2 weeks cloud and 2 weeks off work = learn new software
since re-entering this deep sky imaging game six months ago I've relied on DSS and Photoshop (with astronomy tools plug ins).
WIth solid cloud and off work, and with a new PC, I decided to explore and play and downloaded trial versions of Astro Pixel Processor (APP), Startools (ST) and PixInsight (PI). It's clear you could spend half a lifetime learning the full depth of each of these programs and in the end I think need bite bullet and pick one an go with it...
PixInsight is an early casualty after a few attempts and tutorials... It's just too hard for me to gel with.. I'm sure I could use it if there were no alternatives. I'm an electrical/electronic engineer, but find the usability and whole approach of PI too steeped in its "philosophy" and unessarily opaque. My work role involves a lot of translation between deep technical into the lay-person space and PI has all the hallmarks of what I see when a bunch of PhD engineers create something for their own use and understanding with no "compromise" added for accessibility for lesser mortals. That said I'm in my role precisely because I'm not a "natural engineer" so take what I say here with a grain of salt... I've never really cared much why something works or doesnt, only whether it does work or not and what is the end result.
APP and Startools both show promise for me.
StarTools looks good value. I really like the very structured approach it has to processing which is great for imposing some process to my otherwise chaotic "make it up as I go" workflow. It is a little baffling at first in having to go through most of the early stages with something that looks like a Jackson Pollock painting, but comes together through Colour and Noise tracked resolution... deconvolution seems powerful. I can extract latent colour variety even with L extreme filter used whereas with every other method it's nearly always just shades of red. I like that most of the presets produce good results but easy to try different things at each stage and compare. It seems a good way to learn gradually without being overwhelmed. It is reasonably intutive from a usability pov...there are buttons to do, keep, save... etc. It allows for quite detailed and manually customised masks to target adjustments. Just a few tweaks to taste in PS. Downside is it doesnt do stacking.
APP potentially like PI could do the lot, stacking and processing. Its seems to handle the stacking and production of stretched files well and produces something decent but I still need a fair bit of targeted masking work in PS (thus far produces APP + PS gives the most natural looking end result). I'm not sure how readily APP will allow masking. It's a less inuitive interface than ST for processing. I can't seem to get the colour variation I can with ST, though it's possible to extract Ha and OII and recombine and then work that. APP has some stupidly annoying aspects... you cant save your working directory and return to it... you cant seem to move through processing steps without saving a new image. Unessary stuff... the cant save directory thing is just lazy...people asking for over 3 years and developer saying it's coming... i mean why let a program down on something so basic??
For comparison attached are a couple of images based on the same best 3hours worth of 2min shots from a two night run on the Tarantula (QHY268c high gain mode 60gn) using espirit100ed and Lextreme filter. Flats, darks and bia applied. For ST stack done in DSS and imported as a FITs file.
The APP view has more fine detail and a more natural look when zoomed (prob wont show up here), but with Startools I was better able to show up colour variation and control highlights in the core. This of course is a pretty random comparison with an inexperienced user (me) doing the best he could with a few hours video tutorial under belt and using new data.
I've seen enough to shell out the $65AUD for startools (bargain), but unless I can replicate the finer more natural looking detail in APP (it may simply be my use of ST creating a more "crunchy" look) I may need to bite the bullet and buy APP as well as use that in place of DSS and then experiment with what gives best result. Hoping not as it's pretty pricey as a stacking tool.
Apologies for the long ramble and appreciate this is all very subjective. I'd be interested in hearing from Startools and APP users on ways to overcome some of the issues mentioned.
Great image Robert. I recently bought APP simply for stacking over DSS because I can stack the channels separately and combine in PS. It has made a huge difference as using an OSC with a duo band filter can be hard to seperate and balance post stacking.
As far as your two images go the ST core looks far cleaner. Your APP version looks white clipped which has given it that off gray colour. Without pixel picking though they both look really nice in their own way. I guess the idea of the comparison was to pixel pick though.
A great use of time. Well done and thanks for sharing your results.
Robert,
Great image and write up
You put a lot of effort into your AP
Well done !!
Startools image looks well controlled as far as core and outer detail goes
I have solely used Startools since starting AP over 3 years ago so I can’t really compare but what I can say it’s an unbelievably powerful software tool with both poor data and good data.Proof of the pudding is that I image in both light polluted Bortle 8 skies in Sydney and beautiful Bortle 3 dark skies at my retirement / holiday house on the South coast.All my images to date using Startools have been initially from a Canon 600D DSLR when I started AP to now using the ZWOASI2600MC cooled OSC camera. Startools works really well with DSLR’s and OSC cameras data and most importantly Narrowband data
I’m currently using ST V1.6 which is tremendous and will probably upgrade to V1.7 within the next 6 months. I’ve read some really encouraging reports from users of V1.7 especially with Narrowband data and the Compose module
Cheers
Martin
Well I have a new camera and am off work as well, very frustrating so after much research of 14 day forecasts and given that I am stuck in N.S.W I am off to Ivanhoe NSW to fight the moon, but hopefully not the clouds.
It's the only place I could find in N.S.W that even looks like having no rain prior to the 5th.
Well I have a new camera and am off work as well, very frustrating so after much research of 14 day forecasts and given that I am stuck in N.S.W I am off to Ivanhoe NSW to fight the moon, but hopefully not the clouds.
It's the only place I could find in N.S.W that even looks like having no rain prior to the 5th.
Wishing you the beat of luck with that Zuts. New auto focuser, new diy mirror cell and new MPCC Mk3 and clear outside is showing wall to wall clouds for at least the next week here. it’s a story we’re all used too sadly.
thanks all for kind words and guidance. An update that I haven't quite given up on Pixinsight yet. I've stumbled across tutorials by Light Vortex which I am working through. This text and image based tutorial format is a perfect fit for the slow plodding pace of my thinking ... I dont get along with video tutorials and am too easily distracted by voices, music etc and cant grasp before it moves on. So will see how I go ...still have a month of trial to decide.
well it took me nearly 14 hours to work through the light vortex PI tute for pre-processing.... slow learner. There is a batch option but it still seems that it will take way way longer to do the basic pre-process with PI compared to DSS or even APP... and while multi-night processing is a total doddle in DSS and APP, PI seems to make such basic stuff hard. As such this exercise I used one night only and 1hr 44min data.
Image below is a deep crop of core area of nebula. To get a comparison I did the same 52 files calibrated and registered and stacked in DSS (took literally 15min from who to go compared to the multi-hour marathon of PI) and then post-processed using identical settings in Startools.
The PI data does look a little more detailed, but I'm not convinced it's that much better to make all that extra effort worth it.
The more I read and try things in PI the more it seems that the killer for PI for me is the sheer amount of time it takes to do anything (and that's assuming I got more up to speed... it's very PC hungry as well)...I simply don't have that sort of time. Maybe one to visit again in retirement, but for now the marginally better results aren't worth the hugely exponential increase in time investment required.
Image at left is PI painstakingly calibrated, cosmetic fixed, subframe selected and weighted, normalised, and registered and debayered and drizzled and stacked ... that on the right basically toss in the lights and calibration files and push Go button default run in DSS.
One thing I think why the difference isnt that huge is just how clean and noise free the QHY268c is... the files are so clean straight from the camera I dontg think it's showing the full benefit of what all that PI dancing does.
it’s a story we’re all used too sadly.
