Flowerpot Flats

[Marky1973]

After some advice on an image I posted a few days ago, I am thinking about flats and how to get them quicky as part of my imaging. Having read Steve's book and seen a few things on t'internet about t-shirt flats, I was trying to concoct something out of an old white t-shirt an LED light and a black flower pot. The plan being that it would be easy to hold up to the scope aperture after the lights run in the same way as an LED light box or similar.

My question is, for the diffusely lit surface that is required for the flats, does the brightness matter, or is the uniformity of the light spread the most important thing?

Cheers

Mark

[Marky1973]

Oh, and the other question was whether the weave of the material was an issue? I am presuming not because of the focus of the scope. If it is not changed for the FLATS after the LIGHTS, I am presuming it shouldn't be a problem.

[ollypenrice]

Texture close to the objective doesn't matter. Consider the size of a secondary mirror smack in the light path of a reflector. It doesn't show.

The brightness does matter, but this can be controlled by the brightness of the source and/or the exposure time. I'd suggest you aim to have the histogram peak of the flat about a third of the way to the right. Flats must be calibrated but a master bias is fine to use as a master dark for your flats.

Olly

http://ollypenrice.smugmug.com/Other/Best-of-Les-Granges/22435624_WLMPTM#!i=2266922474&k=Sc3kgzc

[Marky1973]

Cheers Olly.....will experiment and.see how I get on. Just done some flats where the histogram was in the middle....batteries running down on camera and laptop so was rushing unfortunately. But see how it stacks and adjust from there.

Fingers crossed it works! Seems like almost too simple a solution, so hope it does.

If it does any good I'll post some piccies of the flower pot!