Leti Theobald

8 minutes ago, pipnina said:

Perhaps, but I have found autofocus routines need to be relatively close to good focus in order to be effective, especially when I owned a newtonian reflector.

I would suggest manually getting focus close, and then running the autofocus routine and seeing how it handles the scene, does its output look correct in a quick test image? etc.

Try and avoid the step-out that it might use taking you too far from ideal focus as a starting point.

Unlike mirrorless cameras which can use phase-detect focusing and at long focal lengths could provide fast and accurate focusing information, we are purely limited to contrast-based AF which is very slow and prone to errors. We need to experiment with this as astrophotographers and find out where the limits are.

For instance in my setup, if ideal focus was at step count 8385, and the current focus position was at 8320, then running the autofocus routine might move focus out to 8820 and start working back down in 100 step intervals. This could easily prove too much error from the ideal position by creating large donut stars that the computer can't identify properly, leading to a bogus AF result.

However if you tune the step-out multiple to be lower, and lower the step interval to maybe 50 steps, it might move from 8385 to 8500 and be able to focus properly.

It's worth bearing in mind that the only movement in your imaging train when it comes to focus postion comes from thermal expansion and switching filters, so the real difference between the highest and lowest authentic result is not big- could be as much as 100 steps between a very cold night (in the southern UK I define that at -5c) and a very warm night (in UK i'd say 20c).

It's all about tuning that eventually allows you to just let the AF do its thing with confidence that it has worked. Personally though I always stick around for the first image to come back at least before letting it go by unattended!

I wish you the best of luck with the images you currently have, and the no doubt far improved result you will get next time!

Thank you so much for the tips, I will have a look at my auto focuser settings. I'm not that experience so super useful advice

Thank you, I'll try that, though not great that is out of focus! I have an autofocuser so weird that is out of focus, maybe I need it to refocus more often through the night

Also, this are the parameters I got

3 minutes ago, pipnina said:

Hi

It's hard to diagnose this issue without more info.

If you can supply 3+ of your raw images (of the same colour) I can load them into my PixInsight and see if the images need tweaked settings to register properly.

As a shot in the dark: Have you tried registering them manually as a test of the registering setting by going to "process-> image registration -> star alignment" ?

Load only 2/3 images and test it on those. change one setting at a time and once you find a good setting use that in the WBPP script.

Ok, had a go and this is the message I get. I've attached 3 images for you

Thank you so much, I've never had issues stacking with Pixinsight before

Light_M101_300.0s_Bin1_B_gain0_20240118-045759_-10.1C_0030.fit Light_M101_300.0s_Bin1_B_gain0_20240118-045257_-10.5C_0029.fit Light_M101_300.0s_Bin1_B_gain0_20240118-044725_-10.0C_0028.fit

Hello all,

Having lots of issues stacking in Pixinsight and can't figure out why. I've looked at my images and they are fine but still failing to register and rejecting most of my images.

I've attached the log, any ideas anyone? Could I have ticked something I should not? I've restored to factory defaults just in case but same result

ProcessLogger.txt

Thank you so much !!!! I'm so happy you enjoyed it - congrats to all the other winners 🤗

My next one took one month to get the data as skies in the UK have been dreadful but managed to finish yesterday

Soul Nebula in SHO - 14 hours processing time

I've got a couple more that I've managed to take over the last month or so.

The first one is Andromeda in HaLRGB with 11 hours and 15 minutes integration time. This was my first image using LRGB filters.

I have the latest update, so yeah, good shout. I’ll go back to the previous version 

Thanks, I will try that. It has been slow before but this is a bit too much

Hello all,

I’m trying to stack my images of Andromeda using Pixinsight. I know WBPP is slow but this is too much as it has never been so slow. It’s basically stuck on Plate Solving reference frames for over 4 hours now.

has this happen to anyone before? I have about 250 3 Minute exposures, 50 bias, 50 darks and 250 flats

thanks,

Leticia

I'm also going to post my last one which I only processed yesterday of The Bat Nebula in the Eastern Veil Nebula. Processed on Pixinsight.

I've started my Astrophotography journey after receiving my first Telescope on Christmas. In the last 8 months has been a steep learning curve and a bit more money than I would like but I think I have a nice equipment now.

This is only my second image taken with a mono camera. So here is the Wizard Nebula taken over three days in August processed with Pixinsight

The Eastern Veil Nebula, photographed over the last couple of weeks from my backyard in the UK in HOO using ZWO 2600mm. This is the third image I've attempted in mono and my second entry to this challenge and probably the last one as the Summer Triangle has started hiding behind my roof  

I'm a bit of a newbie but wanted to post my first image taken with my Asi2600mm and the first time using Pixinsight so be gentle with me. I've been trying since the beginning of July and finally aged to get a clear night to really get a few good hours. North America Nebula imaged using W.O. Zenithstar 73 and Asi2600mm. Stacked and processed on Pixinsight. It consists of 60 Ha, 40 Oiii and 40 Sii, all calibrated with flats, darks and biases. Not the best framing, I know

Just now, symmetal said:

Easily done. 😊 It won't change the final colours as such, just put them in different areas which is why it looks weird. Time for a take 2. 😁

Alan

Will try the tutorial again and post my lovely new image

1 hour ago, symmetal said:

As you have a mono camera then that's great. The tutorial is quite easy to follow so you should be fine. Post your results. 🙂

Alan

Alan, ignore me! I got the filters second hand and they were in the wrong packaged so basically I have Si and Oiii in the wrong place so everything is looking very weird. I might delete this out of embarressment 

1 hour ago, symmetal said:

As you have a mono camera then that's great. The tutorial is quite easy to follow so you should be fine. Post your results. 🙂

Alan

Still not looking right, can't understand why the middle is going brown 

52 minutes ago, symmetal said:

The SHO application to RGB is just the first step and a lot more image processing is needed to get the blue/gold colours. I found this tutorial for SHO processing in PI very useful and was what I used to process my Pelican Nebula. I think these are more the colours you were hoping for. 🙂

It looks like you're using a modded DSLR with a dual band filter, so HOO processing may be more applicable to you, unless you also use a separate SII filter.

Alan

 

Hi Alan, thank you ! No, I'm using a mono camera ZWO2600MM , it's the first time (I need to change my equipment in the signature).

I'll check the tutorial out. Thank you!

Hello all,

I'm a bit confused processing the North America Nebula on Pixinsight. 

When I look at images online the inside tends to be blueish with golden around. 

Mine looks like this ! If I remove the green noise it just becomes completely brown.

Any tips? 

6 hours ago, symmetal said:

Not quite. It's the thickness of the filters that matters which is 2mm for the Zwo narrowband filters. You've confused the 2mm optical thickness with the  optical bandpass width which is 7nm (nanometres). Note it's nm and not mm for the bandpass width. 1 nm is 1 millionth of a mm. 😉

The Zwo ASI2600MM has a 2mm thick protect window so your total glass in the way is 4mm. 1/3 of 4mm is 1.33mm. So your FF adjustment should be 5.2 + 1.33 which is about 6.5mm. You don't need to be supercritical in this setting. For small sensors it won't make any difference whether you use 5.2 or 6.5mm but the larger the sensor diameter the more necessary it becomes to get the spacing right. 🙂 

Alan

Thank you so much Alan, super helpful!

hopefully I can try tonight ☺️

That’s great, so my ZWO filters are 7mm, so I’ll add another 2.3mm increasing it to 7.5mm 

correct?

Hello all,

I just got some new gear and hoping someone can just double check my measurements to get the correct back focus.

• Scope: WO Zenithstar 73II
• WO Optics Adjustable Flattener for Z73
• ZWO Electronic Filter wheel  (20mm) - and it has a 5mm T2(M42)-M48 Adapter stuck to it which I can't remove
• ZWO Filters
• ZWO 2600MM

So, this is how I calculated which means I need to have the adjustment on the flattener at 5.2mm

1 hour ago, The Admiral said:

I've checked that and it seems to be correct. Generally, I find that it returns "insufficient number of stars" amongst others, which is odd really as the image works with astrometry.net. Ideally, I suppose keeping the star catalogues on your local machine helps, especially with speeding up the process. Again, though, that is described in quite techie language, which I can't follow.

Ian

I few other things you can try:

• Zoom in on Siril on the object you are trying to calibrate, it could be that you are far and it's not plate solving.
• Make sure you have it AutoStretched when you do it, not on linear

If you want to send me your stacked image I can have a go and see what the issue is

Any luck on Startnet - I also have a M1 Mac so I know it was a bit painful getting it going

Hi Mark, 

I’ve been using Siril with a Mac for a while now and it does get easier, I love it now.

with Starnet it is not straightforward but this video helped me:

with Photometric Calibration, I use it every time. I found it that when it fails is because it pulls the incorrect focal length for my telescope. You can change it manually before running the calibration. Hopefully that is the case.

There is another YouTube channel dedicated to Siril processing only and it helped me a lot in the beginning. Let me know if you are interested and I can dig it out for you. 
 

Leti