jjosefsen

Exactly and then point to where ever you extract the files to here: https://nighttime-imaging.eu/docs/master/site/tabs/options/general/ (Look at 6. ) Generally its a good idea to be on the Discord server for fast help if you need it, it is quite a good little community these days. Otherwise I will try and answer any questions you have, as I am an avid user and fan of NINA.

Also if you ever do get it to work, go for Version 1.9 and not 1.8. It is stable and has some very nice features.

Nice image first of all, and I think the colors are good and what I would expect to see. I do however think the the image has some "mottling" going on in the luminance layer, mostly visible in the low signal areas. This could be a result of the NR technique used, I know that TGVDenoise when applied with the "Jon Rista Method" in PixInsight can introduce this. I target this noise with MMT and heavy masking afterwards (also as described by Jon). It could also be sharpening or deconvolution. When it comes to noise reduction and noise in general I find it really hard to determine the correct amount. Personally I prefer a little smoother or softer image, without getting too much of that oily look to it. But then again some people seem to think it detracts from the image if it is too smooth.

It works fine. It's the RA axis that needs to be aligned, not the scope it self. I use sharpcap to do my polar alignment and phd2 confirms it is very accurate. It uses platesolving to determine the starfield around the North Pole, then it compares that star field to a 90 degree turned platesolve of the same region. The difference can be used to work out the offset of the RA axis to the NCP, giving you a solution in ra and Dec coordinates that you need to move the RA axis.

Yes exactly. It's just a convenient way to mix different amounts of a given image into the R, G, B channels using a GUI with sliders as opposed to a pixel math formula. The script can also do some noise reduction and saturation boost. I had around 8-10 different "blends" i played around with until I had the desired colors, and then tweaked it with curves.

Thanks Per! I don't have an SII filter so it had to be bicolor.

Ok - then I really don't know what the problem is.

Running windows 7 or XP or something equally ancient? Edit: I suppose you coul try and find 4.6 it might run in older stuff

Hi, It looks like you are Missing the .net framework from Microsoft. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=55170

So I have two ways that I blend channels to create these synthetic luminances or super luminances for a lack of a better word. The target is to create a luminance layer that has the strong SNR of (usually) the Ha master, but won't give you colored rings around stars because the luminance stars are much larger then the Ha stars. I still feel like it help control star sizes, but it can take some fiddling to get right. In this HOO image, it also helped bring out the stronger Oiii parts of the nebula as the luminance got a contribution from the Oiii master. 1. Using the SHO-AIP script Really easy to try and blend varying degrees of luminance together, I feel like Screen is the best method. 2. Using PixelMath The above was from an image of the HaRGB image of the Hearth Nebula, where I didn't shoot any luminance, but i created a Synthetic Luminance by stackign all R,G,B frames into a Luminance master. I then used the above to enhance blend as much of the Ha into the luminance as I could get away with, as it had much better SNR than the luminance created from the RGB. The same process could be used in SHO or HOO processing. You basically just tweak the L_bandwith and Ha_bandwith settings - I believe i ended up using a much small L_bandwith number.. The "super lum" image can look a little strange, but thats ok, it gets blended into the original lum with the below script. (I can't remembe where I found these formula, but somewhere online.. :)) (The SHO-AIP script also uses PixelMath underneath the hood, but I don't know the formula.) Hope this makes sense.. If not I can try and find the original articles online, im sure they will explain much better.

Denmark says hi back! I just reinstalled PI so I need to add some scripts back, but I will give some info on a few ways to blend that luminance later.

I love those Arp galaxies! That's a great image, thanks for sharing. I think I will have to look that one up in the ol' atlas.

Captured in late August / early September. Should be viewed in full resolution. :) Gear used: AA Hypercam 1600m on a SW 80 ED Pro with matching .85 reduccer and upgraded SW focuser. Baader 7nm H-alpha and Baader 8.5nm Oiii filters. EQ6 Pro with rail upgrade. ZWO 60mm Guide scope with AA Hypercam 183m V2 camera. Software used: N.I.N.A. for planning, control and acquisition. PHD2 Guiding, Sharpcap polar alignment. Astro Pixel Processor for Calibration and stacking, PixInsight for post processing and Photoshop for watermark. Post processing workflow: Both master aligned in PI and Cropped for same FOV. Ha-master: DBE for removal of LP gradients. Deconvolution with starmarsk Linear noise reduction using various masks and TGVDenoise + MMT. Oiii-master: DBE for removal of LP gradients. Stars removed using Starnet++ and Clonestamp. Heavy noise reduction with MMT Blur with convolution Combination and non-linear: LinearFit Oiii master to Ha-master Linear combination of masters using SHO-AIP script to create RGB-master for tonemapping. Created "super lum" with 80/20 split of Ha and Oiii masters. Combination of curves and Histogram transformation for stretching both masters. Many uses of curves to get colors i like, saturation, etc on RGB-master. SCNR to remove excess green in RGB-master. LHE and Curves on super lum for better contrast. Extract luminance from RGB-master and LinearFit to super lum. Combine RGB-master with super lum using LRGB combination for a LRGB-master. A round of curves for better contrast and colors on final LRGB-master. Final round of noise reduction on LRGB-master using TGVDenoise. Save as JPG and create watermark in Photoshop.

Yes it is.

Yeah those are hot pixels.. You really need to properly calibrate your subs. If you don't use darks then you can probably get the worst hot pixels by using the cosmetic correction process before stacking. There is also a process for inspection all the frames without having to load and stf every single one, it's called blink.

Amazing image, and a great wealth of information to go with it. 👍 Is there somewhere I can pixel peep at 1:1 scale?

Yeah I do unfortunately. It's not a huge problem, but enough that I noticed when I was using a DSLR. But the main reason for fat stars for me is moisture due to the climate here, and my proximity to the sea.

Thanks! Yes that little ED80 really does punch above its weight. Although admittedly mine has a little issue with fat stars in the red band, but going mono has helped this.

I'm beginning to warm up to the idea of rotating it.. But is it the "correct" way or is it just what most people prefer? By far the most comments I have received on other media where I shared it, is that people prefer it rotated 180.

Thank you, much appreciated. As this is my first real dataaset from a cooled camera, I was pretty blown away by the difference between cooled and uncooled.

Thanks. I tried flipping it, but it just looked so wrong! Maybe because I've been staring at it for hours on end in this orientation while processing.. 🙂

This is a bicolor image of The Elephants Trunk nebula situated in the much larger star forming region of IC1396. Was captured in the late summer as the darkness started creeping back into my bright northerly skies. The star forming region of IC1396 is more than 100 lightyears across, but "the trunk" itself is around 20 lightyears long. The trunk is a column of dust and hydrogen gas which is beautifully backlit by the pale blues of an oxygen gas cloud. Combined exposure of 8.5 hours. 4,5 hours of Hydrogen alpha. 4 hours of Oxygen III. Captured with N.I.N.A, stacked in Astro Pixel Processor, and processed with PixInsight. For the full version (worth a look in my humble opinion) and more details about gear and settings, goto astrobin here: https://www.astrobin.com/full/0rcqpa/B/?real=&mod= Critique, comments and questions are more than welcome!

Sure.. I got these. https://www.astroshop.eu/guide-scope-rings/astoptics-cnc-guidescope-ring-90mm-vixen-clamp/p,57812

Problem solved! It was due to stacking artifacts introduced by APP. When those were resolved, the normalization issues were gone. :)

No - but I suppose I can do that somehow as a batch process. It is just strange that it doesn't happen in my Ha stack as well.