Combined Beginner and Intensive
PixInsight Workshops
By Vicent Peris
2 – 7 and 9 – 14 December 2016, San Jose, California, USA
These workshops will give amateur and professional astrophotographers alike a chance to work with Vicent Peris, a member of the PixInsight Development Team, and learn directly from him the techniques and tools he has developed on the PixInsight Platform.
The workshops will take place at the Comerica Building in San Jose, California, USA, from December 2 to 7 and 9 to 14. These workshops start on Friday, offering a combined beginner/intensive weekend. Then, the intensive workshops continue on Monday through Wednesday. These combined workshops will offer the user a more flexible opportunity to learn image processing. On the weekend an introductory workshop to PixInsight and the basic image processing techniques will be offered for up to 20 people. The following three days of each week will review more advanced techniques in a fully personalized learning experience for up to 12 people.
Workshop Dates and Venue
The workshops will take place at the Comerica Building in San Jose, California, USA, during the following dates:
- December 2 to 4 – First Beginner Workshop
- December 2 to 7 – First Intensive Workshop
- December 9 to 11 – Second Beginner Workshop
- December 9 to 14 – Second Intensive Workshop
Contact Information
Centext Legal Services
37 North Almaden Boulevard
San Jose, California 95127
Rates and Registration
Please register ONLY to one of the options below, according to your preference:
First Beginner Workshop — December 2 to 4
With a total duration of 18 hours, the registration price is 450 Euros. Click the button below to register.
First Intensive Workshop — December 2 to 7 (includes the weekend workshop)
With a total duration of 40 hours, the registration price is 900 Euros. Click the button below to register.
Second Beginner Workshop — December 9 to 11
With a total duration of 18 hours, the registration price is 450 Euros. Click the button below to register.
Second Intensive Workshop — December 9 to 14 (includes the weekend workshop)
With a total duration of 40 hours, the registration price is 900 Euros. Click the button below to register.
This workshop is now SOLD OUT. Thank you so much, and see you in San Jose!
Workshop Sponsors
Workshop Methodology
This workshop has been designed with a special focus on the active participation of the attendees. Each registered participant will be provided with a personal account on PixInsight's Endor file server, where he or she will be able to upload raw data that will be worked out during the workshop. In this way the participants will have the opportunity to apply and understand the concepts and techniques described in the context of their particular imaging conditions.
The full processing example will be based on the uploaded data, so it is strongly recommended to upload full data sets. The participants will be able to upload their data until May 15th. Participants should accept the use of their data exclusively in the workshop by the other attendees. Selection of the most appropriate data sets for the workshop is up to the teacher.
Attendees should bring their own laptop computers. A valid commercial or trial PixInsight license will be necessary.
Two Workshops in a Single Event
The idea behind the organization of this event is versatility. The weekend workshop should work for all the people looking for an introduction to PixInsight and an in-depth review of the basic image processing techniques.
People looking for a more extensive learning experience can register into the full workshops. For the first intensive workshop, the weekend will give the required knowledge basis to keep learning during the following days.
What to Expect from the Weekend Workshop
This workshop will introduce you to the PixInsight platform and the basic image processing techniques applied to astrophotography. You'll get benefit of this workshop even if you have very little experience in PixInsight because we'll start from scratch on the software usage on Friday afternoon.
Perhaps the weekend program seems very basic for this workshop, but we'll do an in-depth review of the LRGB and dynamic range compression techniques at a slow pace. They are the most widely used techniques in astrophotography and therefore it's of extreme importance to understand them including the minor details. We'll talk about image linearity and delinearization techniques. And we'll work with some important tools in PixInsight under different scenarios, like DBE, BackgroundNeutralization, ColorCalibration or HDRMT. We'll also review the basic masking techniques as well as some basic narrowband information.
On Sunday we'll work together on a full processing example, starting from the image inspection and preprocessing stages to the processed image.
What to Expect from the Intensive Workshops
People staying in the intensive workshop will learn additional techniques for narrowband imaging as well as an additional full example.
The most interesting part of this workshops is when everyone works with his/her own images. This way, people learn how to apply the recently learnt techniques to their own photos. Vicent will guide everyone in the particular processing steps to achieve an optimal result. At the end of each image processing session all the results as well as possible alternative processing steps are discussed with the whole group.
Workshop Documentation
Workflow Charts
Each participant will be given a full set of PixInsight workflow charts describing the techniques reviewed during the weekend. Covering the main concepts in a visual style, these charts will help you to carry out your own work at home.
Participants of the intensive workshop will have additional workflow charts describing the techniques reviewed from Monday to Wednesday.
Intensive PixInsight Manual
Each person attending the intensive workshop will be provided with a workshop manual. This manual will have detailed articles on start to finish examples. The manual is delivered as a PDF document.
Workshop Program — Beginner/Intensive
Learning to Navigate the PixInsight Platform
An introduction to the PixInsight platform and its graphical user interface.
LRGB Composition Techniques
We'll review the most basic image processing techniques for astrophotography. It's strongly recommended that participants watch Vicent's videotutorials about color calibration and LRGB techniques prior to attending the workshop.
Dynamic Range Management Techniques
PixInsight has a highly automated workflow for the dynamic range management of the image. We'll review the use of HDRComposition and HDRMultiscaleTransform tools as well as basic masking techniques for local contrast enhancement.
The Hubble's Palette
Building a Hubble's palette composite in PixInsight is extremely easy. We'll review an effective workflow composed of only four steps that gives a good tonal representation in these narrowband images.
Start-to-Finish Processing Example
Based on users' data sets, the teacher will build an start to finish example. This example begins with all the image inspection an preprocessing steps and goes through all the processing steps to the finished image.
Workshop Program — Intensive
HaLRGB Composition Techniques
A review of the effective methods designed by Vicent Peris to enhance line emission objects in your broadband images.
RGB data set — M51
Data provided by Frank Wilburn (click on the image to see a full-size version. This example will cover mainly these topics:
- Data set inspection with Blink and SubframeSelector.
- Preprocessing with the BatchPreprocessing script.
- RGB composition.
- Gradient correction.
- Dynamic range compression.
- Contrast enhancement and masking techniques.
- Denoising techniques.
Start-to-Finish Example — M31
Data provided by Adrien Richardson (click on the image to see a full-size version. This example will cover mainly these topics:
- Data set inspection with Blink and SubframeSelector.
- Multiple exposure set management in the BatchPreprocessing script.
- HDR image assembling with HDRComposition. LRGB with high dynamic range L component and low dynamic range RGB components.
- H-alpha enhancement in linear images.
- Denoising and masking techniques.
DSLR data set — Widefield Milky Way
Data provided by Georg Viehoever (click on the image to see a full-size version. This example will cover mainly these topics:
- DSLR data preprocessing.
- Image integration optimization.
- Contrast enhancement through lightness masks.
- Large-scale noise reduction.
Workshop Agenda
First/Second Beginner and Intensive Workshops.
| Friday December 2nd / 9th | |
|---|---|
| 15:00 — 17:00 | PixInsight's graphical user interface |
| 17:00 — 17:15 | Coffee break |
| 17:15 — 19:00 | RGB composition techniques |
| Saturday December 3rd / 10th | |
|---|---|
| 09:30 — 11:00 | LRGB composition techniques |
| 11:00 — 11:15 | Coffee break |
| 11:15 — 13:00 | Dynamic range management |
| 13:00 — 14:00 | Coffee break |
| 14:00 — 16:00 | Dynamic range management |
| 16:00 — 16:15 | Coffee break |
| 16:15 — 18:00 | The Hubble's palette |
| Sunday December 4th / 11th | |
|---|---|
| 09:30 — 11:00 | Start-to-finish example |
| 11:00 — 11:15 | Coffee break |
| 11:15 — 13:00 | Start-to-finish example |
| 13:00 — 14:00 | Coffee break |
| 14:00 — 16:00 | Start-to-finish example |
| 16:00 — 16:15 | Coffee break |
| 16:15 — 18:00 | Start-to-finish example |
| Monday December 5th / 12th | |
|---|---|
| 09:30 — 11:00 | Work on your own images |
| 11:00 — 11:15 | Coffee break |
| 11:15 — 13:00 | Work on your own images |
| 13:00 — 14:00 | Coffee break |
| 14:00 — 16:00 | Work on your own images |
| 16:00 — 16:15 | Coffee break |
| 16:15 — 18:00 | Work on your own images |
| Tuesday December 6th / 13th | |
|---|---|
| 09:30 — 11:00 | HaLRGB composition techniques |
| 11:00 — 11:15 | Coffee break |
| 11:15 — 13:00 | HaLRGB composition techniques |
| 13:00 — 14:00 | Coffee break |
| 14:00 — 16:00 | Start-to-finish example |
| 16:00 — 16:15 | Coffee break |
| 16:15 — 18:00 | Start-to-finish example |
| Wednesday December 7th / 14th | |
|---|---|
| 09:30 — 11:00 | Start-to-finish example |
| 11:00 — 11:15 | Coffee break |
| 11:15 — 13:00 | Start-to-finish example |
| 13:00 — 14:00 | Coffee break |
| 14:00 — 16:00 | Work on your own images |
| 16:00 — 16:15 | Coffee break |
| 16:15 — 18:00 | Work on your own images |
What We Learned at Other Workshops
These are some examples of what Vicent taught in previous workshops.
Dynamic Range Compression
An example of dynamic range management with DSLR data of M42 by José Luis Lamadrid and Vicent Peris.
H-alpha Emission Enhancement in Non-linear Images
We also reviewed techniques to enhance emission-line objects in non-linear images. This is an HaRGB image with IC4628 data by Velimir Popov.
SHO Composition Techniques
These techniques allow you to maximize the tone representation of the Hubble's palette in a few quick and easy steps.
Sample Images Processed by Students of Previous Intensive Workshops
Click on the images for full-size versions.
Messier 17 (SHO) – Colin Cooper
Comet Lovejoy (RGB) – Jeff Haynes
NGC 2403 (RGB) – Steven Crider
Helix Nebula (HaLRGB) – Mark De Regt
M81/M82 (LRGB) – Bob Rieger
NGC253 (LRGB) – Konstantin Buchhold
About Vicent Peris
With more than a 15-year career as an astrophotographer, Vicent Peris (Valencia, Spain, 1980) has been working for the last 7 years at the Astronomical Observatory of the University of Valencia (OAUV). He is now leading the world-renowned astrophotographic programs at Calar Alto Observatory (CAHA) with the 3.5 meter and 1.23 meter Zeiss telescopes, the latter in collaboration with the Documentary School of Astrophotography (DSA), applying innovative image processing techniques and software tools. This is the first astrophotography project in the world with access to the observational time of professional telescopes.
You can see some of the published images of the Calar Alto project on the Gallery section of PixInsight's website, as well as some of Vicent's articles about his image processing techniques on the Processing Examples section.
His works have been published and awarded by some of the most reputed publications worldwide, such as APOD, Scientific American, National Geographic, Bad Astronomy Blog, and Sterne und Weltraum.
Vicent is also the official astrophotographer of the ALHAMBRA Survey, a deep cosmological survey conducted by an international scientific collaboration, acquired from Calar Alto Observatory using the 3.5 meter Zeiss telescope. This survey is the first in the world to use a new instrumental technique known as photometric redshifts, in which low-resolution spectra for each object in an image are obtained by using a large, 23 narrow-filter set covering the 3500 – 9500 angstrom light band. You can see some image samples at Vicent's website.
Vicent has also successful experience in forensics and is currently working as an image processing specialist for the Spanish National Police department since two years.
For more information about Vicent's works, please download his portfolio.