Registering images with PixInsight

[gregbradley]

I wanted to try PI to simply register some DSLR images. The batch processing script won't run it appears unless you use flats darks and biases.

Is there a simple way to simply do registering?

I used the star alignment process but I can't see that it saved the registered images anywhere despite specifying that in the output box.

Greg.

[RickS (Rick)]

Greg,

BPP displays a warning if you don't have bias, dark and flat files or masters, but you can click "Continue" and keep going.

Did you click on the Apply Global (little blue circle) on StarAlignment? So long as you specified a reference, added some files and set the output directory it should have written the files there. If something unexpected happens then it's always worth reading the log info on the process console.

Cheers,
Rick.

[gregbradley]

Ah there it is.
I clicked the apply icon (square).
I knew it would be some basic thing.
Thanks I'll try that.
Greg



QUOTE=RickS;1209879]Greg,

BPP displays a warning if you don't have bias, dark and flat files or masters, but you can click "Continue" and keep going.

Did you click on the Apply Global (little blue circle) on StarAlignment? So long as you specified a reference, added some files and set the output directory it should have written the files there. If something unexpected happens then it's always worth reading the log info on the process console.

Cheers,
Rick.[/QUOTE]

[gregbradley]

Originally Posted by RickS

Greg,

BPP displays a warning if you don't have bias, dark and flat files or masters, but you can click "Continue" and keep going.

Did you click on the Apply Global (little blue circle) on StarAlignment? So long as you specified a reference, added some files and set the output directory it should have written the files there. If something unexpected happens then it's always worth reading the log info on the process console.

Cheers,
Rick.

BPP did not keep going past a certain point and came up with a red error message about could not calibrate because no flats etc.

This could be an issue if using PI to calibrate Sony chipped images where sometimes you only want to subtract a master bias and that is all.

Any suggestions there?

Greg.

[Atmos (Colin)]

Not using the BPP would be my suggestion. You can calibrate the frames with Image Calibration where you can do as little or as much as you like. Then run an Image Registration. Gives you far more freedom.

[cfranks (Charles)]

Originally Posted by gregbradley

BPP did not keep going past a certain point and came up with a red error message about could not calibrate because no flats etc.

This could be an issue if using PI to calibrate Sony chipped images where sometimes you only want to subtract a master bias and that is all.

Any suggestions there?

Greg.

Have you got the BPP 'Calibrate Only' box ticked? Un-tick it if so.
Charles

[gregbradley]

Thanks for the suggestions. I got it going. I ended up not using BPP as it would fail unless it had flats, darks and biases. I used just straight image registration.

Greg.

[RickS (Rick)]

Originally Posted by gregbradley

Thanks for the suggestions. I got it going. I ended up not using BPP as it would fail unless it had flats, darks and biases. I used just straight image registration.

I just played around with BPP and you don't need flats but the script does expect to have a master bias or a master dark (or individual bias or dark frames.) Not sure it has always been that way, but if you have very low noise camera I'd be inclined to build a superbias master anyway and that will be enough to make it happy.

Glad to hear you got StarAlignment working anyway, Greg.

Cheers,
Rick.

[RickS (Rick)]

Originally Posted by Atmos

Not using the BPP would be my suggestion. You can calibrate the frames with Image Calibration where you can do as little or as much as you like. Then run an Image Registration. Gives you far more freedom.

I used to do that and despite being an obsessive-compulsive computer geek it wore thin after a while. If you're doing a full calibration it requires:

• integrating the bias frames to make a master bias
• calibrating the individual dark frames
• integrating the calibrated dark frames to make a master
• calibrating the individual flat frames
• integrating the calibrated flat frames to make a flat master
• calibrating the individual light frames
• integrating the calibrated light frames to make light master

Multiple that by multiple filters and different sub times and it really makes a lot more sense to use a script!

The most important thing to do manually is the final integration of light frames since you'll get best results by tuning the rejection algorithm and parameters. Using BPP to do the calibration and registration is a big time/effort saving.

Cheers,
Rick.

[Atmos (Colin)]

Originally Posted by RickS

I used to do that and despite being an obsessive-compulsive computer geek it wore thin after a while. If you're doing a full calibration it requires:

• integrating the bias frames to make a master bias
• calibrating the individual dark frames
• integrating the calibrated dark frames to make a master
• calibrating the individual flat frames
• integrating the calibrated flat frames to make a flat master
• calibrating the individual light frames
• integrating the calibrated light frames to make light master

Multiple that by multiple filters and different sub times and it really makes a lot more sense to use a script!

The most important thing to do manually is the final integration of light frames since you'll get best results by tuning the rejection algorithm and parameters. Using BPP to do the calibration and registration is a big time/effort saving.

Cheers,
Rick.

This is why I am planning on doing some proper testing of the differences in having MaxIM DL calibrating the images as they're taken or having PI do it. MaxIM does it all so FAST, on the fly and without any issues.

From the little bit of testing I have done in the past, PI does better by a fraction better when running from start to finish. I am yet to test just the calibration of the two however. I found that I get a slightly (very slight) improvement with SNR with PI but I get rounder stars with MaxIM.

[RickS (Rick)]

Originally Posted by Atmos

This is why I am planning on doing some proper testing of the differences in having MaxIM DL calibrating the images as they're taken or having PI do it. MaxIM does it all so FAST, on the fly and without any issues.

From the little bit of testing I have done in the past, PI does better by a fraction better when running from start to finish. I am yet to test just the calibration of the two however. I found that I get a slightly (very slight) improvement with SNR with PI but I get rounder stars with MaxIM.

Despite PI being more complex (although initial processing is a doddle with BPP and there's little reason not to use it) I expect you'll find that with a bit of tweaking you'll get much better results than with Maxim. I certainly did.

Cheers,
Rick.

[Atmos (Colin)]

Originally Posted by RickS

Despite PI being more complex (although initial processing is a doddle with BPP and there's little reason not to use it) I expect you'll find that with a bit of tweaking you'll get much better results than with Maxim. I certainly did.

Cheers,
Rick.

Oh I know that I certainly haven't gotten the most out of PI, not even close