I am having a problem in my image processing with Siril, and I'm sure it's user error. I was hoping someone could enlighten me.
I'm using a Touptek ATR2600C with a Stellarmate Pro and quite often I end up not being able to process the resulting data with starnet because the resulting starless image is way too overblown and bright. I use gain 100, offset 110, 120 second exposures, in this example about an hour of data.
This is what my stacked, background extracted and color corrected image looks like with autostretch:
If I use starnet with pre-stretch enabled, I get this resulting starless image:
I have also tried pre-stretching myself and didn't get very far with that.
My process is usually the built-in preprocessing script, I am using flats and bias frames (no darks), then after stacking I do plate solving, photometric color calibration, background extraction with hand-placed sample points avoiding bright stars and nebulae, then I remove green noise.
I tried using histogram and GHS on the starless image but I can't get anything usable out of it. I tried the linear BP adjustment in GHS to lower the black point but I either lose all detail or everything is washed out in gray.
My questions are:
1) Am I doing something wrong with my basic process?
2) If not, is the resulting starnet image something that you can work with? If so, how?
I have uploaded the following original files in case someone is willing / interested to take a look :
result.fits - stacked image
result_bge_rgn.fits - color calibrated, background extracted
starless_result_bge.fits - the output of starnet (prestretch was checked)
starmask_result_bge.fits
I also included the stacked flat and bias masters, and in the "lights" directory there's the original light frames, just in case I should be doing something different there.