Pleiades is a Mess - Part 1: Stars

Matthew Humphrey

I am processing the following data of M45:

200 x 120 second subs

30 x 120 second Darks

30 x Bias

30 x Flats

I have completed WBPP (PSF Signal Weight, Local Normalization), DBE and SPCC.  

Next I run BlurXTerminator.   The rings and halos around the brightest stars start to be come more noticeable.  As I progress through processing, it gets worse and worse.  

When I do StarXTerminator, it leaves several of the Halos behind (Interestingly, changing the AI version to "Lite" actually does a better job in this regard)

Things go from bad to worse as I progress.  

I have provided a few screenshots of what I am talking about.

Is there any general advice for dealing with the bright star halos earlier in the process?  I feel like the data is better than the result I got.

Matthew Humphrey

In a second attempt, I ran SXT immediately after DBE and SPCC.   It did a much better job.  I then processed the "Star" and "Starless" images separately and recombined them at the very end.  Overall, it is better, but I'm not sure if tis is the right approach.