Robert_T
31-12-2020, 11:57 AM
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.
Left is ST, right is APP. Both finished in PS.
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.
Left is ST, right is APP. Both finished in PS.