How to take and use a dark?

How to take and use a dark?

Singularity allows its advanced users to make darks more easily.
To get darks files, here is the procedure to follow.

Step 1: Make sure that the Expert mode is activated. 

To know how to do it, check this article.

Step 2: Launch an observation

For the darks to be well used, we recommend launching an observation (at least 30min of capture) before the acquisition of darks in order to reach a thermal stabilization of the sensor.
Go to the Object Catalog (2nd tab) and choose a catalog target or a manual target.

Step 3: Acquire darks

For Stellina, insert a USB key in your station and check that it is well detected. Then go to :
Your Space Center (1st tab) > Click on your Stellina or Vespera instrument > Expert Mode > Modify default values if necessary > Acquisition.

The darks files must have the same exposure time and the same gain level as the observation parameters. Most of the objects in the catalog are set to 10 seconds of exposure time and 20 dB of gain*.

*The camera parameters are different for stars, the Moon, planets, and some deep-sky objects.

Your instrument will start acquiring darks files according to the number of images and exposure time defined in the parameters.
If the optical arm is open, place a black cover over the lens. 
If the optical arm is closed, make sure that no light source illuminates the station so that no light enters.

Step 4: Stack and manually process your images 

Use your darks and FITs files with appropriate software (Deep Sky Stacker, Siril, PixInSight, Astro Pixel Processor...).

Please note: the Vaonis team does not provide support for manual image processing (stacking, processing...). We recommend you to ask for help from other users or use the search engine of the Facebook group to find old posts related to this topic, as well as tutorials shared by the community.

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