ASI AIR Mini - My darks are lights!!

neilm

Last after capturing all my lights I stopped the sequence and set up a new sequence to capture my dark frames. I clicked the "dark" box so it would set up a "dark" folder. I put the front cap on the telescope and did the AutoRun sequence. It appeared to work and there are no error messages in the log.

After stacking I found weird things happening. When I checked the dark frames they all had star data in them! The cap was on so it must have been data from a previous light capture. I lost 45 minutes of time capturing what I thought were dark frames.

To be clear, in the ASI Autorun directory there are two folders labeled Light and Dark. The light folder has all the correct light data, and the Dark folder has the correct number of dark frames, all time-stamped correctly. However there is a star field in each frame!

Does anyone have any idea what is going on?

Thanks!
Neil

w7ay

neilm When I checked the dark frames they all had star data in them!

Are the star asterisms of the dark frames the same as the ones you had captured for light frames?

You can also try to magnify the (dark) images around the stars to see if they are actual stars (usually a non-distinct blob of light that is more than 1 pixel by 1 pixel in size), and are not hot pixels (1x1 pixel in size).

Only other thing I can think of is that you have more than one camera connected to the ASIAIR, and you'd capped off the wrong one.

Chen

neilm

Hi Chen, thanks

yes, the stars are identical in the "dark" frames and the Light frames.

Good idea on the other camera ... I have a ZWO Mini guide camera. I checked that and it is s totally different field of view so that was not the source of the dark frame images.

Neil