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.
|