Re: Where's Planet X in the New Images?

I M Openmind wrote:

> IMO's "poor result" is due to proper processing of images when
> combining them (yes, I stacked all 20 of the R images).  A median
> combine is used routinely for such stacking because it is not badly
> affected by a defect on a single image.  In this case, Steve's "star"
> is in fact a small bunch of pixels on shavas-15R.fts.  It is clearly
> not an actual object as is now illustrated 
> Jan ... try your stack leaving out shavas-15R and see what happens.

I've done that using AIP4Win, and have no problem seeing Steve's object, my
own incorrect candidate according to ZetaTalk as well as the arc above that
object. I do lose one object, a faint star BELOW Steve's object. You may be
right about this being a defect on one image, but it is NOT the object
pointed to by ZetaTalk as Planet X.

Using MaxIm DL, again dropping shavas-15R, using Sum, I get the same results
as AIP4Win. Using Average, I can still get Steve's object clearly, but my
own candidate gets rather faint, but can still clearly be seen. Again, the
only object missing is the object south of Steve's object.

The MaxIm DL help file says the following on combining images:
"The first step is to select the Output mode. This determines how the images
are combined. The options are Sum, which adds up the pixels in all the
images; Average, which sums all the pixels and divides by the number of
images; and Median, which takes the median or middle value from all of the
images. The Sum mode provides the best performance in most conditions (e.g.
Gaussian noise). The Median mode is useful when some pixels are extremely
bright or dark (hot/dark pixels, cosmic ray hits)."

Nice try, IMO.

Regards,
Jan