stacked images (R,G,B) all showing as gretscale

[mherbik]

New to a ccd. Atik 414ex first attempt at imaging and processing with it. Im totally frustrated. Took LRGB and Ha over last couple of nights. when I try to stack either using deepskystacker (what I have been using for DSRL) or batch preprocessing on PI comes out funky. Images are marked correctly LRGB I did check that. all come out greyscale not RGB what am I doing wrong? tried star alignment and image intergrator same result. really lost. ready to smash this damn ccd...

[sreilly]

So, not a lot of information to work with other than the frustration level. You say you took LRGB images but don't mention a filter wheel. A bit more about your equipment and exposure information would be helpful. You also should explain your processing procedure, while in PI as I'm not familiar with Deepskystacker. A screen shot showing your result might also be interesting.

Steve

[Nocturnal]

OK. Take a deep breath. The problem is not the CCD. The problem is you not understanding how to use it and the available tools. If you can't calmly work your way through minor problems like this, sell all your gear and take up a different hobby.

It sounds like you took 4 sets of images, one for each filter. Then you piled them all into DSS hoping it would magically create a color image. It doesn't work that way. Join the DSS yahoo group (the right place for this discussion anyway) and download the wiki/FAQ in PDF form from the files section. It will tell you how to create 4 separate images using DSS that you then combine using PixInsight.

If you prefer to use PI for stacking that is fine too. Perhaps the process is similar, I don't know. Someone else can comment on that.

[mherbik]

thanks for replies. I have atik 414ex with a 7 position filterwheel I have 5 filters LRGBHa I did image in all the filters over past few nights. I took 60 mins of each color binned 2x2 240 mins of L binned 1x1 (not sure if the difference in binning is the part of the problem) For what its worth I did notice that I aligned to image poorly 1 night and on meridian flip alignment to image differed from pre flip. so image needs to be cropped quite badly maybe again this is part of the problem. I used deepskystacker to stack the images seperatly resulting in 4 (I didn't bother with Ha yet) stacked images (LRGB) I played with L first in PI everything appears fine. I then imported the 3 RGB images. When the arrive in PI they are greyscale (donno if this is normal or not I believe it is. As I think I said I just bought ccd been working with DSLR until now.) At this point I try to use channel combination to form a RGB image. PI says I cannot channel combination can only be used on RGB color images. I try changing them to rgb and use channel combination "no compatable images" to import to channel combination they are now RGB. Guess I just don't know how to use PI to use the images I have going to try and put a link so you can get to the TIFFs and see what Im dealing with. May very well be the bad alignment over the course of a couple nights and meridian flip alignment that is killing the images from being usable but I don't understand if I have 3 greyscale images how to combine them (in the end probably end up with 5 greyscale LRGBHa.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/tuc5wlskhqc92lu/m101b.tif?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/43s04ftxyvd7bg6/m101g.tif?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/4ytp3tq9lbz6wdg/m101r.tif?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/6fg6zlkjgfnckbe/M101L.tif?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/cm11kgg1sc29yty/light-FILTER_Ha-BINNING_2.xisf?dl=0


Any help most useful. More than anything just want to learn how to use the tools in PI and not pull my hair out. As I stated already it may be my poor alignment over several nights and meridian flips that make this image in particular no good. But still even if image is bad would like to use to learn how to process in PI. Also possible in messing this up is I am very unsure as to how long of an exposure to take with ccd (again new to ccd) I went with 480 seconds for the color (binned 2x2) and 600 sec 1x1 for L as for Ha I did 1200 seconds. Though I am fairly sure exposure times and all my other issues aside shouldn't change how to do a simple process in PI for ccd image. I say simple what I should say is beginner process in PI none of this seems simple at the moment. Thanks again!!

[msmythers]

Let me start by saying I'm not a CCD guy so I'm not going to give how to stack or how to process your shots. How I got this image is probably not the right way or the best way. I just wanted to show that you have color from your images.

First your images are not in very good focus. You meridian flips is one problem. When you align your images you need to use one image from one of the filters as your reference for all filters when aligning. That will save you from aligning after stacking. I would also suggest spending the time learning how to manually stack your images in PixInsight. You will understand better when issues pop up and you can fine tune the final stacked image for the best quality. The batch preprocessing script is great but you can get better results with a very small amount of extra time using ImageIntegration. 

From what I can tell your Green and Blue images might be labeled wrong. I got color that was wrong using them as labeled. All of that being said here are the steps I used to get the image I attached.

Flipped m101g 180 degrees
StarAlign all images to m101g
Crop to remove dark areas
Convert the RGB images to gray-scale.
Linearfit all images to M101L
LRGBCombination  but had to reverse Green and Blue. Images might be labeled wrong.
SCNR to new RGB image.
NBRGBCombination to include Ha into image.
ColorSaturation to show all colors in image

Again this is not meant to be a workflow to follow but to show that your image has color. I don't own or have not used a CCD.


Mike