I recently purchased the LED tracing pad that you recommended in one of your equipment emails, to use to capture my flat calibration frames at the same time I do the darks (I had been doing them the next day in the sunshine).
I'm finding that when I have the exposure set so that the histogram is in the middle range, the flat frames have a blue tint (vs. grey) to them. I get the same result if I use a white cloth between the light pad and my telescope or have the light pad directly against the telescope. If I speed up the exposure, so that the histogram is almost all the way to the right, the flat frames are almost completely white.
I'm assuming the blue tint is from the "white" light in the tracing pad, that has some underlying blue in it? Are the flat frames with that blue tint alright to use in the stacking process? Should I do something to adjust the white balance in my camera (Canon Ra) to compensate so they look more grey? Or should I go back to my sunshine routine?
Hi Suzanne,
That's a bit strange, because we also use the Ra (and that same tracing pad) and our flats don't have this issue. Our White Balance is always set to "auto". I don't believe the slight color tint will affect your master file, so if I were you I would try stacking them anyway so you can get a quick answer on that. I also would try taking flats with a different camera to check if maybe the flat panel you received is not 100% white, but that's unlikely 🤨.
Antoine