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Exposure Planner is a plug-in for MaxIm DL that allows you to inspect an area of an image
and determine how many exposures you will need to reduce the noise to an acceptable
level.
To install this plug-in, you have to run the program "Install Exposure Planner V1.2.exe", which will copy the necessary files to your disk. Then you must also run MaxIm DL and use its "Add Plug-in" command to make the plug-in available. By default the plug-in is installed in Window's "program files" area.
Warning: depending on which version of MaxIm DL you have, you may need to
run it as administrator while you are installing Exposure Planner. Once the
installation is complete, you can go back to running MaxIm DL as an ordinary user.
To use the plug-in, use MaxIm DL to take a single trial image of your target using the exposure time you intend to use when you start your session. For more accurate results, you can take several images and stack them. But be careful to have this be an average of the images, not the sum. However, one exposure is probably sufficient for most cases. The exposure(s) should be calibrated to remove dark and flat field problems. Then drag your mouse over a part of the image that you would like to study. Exposure Planner will give you a prediction of how many exposures to take and how long your session time will be. To get a copy of Exposure Planner, click here . |
