Image preprocessing frustration!

[dnewell]

I am brand-new to PixInsight and to astrophotography also.  However, I don't think image calibration/registration/integration should be as hard as it is.  I have spent all day trying to get an integrated image.  I have had my share of "No correlation" errors, following the tutorials to the letter, to getting virtually a blank image in the calibrated files, and then of course when I integrate them I get the "Zero or insignificant signal detected: Empty image?" error.  I'm actually not sure what to do at this point. 

Just as an aside, I used the same master files with a combine using MaxIm DL, and I have a beautiful image in about 10 minutes.  And this is after spending probably 8 hours trying to get PixInsight to do the same thing.

I'd glad send the files to anyone that thinks they can tell me what is going on.

Thanks.
Dick

[Enzo De Bernardini]

You have tried with BPP script?

http://pixinsight.com.ar/en/docs/tag/11/bpp--batchpreprocessing.html

Be sure to do everything with yours original raws (no touched by other programs)

Later, here other guide to start with PixInsight.

Greetings,

Enzo.

[bitli]

I have tried to explain what happens in ImageCalibration here: http://pixinsight.com/forum/index.php?topic=7149.0, make for a tough reading though.  See the beginners corner and the section on optimization.  Any proposition to make it clearer welcome.

It may help to look at the histograms of the raw and preprocessed image to understand what happens. Especially check what comes out of your camera in term of bias and dark, they are not all equals.

It is a little bit boring at the beginning it is worth making the effort to understand what is happening.

-- bitli$

[dnewell]

Enzo,

Yes, I did try to use BPP, and input all of the raw files.  It created the master files, but still could not do the integration.  I took some more images last night, and just tried to get them processed through BPP to no avail.  I don't get any errors until the registration phase, and virtually all of the files give the error: RANSAC: Unable to find a valid set of star pair matches.  And thanks bitli, I'll read through that documentation.

BTW, I have purchased PI, so I would like to get this to work.  However, if I have to use another program for preprocessing, I will, and then just use PI for postprocessing.

Thanks again.
Dick

[pfile]

usually when you see this it means that your stars are either soft (frames are not focused well) or there is trailing (bad polar alignment or bad guiding). if you post a sample light someone can take a look and make suggestions.

rob

[dnewell]

You're right Rob...the focusing was not good.  I had taken another set of images which I ran through and everything went fine....the focusing was much better on those, so that was the problem.

Thanks.
Dick