PixInsight

[LostInSp_ce]

With the weather turning for the worst, I figured that it's time to hide down the Hobbit hole and bury myself within the dark world of PixInsight. I have my little red light, my percolator has reached equilibrium and the lazyboy is perfectly polar aligned. All that's left is to find my target and capture as much data as possible.

So for those of you who have been there done that or are still there and doing that have any recommendations for a book that walks you through the whole package from start to finish? Perhaps a 'PixInsight Bible' (if such a thing exists?) that explains things in layman's terms and has lots of pretty pictures. I'll be starting from the ground up (or Hobbit hole up) so everything will be completely new and foreign to me.

I prefer a book/ebook as opposed to 'YouTube' vids as I find that with vids unless you know what to look for you can miss a lot of important processes that happen in between. It's also very hard to find vids that walk through an entire package in sequential order.

All help is greatly appreciated.

Update: I think I've found one. There's one in 'The Patrick Moore Practical Astronomy Series' which looks very promising.

[RickS]

There's a book by Warren Keller: http://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783319256801

[sil]

I've never been happy with the PI documentation, book or Harry's vids for learning PI. You can pick up great bits from the forum, if you can recognise them. I'd suggest the light vortex tutorials (http://www.lightvortexastronomy.com/tutorials.html) which are well written with good screenshots so you can see what each substep is doing. At the bottom of that page are two Example tutorials which are really complete workflows from starting data to final image. I highly suggest you work through those with your own data so you understand what each step does and what settings are good for your data in particular. As with anything in PI adjustment basically depend on your data, so "use this starting value" suggestions dont work universally. but once you find them for your data you can reuse them or use them as starting points for future captures with the same gear.

The other light vortex tutorials work through from the top down and they work like that as a complete workflow too. Don't ignore any as the substeps themselves are valuable to understand even if the dont immediately apply to your current image. Take notes, for example reducing noise, boosting contrast, boosting faint signals can all be done in multiple ways in PI, and are often intermidiate steps in the LV tutorials rather than specic noise reduction, boost contrast, etc steps. The tutorials are long and detailed with good explanations, even pros and cons to differing methods for the same purpose. I've been reworking my PI workflow with pieces from LV to end up with improved images (using older data I already processed) and its made a huge difference and well worth the time and effort.

[LostInSp_ce]

Thanks guys. Rick that's the one I found and will most likely get. There's some other books in that series that I may have to investigate. Sil those videos are perfect. Just what I need to get me started. They'll no doubt keep me busy for a long time and probably make me pull my hair out.

[netwolf]

sil that is a fantastic link i was actually thinking if it would be possible to do Borders, annotation with Pixinsight and that site has a workflow exactly for that. Awesome. Thx.

[sil]

no problem, the LV tutorials are better than any book/dvd I've seen/got for PI. I like to plate solve my linear integration file and render an annotated stretch image jpg just as a reference for whats in the field of view of this data. helpful for later on if I want to combine data or go after other targets in that area. Plus with final images sometimes I like to do an annotated version too, just looks more interesting sometimes having those grid lines in place.

[alan meehan]

lostinspace
the book by warren keller I have just brought myself got it from Bintel $40
called Inside Pixinsight looks good
AL

[Slawomir]

I have also just recently bought the Inside Pixinsight book, with a personal inscription from Warren. The book has very comprehensive info about data processing in PI, and I am really looking forward to reading it over the coming holidays.

[uwahl]

Just an addition to the info about "Inside Pixinsight" - very informative and logically laid out.

[sil]

Yeah its basically just a manual, rarely find a need to refer to it myself. hasn't helped with techniques.

[RickS]

Jim Morse has a "Crib sheet" that he has compiled from PI Forum posts and other sources that has lots of useful info. If you're interested, PM me your email address and I'll send you the latest version and ask him to add you to his mailing list.

I think Warren's book is very useful for explaining how the basic processes and scripts work. Perhaps he's planning a sequel that delves more into high level workflow and advanced topics. I'll ask him :)

Cheers,
Rick.

[lazjen]

Rick - I presume you still have my email address - could you do the same for me please? :) Always good to have more info.

[RickS]

Copy on the way, Chris. Also to the folks that have PMed me.