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* Cleanup of MultiStar processing and UI if subframes enabled
* Force rebuild of MultiStar list when subframes are disabled
* Help updates for multi-star selection and profile migration
* Adjust discussion of multi-star selection
* Fix star.cpp clang regression again
Auto-exposure are on the <ahref="Advanced_settings.htm#Camera_Tab">Camera Tab</a>
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of the Advanced Settings dialog. <br><h3><aname="Multi-star_Guiding"></a>Multi-Star Guiding</h3>Most guiding configurations can benefit from guiding on multiple stars
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of the Advanced Settings dialog. <br><h3><aname="Multi-star_Guiding"></a>Multi-Star Guiding and Star-Selection</h3>Most guiding configurations can benefit from guiding on multiple stars
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rather than just one. This results in using a
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weighted average centroid position of multiple stars rather than just the
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centroid of a single star. Multi-star guiding is enabled using a
will depend on many factors including image scale, star and background
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sky brightness, star size, focus, tube currents, and camera noise. Because of the way the
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algorithm is implemented, your best option will be to try it and decide
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for yourself. <spanstyle="font-weight: bold;">Note: if you don't use the auto-select function and instead choose a guide star manually, multi-star guiding will be inactive.</span>
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for yourself. <spanstyle="font-weight: bold;">Note: if you don't use the auto-select function and instead choose a guide star manually, multi-star guiding will be inactive.<br><br></span>Since
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the multi-star selection and guiding feature was introduced, users have
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asked for a means to override guide star selection based on what they
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see on the display. These requests have not been acted upon
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because they would disrupt the underlying mathematics of the multi-star
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algorithm. More importantly, they would lead to inferior results for
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reasons described below. The algorithm applies the basic
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principle that the accuracy of centroid calculation - the fundamental
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calculation of where a star is located on the sensor - is proportional
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to that star's SNR. It has nothing to do with the shape of the
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star, its location on the sensor, its proximity to the sensor edge, or
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any other visual characteristics of the star candidate. The algorithm
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will always choose the set of stars with the highest SNR values subject
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to user-controlled parameters that define what a star should look like
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on a particular system. Two parameters, Min-HFD and Max-HFD,
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define a range of star "sizes" that control whether a bright area on
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the sensor can be accepted as a star candidate rather than being
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rejected as sensor noise, an internal reflection, or a close pair of
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stars. The third parameter, Saturation ADU, defines an upper
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limit to the peak brightness of a star candidate, usually defined as
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the maximum ADU value produced by the guide camera. The algorithm
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tries to avoid saturated stars and will accept one only if there are no
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other viable candidates. Setting these parameters correctly is
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the single most important thing for a user to do in order to get the
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best possible sets of guide stars. The "Min" and "Max" HFD values
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can be determined empirically by using the Star Profile tool or by
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examining the PHD2 guide logs to see the range of star sizes that are
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typical for the guiding system and its seeing conditions. Once set,
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they should rarely need to be changed unless something in the
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configuration or the atmospheric conditions has changed
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substantially.<br><br>Users
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are commonly fooled by what they see on the display and think they can
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do a better job of guide star selection. This is a mistaken
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impression. The single biggest reason is that many of the
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"attractive" guide stars on the display are saturated.
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Secondarily, they are often just sensor noise, e.g. hot or warm pixels,
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that look like stars once the image has been down-sampled and
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gamma-stretched for display. No dark library or bad-pixel map can
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completely eliminate these artifacts. In summary, simply squinting at
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the screen and clicking on bright spots will produce inferior results
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compared to the quantitative, systematic approach taken by the
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auto-select star-finding mechanism. Of course, skeptical users
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can
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still manually choose a guide star, but they won't then be able to use
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multi-star guiding. For people who question the auto-selection
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process, the debug log file contains a detailed
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list, for every auto-find, of the location and properties of
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every candidate object in the guide frame and how these were
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included
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or excluded to compile the final list of usable guide stars.<spanstyle="font-weight: bold;"></span>
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