Shooting Flats with BYN

[sureshks]

Hello,

I am just now getting into shooting flats, and have a flats generator on order presently.  

Does BYN have a mode that auto selects the proper exposure times for flats?  I have a few different imaging scopes and will eventually be doing Narrowband as well.

How can I determine the optimal brightness setting for shooting the flats? 

Thank you!

Suresh Sreenivasan

[admin]

The image histogram is your best friend here.

For flats you should aim at getting the histogram hump about 1/2 to 2/3 in from the left.

Regards,

[s3igell]

You can readily use Av mode on your Camera to perform the required Exposure Metering (you can set Exposure Compensation to +1 or +2 if still not satisfied with the resulting Image Histograms).

You can set the Capture Plan Type to "FLAT" and Shutter to "Av" and ISO to the same as you would normally Shoot your Nighttime Light Exposures (or you can drop the ISO all the way to 100ISO in order to better scale the Av-mode Metering).  Depending on your Light Source for the Flats, you want to ensure that your Exposure is significantly longer than the Source (Light Bulb, LED, LCD) Refresh Rate.  This is why it's best for a DSLR to work towards a Flats Exposure Time in the 1-5 second range - to ensure no "Rolling Shutter" artifacts.

 

[sureshks]

Hello,

Thank you for the responses.  I'll give it a try!

Suresh