Messages

1

General / Re: First image out ! BUT !!!

« on: 2013 May 18 14:19:00 »

Yikes! It looks like they're in the red channel.

This is a one-shot color camera, right? A DSLR?

Cosmetic Correction combined with Batch Preprocessing will help. I think you left off the rejection algorithm -- Winsorized Sigma Clipping is good.

Take a look at Harry's videos: http://www.harrysastroshed.com/Calibration.html  (among many other excellent and helpful ones)

2

General / Re: Masters

« on: 2013 May 17 13:11:51 »

Use Image Integration, and take a look at the settings here: http://pixinsight.com/tutorials/master-frames/en.html

No normalization, no image weighting, Winsorized Sigma Clipping.

Enjoy the PI learning experience, it will do things for your data that you won't believe! Welcome.

3

New Scripts and Modules / Re: Annotation script

« on: 2013 May 13 23:59:30 »

 

This script was already invaluable for my astronomy classes. Now, even more so! Thank you.

4

Gallery / Re: NGC3324 - HALRGB

« on: 2013 May 12 14:43:25 »

Nicely done! I like the rich, vivid color, though I think it's a bit overdone in the brightest region.

5

Gallery / Re: NEWer Images

« on: 2013 May 02 14:02:38 »

Excellent work, Warren, you've been busy!

6

Release Information / Re: New automatic FITS header cleanup feature

« on: 2013 May 02 01:20:05 »

Nice work, Juan, great idea! Do you know some specific programs that this will help coming from? CCDStack?

7

Bug Reports / Re: PI RC6 Crash on OSX 10.8.2 When closing an image

« on: 2013 April 24 02:52:11 »

I just got a crash on closing an image. I had just run DBE, did an Undo, then closed it. Crash... I agree that it seems to be crashing when a 'are you sure' dialog box should pop up.

8

General / Re: bright core question

« on: 2013 April 24 01:39:56 »

I'm sure you've seen it, but in a word: HDR Composition! It is fantastic for this exact purpose. Keep in mind that it will look wrong until you do the histogram stretch and then run HDR Multiscale Transform. Use a mask!

9

General / Re: Grey M42 Core

« on: 2013 April 23 16:49:59 »

This is a good tutorial in terms of steps and processing tools, but I personally feel that it's a bit 'crispy', with HDR Multiscale being used a little too much to knock out the natural glow. I think the gray comes from the obliteration of color data when the LRGB combo is made. So it's representing *just* detail structure from the L with no real chrominance data from the RGB.

10

General / Re: Interpreting Results from Blink on M106

« on: 2013 April 23 16:47:56 »

What do they look like when you hit the top button?

But for the ones you showed, I'd guess that the second image was from later in the night or higher in the sky, so the SNR is better and that pushes the background down to black (compared to the first image).

11

General / Re: Interpreting Results from Blink on M106

« on: 2013 April 23 13:45:57 »

Which of the two buttons are you using, the top or the bottom?

12

General / Re: Interpreting Results from Blink on M106

« on: 2013 April 23 13:13:15 »

Are you using the Autostretch button once you load all of them in? I am used to seeing my frames change over the course of a night because each image is autoSTFed to its own best value, so as the object rises or sets, the brightness of the background will change. When all is said and done, the frames still work out great when integrated. I think what you're seeing it totally normal and might actually give you some visual information about the quality of the night.

You can also blink through using one specific frame's STF to get a sense of how all the frames compare to that one. Experiment with the buttons in the middle...

13

Image Processing Challenges / Re: Deconvolution Challenge

« on: 2013 April 22 21:23:41 »

Thanks! Yes, that's now Deconvolved (just the L). I think I just needed to tweak my Global Dark value a bit that night, I didn't have the patience to methodically do it but tried to use Alejandro's values right out of the box. But different masters = different decon vars!

14

General / Re: Star Registration - newbie questions

« on: 2013 April 22 19:00:34 »

Can you show us what some of the frames look like? I have also found StarAlign to be very robust and able to handle all kinds of rotations and transformations. I think one thing that it struggles with is bad tracking, though. If your stars have some trail to them, it may not be able to recognize them as stars at all...

15

Wish List / Re: Mask active frame border

« on: 2013 April 22 18:56:33 »

Ah, so that's what that is!