52 and Bubble to my post on the subject.  I'll add the link here as well.  I'd love to see what other make out of it.

 

Feel free to add to Kraegar's Dropbox as well if we are consolidating them there.

 

https://dl.dropboxus...bble_89X120.fit

[David Ault]

I've been thinking about doing this for a while and how best to go about it.  I think having the full set of raw data including calibration frames can be useful for those wanting to practice the front end processing, but it does take up a lot of space.  It's one of the reasons I purchased a 1TB storage plan from Google Drive, so, I may make a couple data sets available for those that have the bandwidth to download them.  I've been collecting my raw stacks in one folder in preparation for doing this so it was mostly just a matter of uploading the data, which took surprisingly less time than I expected.  I have the raw data but not the stacks from my earliest images lying around, so I uploaded everything that had a completed stack to a shared Google Drive folder.  I've included a spreadsheet in that folder that has some notes about each image and those that are in sets (i.e. Ha, L, R, G & B images).

All told, there's a little over 2GB of data in that folder.  It probably would have been a lot more but for most of the time I've been imaging I've been using a 1.3 megapixel sensor which leaves me relatively tiny files.  Some of the data is pretty good, and some is pretty bad, but I hope that all of it is educational.

I don't want to scare anyone off, but while you can do whatever you want with the data on your computer, if you are going to post an image using my or anyone else's data you should make sure to give the appropriate credit.

Regards,
David

[GaryCurran]

Thank you, David, for contributing.  

[kraegar]

I have my RAW files straight out of the camera uploading now, too.  It's all my calibration frames, and light frames for M31, M8/M20, and M16 (and my 3 light frames from the veil are still in there, too).  Don't know that anyone wants to go to the trouble to download those and re-stack them, but I'm sure there are huge improvements to be made since I am just using BPP, so I went ahead and included them.

 

It'll take a while to upload, it's 11gb of data now.

Edited by kraegar, 29 August 2015 - 10:09 AM.

[AstroEthan]

I see a lot tons of DSO data in this thread, but since there is nothing that says no planetary data, I will contribute my data of Jupiter from January 16, 2015.

 

http://www.astrobin....icdatapools/29/

 

This is one of my first images taken with RGB filters, so the colors may be a little sketchy. Feel free to post to Astrobin if you can and want to, and don't forget to add the finished image to the public data pool under the "Actions" menu if you do post there:

 

Spoiler

[anismo]

I have posted some of my calibrated/integrated images my dropbox folder. It is still uploading. Let me know if there are any issues downloading it.

 

Feel free to download and use it and post it however you wish. It will be nice (but not required) to credit data acquisition.

[ElGato]

Oh well this is fascinating.  I've been having a heckuva time with all my data being pretty much useless - I figured I just didn't have enough integration time or didn't know what I was doing.  I even made a post a few weeks back asking if Nebulosity was hijacking my data but the result was basically that I didn't have a good enough SNR.  But when I opened a couple of David's and then Kraegar's M31 their data was completely clipped as well.  For some reason Nebulosity is destroying my data and I have no clue as to why.  Here's the histogram I'm getting by just opening Kraegar's M31 FITS file:

Attached Thumbnails

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[kraegar]

Just a note, the first step I have to take with that stack in PI is to separate the RGB, then do a linear fit.  All of my images appear completely blue otherwise.  I don't know what that would translate to for nebulosity, though.

[ElGato]

Yeah I'm not worried about the color, but the histogram has the whole left side clipped from the looks of it - same problem I've been having with my own images.  Individual subs are fine, as soon as I stack them that's what I get.

[anismo]

Yeah I'm not worried about the color, but the histogram has the whole left side clipped from the looks of it - same problem I've been having with my own images.  Individual subs are fine, as soon as I stack them that's what I get.

 

These are all linear images. So if you load them into PI or other program, they will look dark and without any data. You will have to stretch them to pull the details out.

[leemr]

I was actually planning on making a site for the sharing of raw astro data. Problem is, I was planning on using it as a way to learn new tech, so it's been very slow going. I've basically gotten nowhere because I don't have enough time.

 

I think I might just switch back to what I know so I can get something operational.

Edited by leemr, 29 August 2015 - 07:19 PM.

[ElGato]

 

Yeah I'm not worried about the color, but the histogram has the whole left side clipped from the looks of it - same problem I've been having with my own images.  Individual subs are fine, as soon as I stack them that's what I get.

 

These are all linear images. So if you load them into PI or other program, they will look dark and without any data. You will have to stretch them to pull the details out.

 

 

 

I understand.  My point is that this histogram spike should be somewhere off the left side correct?  My subs are.  But when I stack my images using Nebulosity that spike is cut in half by the histogram - i.e. the details we want have been clipped to black.  I can't stretch clipped data.  I'll post a few of my histograms as an example.

Edited by ElGato, 29 August 2015 - 08:47 PM.