Sigma Beta 10 Comparison Test

Stan Moore provided a set of 6 images on which to run this test. The zipped set of raw FITS files is available here.

Below are the 6 test images (actual size) . According to Stan Moore:

1. They are cropped FITS files, each 20 min with ST-10e @ f/10.

2. The images have only been dark-subtracted, flat-fielded, and registered (pedestal is intact, no normalization).

3. They have background avg = 700 adu (excluding pedestal).

4. The background STD of the mean is 6 adu (S/N = 117)

5. The background STD of the un-normalized median is 10 adu (S/N = 70)

Here is the comparison. The images are each magnified 2x to better see the differences. As you can see Sigma Beta 10 does extremely well at reducing random noise and eliminating cosmic ray hits while maximizing S/N.

Sigma Beta 10 Settings:

Median Combine (2x Size)		Average Combine (2x Size)	Sigma Beta 10 (2x Size)