Instructions for Star
Subtraction Method
for Processing Asteroid Image Sets
Bruce L. Gary, Last Updated
2014.12.31
This web page describes my method for processing asteroid image sets using "star subtraction." I have found that it provides better quality results for all star fields, especially those that are crowded with stars and especially when the asteroid is faint. For uncrowded star fields and bright asteroids the benefits are small but still present. There are two phases: image processing (with MaxIm DL 5) and spreadsheet processing (using Excel).
Image Processing Phase
I will assume that there are several FOV image sets. For each FOV, do the following for as many images that can be loaded into MaxIm DL as possible (without using virtual memory (hard drive supplement to RAM); for me that's ~ 150 images).