I am picking my way through the DSLR tutorial. I don't have any flats or darks but I want to see what stacking does to my series of lights. So I come to the part where you open the raw image and save it as a .FTS. That seems to work but when I try to look the FTS file, I can't find it. A search of the HD finds no FTS files. So I openned the raw image again and saved it as a FTS I get a message, do I want the overwrite the existing file. So where and how is that files stored?
I have tried to save as a FTS several times and when I try to save a raw that I have previosly tried to save several time I get message" unable to decode digital camera file."
I didn't thing AIP4Win ever changed the original data? I must have throughly confused the program.
Hi Edwin,
I see you're using AIP4Win, which versions is it? What camera are you using and do the RAW images open ok in AIP4Win? You mention a DSLR tutorial but I'm not sure which one you are refering to so please send me a link so I can check what the tutorial is saying.
When you are looking on your hard drive for the saved FTS image are you using Windows Explorer or File/Open Image in AIP4Win? In AIP4Win try selecting All FIles from the drop down list in the lower right of the Open Images dialog box. The FTS image should by default be saved in the same directory as your original RAW image. The extension will be .fts (not capitals).
Cheers,
Mark
Thanks for your reply Mark,
My above problem was a product of operator error. I didn't realize that the user had to to change the file extention manually. Hence no file with the extension .fts was saved and the changed content of the .cr2 file made it not a raw file anlymore.
I am using 4.2 registered a few days ago. My camera is a Canon 1100D. The link to the tutorial is http://www.citizensky.org/content/aip4win-beginner
As a way to learn AIP4Win I started with a pretty picture, not astrometry. I took 40 images about 30 sec each with the long edge of the format N-S using an 18mm lens. The camera was on a camera tracking mount. Looking at these images in a multi-format viewer (Irfanview) I see what I expected. The local horizon is at the bottom/short side of the frame while the Orion region occupies the rest. I believe this is called "portrait" view. The start of a pretty picture.
The image displayed by AIP4Win is quite different. While the layout is still portrait, the image has been rotated 90 deg. The local horizon is on the long left side and fills most of the frame. The star field seems to be truncated and I don't recognize any Orion stars. It is as though only the bottom/left third of the original image has been opened/converted.
Hi Edwin,
I also use a Canon 1100D so I know exactly what you are describing. AIP4Win does not interpret the .CR2 format of 1100D cameras correctly. Richard Berry advised me that until the software is updated we need to use a program called Adobe DNG Converter to save the .CR2 files as .dng files which can then be opened in AIP4Win. I wrote a brief "How To" for the last DSLR Photometry course. I'll try to attach it to this post.
The program is freely available from Adobe, just google it.
Canon are compulsive tinkerers when it comes to RAW file formats. It seems every new camera model has a new file format which must drive the third party sofware writers mad. Cheers,
Mark