wornish

Probably overdone it but this is just 10 min using Photoshop.

MacOS Catalina is now launched so be careful.

For Adobe products here is a list of known issues.

https://community.adobe.com/t5/Photoshop/Does-Photoshop-work-with-Catalina/td-p/10654955

The imminent release of the latest MacOS to 10.15 has some significant changes.

32 bit apps will no longer be supported so be careful before taking the plunge.

I am guessing that PS. PI and APP will all need to be updated as well so patience will be needed.

13 hours ago, Adam J said:

A screen shot might help? I do know some versions of PS like CC will not manipulate 16bit images. Only 8-bit and hence are useless for astro work.

I use Photoshop CC and it works fine on 16bit images as far as I can tell.  What functions don't work?

As Ruud says you get that if there is no image open.

17 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

.............

If you want to get fancy you can join me in an experiment with the Equalize algorithm found in Image-Adjustments near the bottom. I'm playing around with copying an Equalized version of the image onto a layer mask and stretching a little more through that mask.  Initial experiments are very exciting.

Olly

I have the Noels Actions v 1.6.  Cant see where the Image Adjustments you refer to are located?   

Can you post your image to show what your problem is?

14 hours ago, alan potts said:

I like the way the yellow/orange is coming through in this, not something I have seen in any of my Canon images but I guess this is the broadband filters showing through, I don't have any of those. At least I found where this is though C du C doesn't list it, at least not on mine. It's a cracking image and looks like its title Goran, lovely work.

Alan

I had the similar issue on Stellarium.  It can be found if you enable the SH catalogue and look for SH 2-157. 

Yes its possible to add stars back in.  Its best though to start from the original raw image from the stacking process.  Starting with a jpg loses lots of info.

If you post the original I will give it another go.

You have captured a lot more than this image shows.  Hope you don't mind but I  ran it through StarNet to remove the stars then did a simple stretch in PS. This is what's there even using your posted jpg.

3 hours ago, DainiusU said:

thanks, ordering RPi4 now. With a cooled case  

If you plan on using WiFi then you might need a separate antenna as the range is significantly impacted by cooled cases. 

Some useful info here.

https://www.martinrowan.co.uk/2019/08/wifi-signal-strength-with-raspberry-pi-4-cases/

and here

https://www.martinrowan.co.uk/2019/09/raspberry-pi-4-cases-temperature-and-cpu-throttling-under-load/

54 minutes ago, WanderingEye said:

What about an M2 SSD would this work, and even smaller....

With the right adapter then yes.  But care is needed in selecting the right one as not all work.  Its explained all in the 2nd Link.  

If you look at the benchmarks on the third link some combinations score over 10000 on the storage benchmark that's 10 X faster than a standard SD Card.  But the costs go up significantly to get to that speed. 

11 minutes ago, WanderingEye said:

As I understand you can’t boot from SSD, or USB drives, so you have to have the boot partition on an SD card, is that correct...? 

The thing is with an SSD you loose the small form factor, and it becomes as big as say an Intel NUC...

Read the 2nd link in my first post it explains how to get around the boot limitation.

I used a Startech 2.5″ SATA SSD adapter cable with a Kingston SSD A400 Solid State Drive (2.5 Inch SATA 3), 120 GB.  The SSD is the same dimensions as the RPi case and is approx 3mm deep so no way as big as you think.

If you run a storage benchmark  to compare using SD Card or SSD the numbers speak for themselves: -

Original SD card only the score was    1025
With the SSD its 8430.  Effectively 8X. faster.

And when you run Kstars and Ekos they feel superb.

If you look at my post on this forum moving to the RPi4 it provides a link to scripts that install everything that's Astroberry does and some more.  They work great using Rasbian Buster Desktop on the RPi4.

2 hours ago, WanderingEye said:

How well does it all run on the new rpi4....faster..??

Running simply from an SD Card the speed difference is marginal. BUT switch to an SSD and it is simply mind-blowing .  See the links in my first post.

Like a lot of people on here, I have been using the Raspberry Pi for running all my astronomy gear. I have been running Astroberry on my Raspberry Pi 3B+.  The Astroberry system comes with KStars, INDI and PHD2 and works superbly well.  The only  downside is that it takes quite a while to use the inbuilt astrometry app to help you with targeting.  Also, saving large images over Wifi takes some time.  So the recent announcement of the RaspberryPi4 with 4GB memory sounded like real step forward.

Astroberry only runs on Ubuntu so that became a stumbling block for the move to the RPi4.  At the time of writing Ubuntu is still not officially available.  I know the author of Astroberry is planning on doing a version 2 for the RPi4 sometime in the future.

So I have been looking around the web for alternative approaches and have found two very useful sites.

The first is a repository called AstroPi3 which provides free scripts to auto setup a full astronomy config that includes Kstars, PHD2, INDI and more on a raspberry Pi, or other Single Board Computers (SBC's) running Ubuntu or Raspbian.  So for the first time it is possible to run this on a RPi4.

https://github.com/rlancaste/AstroPi3/blob/master/README.md

The second site is run by James A Chambers and he explains how to make use of the high speed storage possibility that the RPi4 now has with its USB3 ports.  At the moment USB boot is not available for the RPi4 but that doesn't mean you can't get around it and use high speed SSDs to run the system instead of slow SDCards.

https://jamesachambers.com/raspberry-pi-4-usb-boot-config-guide-for-ssd-flash-drives/

There is a storage benchmark that shows just what a difference you get by using a low cost SSD instead.  Its simply amazing the difference in performance you get.

https://jamesachambers.com/raspberry-pi-storage-benchmarks/

I ran the benchmark on my RPi4 with just a standard 16GB SDCard installed running Raspbian Buster. The benchmark score was 1025. Even using slightly faster SDCards still makes very little difference so not worth it. The RPi4 performance was not impressive and to be honest it felt no faster than the RPi3. Then I followed the instructions on James Chambers site and changed the system to boot and run off a SSD.  It took me two goes to get it right but the difference is just amazing. The new benchmark score was 8430 ! The system runs faster than my i5 Windows 10 laptop not joking.

So having moved to SSD for around £30 with the recommended USB3 SATA adapter and a Kingston SSD I then used the script from rlancaste site to install all the required apps. It worked flawlessly.  

The last piece of the puzzle is that the RPi4 runs much hotter than the earlier versions so needs either a case with a cooling fan or one than has a built in large heatsink.  The standard "official case has neither and it really is not fit for purpose.  Add to the challenge that large metal cases can severely reduce the WiFi range means there is no easy solution. This site gives you an idea of what's out there and what works.

https://www.martinrowan.co.uk/2019/09/raspberry-pi-4-cases-temperature-and-cpu-throttling-under-load/

I have just ordered the Flirc case today as that seems the best compromise and has just come back in stock after being sold out.

Hope the links above help others thinking about going down the Raspberry Pi path.

19 hours ago, HughP said:

I must be doing something wrong! I have followed the steps and my image is vastly improved with less stars, but when I save it is as I have done nothing!

I have the Starless image at the bottom, my original in the middle with  and a copy above that with blend set to Pin Light. I then reduce the opacity of the middle layer to 60% and save.

 It seems to me that unless the opacity of the top layer (Pin Light) is reduced then that layer will be the resulting image. I was taught to look on layers as sheets of glass that you look down on, each layer then alters the layer below. 

The process certainly works and I like the result, just need to find a way to save it.

Its probably because you only have the ORIG Norm layer selected when you save the image.  

Make sure all three layers are selected then Flatten the image to a single layer.   ( Top Menu :  Layer - Flatten Image)

Then save the image.

Thanks for the responses so far.  What I am learning is do the numbers first , which I  intend to do, hence this post.

I plan on using the camera I already have i.e. the ASI1600MM.  My location here in Cheshire has Bortle 4 - 5 Sky when the clouds eventually clear, which does happen occasionally if my memory serves me well!

I think my PHD guiding  is just above 1"/pixel so far without any real tuning but might be wrong.

Want to go for smaller deep sky astrophoto targets so thinking about adding a reflector to use when my Esprit 100 refractor won't cut it.  It is a great scope but only 550mm focal length.

These are on my short list.

Celestron  Edge HD 9.25 OTA. Focal Length 2350
Meade F/8 ACF 10" OTA.          Focal Length 2032
iOptron  Photron RC10 OTA.    Focal Length 2000

Am I expecting too much from my mount AZ-EQ6-GT to handle this focal length ?
Anyone got any comments on which of the three is the best bet ?

Any other OTA I should consider?

Thanks for any input.

9 hours ago, michaelmorris said:

What scope/camera combination are you using with SharpCap?

Nothing special its just a low cost  Toupcam GCMOS01200KMB attached to the standard Skywatcher 50mm finderscope which has a focal length of 180mm.  If Sharpcap has trouble finding enough stars simply either increase the exposure time or the gain setting.  Even in relatively poor seeing it has always worked for me. It only needs to be able to see 5 or 6 stars to work in my experience.

I have the AZEQ6 GT. and like you have to set it up every time I want to use it.  Rather than use iPolar why not use  SharpCap to do polar alignment.  You do need the Pro version which costs £10  which is not a great deal.

Using its polar align tool takes me less than 5 minutes to get aligned.  The accuracy each time is within 2 to 5 arc seconds if the viewing is up to it, which is as good as using Polemaster.

On 13/08/2019 at 22:02, Nigella Bryant said:

I know I'm dumb, I've managed to get 16 tiff files of the ISS solar transit today. I've spent four hours trying to get layers in both photoshop and gimp, but it's eluding me, I did manage to blend two images but didn't really know how I did that and couldn't seem to add any more in gimp. Help would be appreciated.  I really struggling with adding images together. 

Thanks for reading. 

This type of problem has come up on another forum recently.  

Your challenge I am guessing is you are trying to merge a sequence of images each of which shows the ISS in different position moving across the Sun, and you want to show it as a trail with multiple copies of the ISS ?

Something like this

If that's correct read on if not ignore what follows😀

Here is a tutorial that explains what you need to do.  Its not high quality but it does explain what the steps are.

Hope it helps

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCDuygVrU4g

5 hours ago, paul mc c said:

Brilliant....thank you,amazing the difference when you have good software and great knowledge.

Thanks .  Got some of the software but certainly still short on the knowledge part.

Thanks for sharing. I thought I would give it a go given the awful weather. Used PS and Lightroom.  Think its overdone but gave me a challenge.

This might help.

https://pixinsight.com/forum/index.php?topic=12568.msg80551#msg80551