PixInsight !!

[MarkyD]

Since I'm having trouble to get DSS to output any images I thought I would give PixInsight a go.  How hard can it be I thought - Import images, press a button and TaDa - NOT.  The universe will have ended before I get to grips with it   Best tutorial I have found yet is this one

http://www.lightvortexastronomy.com/tutorial-example-m31-andromeda-galaxy---dslr.html#Section1

but it still assumes that you are proficient with PI

Oh well back to the grind stone

[Joel Shepherd]

That site has a ton of other tutorials, which go through mouse-click by mouse-click how to do common processing operations. Go slow, start with the beginning even if it seems too basic, work your way through stacking and mask generation and you'll be on your way. I suspect once you've done that it'll seem less daunting and the processing examples on the site (like the M31 one) will make much more sense.

[D4N]

By far the best tutorials I have found are Harry's:

http://www.harrysastroshed.com/pixinsight/pixinsight video html/Pixinsighthome.html

They start at the basics and work up and you can see exactly what is happening.

Once you get your workflow sorted out PI is great but getting there can be challenging.  I still don't know what half the things do but I can get pretty pictures to come out so I'm happy

[Gina]

I have been wondering about trying PI as there's a Linux version and my ultimate goal is to dump Windoze but I'm used to Photoshop which doesn't have a Linux version and I'm not sure I want to learn something with such a steep learning curve at this stage in my life.  Once I get imaging again I might get the trial version and have a go - see how I get on.  With good tutorials it might not be so bad

[D4N]

Yeh Linux is nice to use, though I haven't used PI in it yet.  At least PI will let you use different versions on the same licence.

I just noticed that my mount is now supported by indi, I might try my raspberry PI remote control again now.  The advantage of the raspberry PI is that it can be attached to the mount greatly reducing the number of cables being dragged around.

 

I suspect more people will start turning to Linux when the Windows 10 licence fees start to hurt.

[wimvb]

It may be a steep learning curve, but it's rewarding.

Pixinsight helped my images to get from here ...

... to here ...

... and hopefully, some day to here ...

(the last one is my data, processed by Alejandro Tombolini using PixInsight)

[Jokehoba]

I too moved to PixInsight from DSS a couple of years ago but I used Nebulosity in between. While Nebulosity is not as comprehensive as PixInsight, it was a vast improvement over what I was getting out of DSS. It's quite intuitive and I still use Nebulosity for calibration of all my sub-frames and debayering.

[Gina]

17 hours ago, D4N said:

Yeh Linux is nice to use, though I haven't used PI in it yet.  At least PI will let you use different versions on the same licence.

I just noticed that my mount is now supported by indi, I might try my raspberry PI remote control again now.  The advantage of the raspberry PI is that it can be attached to the mount greatly reducing the number of cables being dragged around.

 

I suspect more people will start turning to Linux when the Windows 10 licence fees start to hurt.

I'm hoping to go over to the Raspberry Pi too, both for mount remote control and for my All Sky Camera.

[D4N]

Yeh I'm thinking to guide directly using the PI to avoid forwarding the guide camera data over the network then to use an Indi server running on the PI to forward control of the mount, camera and filter wheel to my laptop.  There is no indi driver for my home made focuser and from past experience I'm not very good at writing indi drivers so I will just forward its port over wifi.

Then the only cables running up my mount will be for power.

 

Hmm sorry Mark this is turning into a thread hijacking

[MarkyD]

I think I'll leave the Tuts for a day when it's raining with no distractions in the garden to take me away from the computer

[andyo]

I agree with D4N harry page tutorials got me up and running on Pi in no time highly recommend them.