Canon banding becoming over powering.

[Nigel G]

2 minutes ago, carastro said:

I am inclined to agree with Olly, but in the meantime, here is a tip I was given some years ago:

Do you keep your SD card in the camera when you download to the laptop? 

I was told that removal of the SD card reduces this problem because something electronic (which I don't understand) can happen in the download due to the SD card being in place.  Anyway, I removed my SD card and it greatly improved/got rid of the horizontal banding problem.  This was some years ago, so I can't remember all the details 100%.

Might be worth a try though, and as stated previously try not to let power cables touch USB cables.

Carole 

I remove the SD card  actually it has only been put in for this test. 

I have taken a 15min saved to card, no connections, a 15 min with wires everywhere 12v & 240v crossing and running alongside, and the final one still going, usb to pc, avoiding all wires.

[carastro]

OK, well looks like your problem is due to something different.  

Carole 

[tooth_dr]

Well what’s the verdict

[ollypenrice]

12 minutes ago, tooth_dr said:

Well what’s the verdict

The fault, dear Brutus, lies not within our stars but within our wallets...

 

[Nigel G]

Just now, tooth_dr said:

Well what’s the verdict

Ok. these are RAW opened in picasa photo viewer and screen grab cropped in paint no stretching as picasa does a small auto stretch.

Results are not what I was hoping for. All taken with lens cap on. 15 min ISO800. 

1st, straight to SD card, no wires anywhere near. 2nd, To PC avoiding all power cables. 3rd, 12V & 240V power cables everywhere crossing and running alongside USB cable.

Clearly banding in all 3, 

I would say direct to card is worse and the other 2 about even.

Now this is a dark frame showing the banding, will this not work to remove the problem used as a dark frame ?

I have read that darks will not remove banding so never bothered to use them as I dither instead.

[Nigel G]

Looks like the sensible thing to do is upgrade camera.

I have thought a lot about cameras and what to get.

I love the idea of a mono but would it be a good choice with so few clear nights to gather data, would a OSC be the wise choice.

I'm going to tackle this by reducing the exposure times and will try darks as it will do no harm. in fact I could add some darks to the data I have, I know its not ideal but I would see a difference to banding if it made a difference.

Nige.

[ollypenrice]

38 minutes ago, Nigel G said:

Looks like the sensible thing to do is upgrade camera.

I have thought a lot about cameras and what to get.

I love the idea of a mono but would it be a good choice with so few clear nights to gather data, would a OSC be the wise choice.

I'm going to tackle this by reducing the exposure times and will try darks as it will do no harm. in fact I could add some darks to the data I have, I know its not ideal but I would see a difference to banding if it made a difference.

Nige.

My answer is always the same. Mono is fastest. On NB it is way faster and it opens up the moonlit nights for imaging.

Olly

[carastro]

I would say a mono would be the wise choice, if you get an electronic filterwheel you can capture Luminance and colour in a sequence.  Also gives you the option to do narrowband.   Also the mono camera (if you're spending all that money), will give much better detail.  

Carole 

 

[Nigel G]

Interestingly I added some dark frames with a positive result. Exactly the same subs and stacking parameters, second with darks, Both are gradient wiped and first stretch nothing else.

I really thought darks would not touch banding but here is the proof.

Nige.

[tooth_dr]

Nice image too 

[Thalestris24]

Hi Nigel

I think I read somewhere that battery power causes increased temperatures with long exposures. In general, I use a mains adapter and a good quality, shielded usb cable. I'm planning a portable system which will use a 12V Li battery and dc-dc covertor for the dslr. I can't say whether not using an internal battery will make any difference to your noise problem. The only time I've experienced noise like that was shortly before a camera failure... Don't want to worry you though!

Louise

[michael8554]

Good thought Louise, but I think there would be a hotspot on his Darks, which there doesn't appear to be.

Nigel, have you been into the menus and turned off all the custom settings?

Michael 

[Nigel G]

7 hours ago, michael8554 said:

Good thought Louise, but I think there would be a hotspot on his Darks, which there doesn't appear to be.

Nigel, have you been into the menus and turned off all the custom settings?

Michael 

There's thousands of hot pixels in the darks when I  stretched it in digital photo professional. But the bands are not oddly. The bands only appear when Picasa auto stretched it, but no hotspot.

I'm pretty sure all the custom settings are off. I will check today. 

@Thalestris24 Louise to be honest if the camera is on its last legs so be it ☺ it's just a camera. I wouldn't be surprised after the abuse it has been through in the last 2 years, stripped down 3 times, blown up once by miss aligned wires ☺

Cheers 

Nige 

[StargeezerTim]

4 minutes ago, Nigel G said:

 

@Thalestris24 Louise to be honest if the camera is on its last legs so be it ☺ it's just a camera. I wouldn't be surprised after the abuse it has been through in the last 2 years, stripped down 3 times, blown up once by miss aligned wires ☺

Cheers 

Nige 

Sounds like the NSPCC (national society for the protection and care of cameras) need to pay you a visit! 

[Thalestris24]

I hope the problem isn't terminal! Any updates?

Louise

[Nigel G]

1 hour ago, Thalestris24 said:

I hope the problem isn't terminal! Any updates?

Louise

Me too  I have the 1300D to fall back on if it is.

Haven't had the chance to do any more yet, clouds.

But have started a funds box for a new camera, hopefully by next festive season I will be shooting with a proper AP camera. No idea where to start with that but plenty of time to read and research  I did start saving last year, got halfway there and had to use the funds for life's little surprises.

Nige. 

[Stub Mandrel]

On 01/01/2018 at 18:14, Nigel G said:

Interestingly I added some dark frames with a positive result. Exactly the same subs and stacking parameters, second with darks, Both are gradient wiped and first stretch nothing else.

I really thought darks would not touch banding but here is the proof.

Nige.

Darn, another myth exploded...

I found cooling helps a lot too. This is a stack of 23 600s Ha shots with an exif camera temperature of 2C, the actual sensor will be a lot cooler than this well below zero. The banding is there but not very obvious. 450D so I think the same sensor as yours?

Processed you can still see some banding at the bottom right of the nebulosity. Probably processed far too much.... It seems to be worse if no darks are used but I'm not 100% sure which image was processed which way...

 

 

I use batteries only and internal SD card.

[Nigel G]

Further experimenting with darks, a short clear spell Sunday evening allowed me to take 90 minutes of data on the Soul Nebula, I have added some good dark frames too.

So far 9x600s (not enough yet ) ISO 800.  Flats darks and bias.

Certainly reducing the bands which is a positive result.

I also processed a Luminance and a red version then layered them in StarTools which has almost got rid of the bands completely.

At least there are ways to tackle the banding, lucky I like experimenting ☺☺

I have a feeling that the camera is going to survive 

Slight banding visible in the Lum image.

Cheers 

Nige 

Edited January 9, 2018 by Nigel G

[edarter]

Hi, Sorry to resurrect this topic but I'm getting similar issues with my Eos600D, though my sub lengths are much shorter (60-75s) as I'm currently unguided. I did post about it a few weeks ago, but at that time I had also been making an error in my processing is DSS, after I corrected that the problem seemed to go away. However, over the last few nights it does seem to be re-emerging.
I am using Darks and Bias, but not flats. I tend to do about 20 or so darks at the end of a session and 40 or so Bias frames. Some nights I don't seem to get the issue, other nights its quite pronounced. 

From Nige's last post, how many darks should I be aiming for? Also, it sounds as though this luminance thing could also be a trick to help, though I don't shoot with any filters currently. Can I use the luminance channel and do some clever jiggery pokery with that ??

Basically any suggestions to help alleviate this would be greatly appreciated as I cannot afford a dedicated astro cam yet!

Thanks
Ed

[Stub Mandrel]

Can you post some example images?

[michael8554]

When I had a 600D it always banded in hot weather.

I used a Background Equaliser tool in the free FITSwork software, can't remember the exact name for the tool.

Michael

[edarter]

Here you go, Markarians chain taken a few nights ago, with Darks and Bias frames applied. 3 or 4 basic stretches carried out with the last one being fairly aggressive to highlight the lines a bit better.

 

[Stub Mandrel]

You could try the banding reduction action here (comes with many other useful routines).

https://www.prodigitalsoftware.com/AstronomyToolsActions.html

I had a go on a screen grab, made it better but didn't completely remove it.

Best other options are temperature matched darks (warm, cool, cold night darks should be OK) or a cooled camera.

Plus flats and darkening the background will help a lot by making them less prominent.

 

 

[Nigel G]

On 21/04/2020 at 17:14, edarter said:

Hi, Sorry to resurrect this topic but I'm getting similar issues with my Eos600D, though my sub lengths are much shorter (60-75s) as I'm currently unguided. I did post about it a few weeks ago, but at that time I had also been making an error in my processing is DSS, after I corrected that the problem seemed to go away. However, over the last few nights it does seem to be re-emerging.
I am using Darks and Bias, but not flats. I tend to do about 20 or so darks at the end of a session and 40 or so Bias frames. Some nights I don't seem to get the issue, other nights its quite pronounced. 

From Nige's last post, how many darks should I be aiming for? Also, it sounds as though this luminance thing could also be a trick to help, though I don't shoot with any filters currently. Can I use the luminance channel and do some clever jiggery pokery with that ??

Basically any suggestions to help alleviate this would be greatly appreciated as I cannot afford a dedicated astro cam yet!

Thanks
Ed

Hi Ed.

With darks, I recommend a minimum of 22, but more is better. 

Warm weather always made the banding worse, and darks worked on a small % of images with the bands but not much. To be honest darks didn't do much for my DSLR images as temperature would fluctuate a lot, flats and bias did however but not with bands, 

Longer subs will make the banding worse unfortunately, but there's several processing options, Star tools has a good banding module which works well most of the time, and a photoshop plugin, Astronomy tools, pretty cheap and works in PhotoShop CR2 free version plus all the paid for versions.

You shouldn't need to take bias every time you image, once a year I would make 50 new bias frames.

Using narrow band filters did help, its the layering of different filtered images that reduced it quite well, but filters are not cheap and the money better saved for a camera upgrade if your heading that direction. 

It's rare that the banding couldn't be processed out, once you find a good method, it tends to work on most images.

Heavy dithering helps also, as your moving the banding around a little on each sub. A meridian flip worked very well because the bands were flipped on some of the subs, stacking removed pretty much all bands, but that all depended on the target.

Hope this helps in some way.

Best regards

Nige.

 

[edarter]

yeah got that toolset already. It helps to some extent but not great really. Thanks for the suggestion though. Would still be curious to know how to reduce it with a luminance layer as suggested above.