Any idea what's causing this? [Deep Sky] Processing techniques · Ken Potts · ... · 7 · 192 · 2

kmpotts1 0.00
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I've been seeing this in my images lately when I zoom in. I can't figure out if it's an acquisition issue or a post processing issue.  Any help would be much appreciated. 

Screenshot 2025-06-23 at 10.24.11 PM.png
M8 Lagoon Nebula SHO.jpg
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Gondola 8.11
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It's walking noise and it's very common. It happens when you have drift in combination with little or no dithering.
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ognvet 0.90
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Dear Ken.

I agreed with what Tony Gondola just pointed out as a source of this walking noise, not enough dithering. I hope you can correct it in the next imaging sessions.

CS,

Obdulio
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kmpotts1 0.00
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Thank you so much Tony. I guess I need to incorporate dithering into my plan.
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ognvet 0.90
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Also take into account that dithering is needed if you want to drizzle your images, otherwise there is not a real benefit from drizzling. 

CS
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WhooptieDo 10.40
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There's never a time when dithering is NOT needed for DSO imaging.   

On a side note, don't throw away your old data, just incorporate that data in with dithered data, at some point, all the walking noise will disappear.   I'd say you'll need to double your current integration just to offset however.
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andreatax 9.89
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Obdulio Garcia-Nicolas:
Also take into account that dithering is needed if you want to drizzle your images, otherwise there is not a real benefit from drizzling. 

CS

No, it is not. What it is needed is random non-integer shifts between each data set (an image). How do you achieve those is up to you.
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kmpotts1 0.00
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Awesome, thanks everyone for the advice and help! Really appreciate it.
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