Specifications

SBIG ST-i Manual
camera control software to acquire your single-shot color images, make sure
to save them in either SBIG or 16-bit FITS file format. You should not
crop, resize, or flip the image (using 3rd party software) before importing it
into CCDOPS for one-shot color processing.
Tip: CCDOPS will display a warning message if you try to perform any
processing steps that might affect the integrity of the color data
Care must also be taken when manually co-adding images to preserve the
color data - do not use the X and Y offset functions in the Co-Add dialog
box. Because a single-shot color camera uses a color mask placed directly
over the CCD surface, the software expects certain pixels to match up to
specific color positions on the mask. If the image has been cropped or
rotated (outside of CCDOPS) the software will no longer be able to
associate the pixels with the correct red, green or blue values. During
processing, this can cause an unusual color shift to appear. This situation is
most likely to occur if the raw image has been cropped or rotated before
CCDOPS is used for color combination. This alignment problem is also the
reason why precise registration of manually co-added images is so critical.
Make sure to save a copy of your raw images. If you make any mistakes or
want to re-process the image later on, you will always want to have the raw
image available to start over.
Easy Processing of Single-shot Color Images with CCDOPS
Once you have captured the image, save it with a pleasing contrast range
selection then, from the Utility drop-down menu in CCDOPS select Single
Shot Color --> Color Process and you are ready to go. Processing of
Single-Shot Color Camera images is easy. Start by clicking the Defaults
button and selecting RGB or DDP for the Method (DDP works great on
galaxies with bright cores). Click on “Process.” Now a full-color image
will finally appear! Experiment using the sliders to adjust the color balance,
brightness and contrast. Each time you click on “Process” the image will
update and display your changes. The single-shot color combination
methods available are:
RGB: Standard three channel (R, G, B) color combination (use the for best
results with planets)
RGBs:
DDP: Applies a DDP filter to each channel (R, G, B) before combination
(for deep sky objects) .
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