Nebulosity makes me a numpty.

[sophiecentaur]

I have read all about stacking and it is obviously a powerful tool for getting down in amongst the noise. I am starting my AP career in a small way, with a camera and a sky tracker and having some success with pictures. Jeez, there are so many things to get just right and all in the pitch dark!

My new Pentax k2s +250mm zoom gives me good multiple exposures in DNG format. It's easy to get them into Nebulosity and to align and stack them (but beware putting a foot wrong or you have to go back to square one). But the result is monochrome, showing stuff that the individual pics don't. I have the Nebulosity manual and the guy really hasn't written it with a numpty in mind. The vocabulary and the explanations just don't seem to be aimed at me at all. I don't have camera control (it's not a Nikon, for a start) and I have to work indoors, afterwards, with perhaps 10 files. I have taken darks but it just calls me an idiot if I try to use them (a beautifully worded error message - almost "durr!") but I was not offended.

There must be one of the conversion drop downs that will do what I want but which one? Is there a Nebulosity of Dummies available or could someone give me a hint in the right direction, please? The monochrome result with the Orion Nebula is very encouraging but . . . . .

[AKB]

For the Darks, you have not only to select them near the top of the large pre-process menu page, but, on the line where you select your Lights, you ALSO have to select which set of darks you want to use.  Same for Flats if you had them.

Yes, IIRC, the error message is a bit rude, something along the lines of "nothing to process, dummy."

 

Edited January 3, 2017 by AKB
Typo

[D4N]

If your images are coming out monochrome then perhaps the software is not debayering them before stacking.

Colour images need to be debayered before stacking or it will just make a mess.

[sophiecentaur]

51 minutes ago, D4N said:

If your images are coming out monochrome then perhaps the software is not debayering them before stacking.

Colour images need to be debayered before stacking or it will just make a mess.

I remember getting some weird stripy effects early on but, apart from coming out monochrome, the pictures are very believable.

SO where do I find how to debayer the DNG file? I know I can hardly criticise a good and free software package but it is tiresome that it seems to involve so many masonic handshakes before it will do what I need. I guess it must be camera sensor specific.

IS there any other OS X software (I can even bring myself to spend some money) which will take the Nebulosity pain away?

[D4N]

Ah have you paid for the full version?  The demo version saves stripes on files.  Unfortunately this means that stacked images can look a real mess as the stripes go all over the place.

 

PI runs natively in OS-X, I use that for processing.  I use Nebulosity or Artemis for image acquisition.

[sophiecentaur]

I paid. It's ok now and there are no stripes.

Perhaps I should get PI (Which stands for what?)

[D4N]

38 minutes ago, sophiecentaur said:

I paid. It's ok now and there are no stripes.

Perhaps I should get PI (Which stands for what?)

Pixinsight.

https://pixinsight.com

 

For Nebulosity it should output colour if the demosaic settings are correct so you should check these.

[sophiecentaur]

On 03/01/2017 at 23:15, D4N said:

Pixinsight.

https://pixinsight.com

 

For Nebulosity it should output colour if the demosaic settings are correct so you should check these.

Can you suggest where I might find these settings?

[iapa]

13 hours ago, sophiecentaur said:

Can you suggest where I might find these settings?

There an option in the BATCH menu to de-mosaic your images, it will do all of them for you, and prefixes the file name with 'recon_'

There is also th eye-mosaic option under the Image menu which will work on the file that is currently loaded.

Sorry - I'm running a preprocessing batch just  now so can't quote the precise name for the de-mosaic options in the menus 

[iapa]

here's the menus showing the Nebulosity de-mosaic options

 

 

[sophiecentaur]

On 05/01/2017 at 12:37, iapa said:

There an option in the BATCH menu to de-mosaic your images, it will do all of them for you, and prefixes the file name with 'recon_'

There is also th eye-mosaic option under the Image menu which will work on the file that is currently loaded.

Sorry - I'm running a preprocessing batch just  now so can't quote the precise name for the de-mosaic options in the menus 

Yes. I found that - you have to go through it to do the de mosaicing. I need the actual numbers in order to get the right .fit results, though. Nebulosity clearly doesn't recognise the DNG that I am giving it. But I have found a way round, by using Aperture as a (better) image prep facility (and some batch capabilities too) and saving  tiff files. Those go into Nebulosity and turn out 'right'. Final result of stacking is showing promise. With the sky tracker set up right and using the focus mask, the stars don't look too bad either. Just a matter of getting everything together all at the same time (whilst fumbling around in the dark).

[ollypenrice]

Beware. Pixinsight could make a numpty out of Stephen Hawking...

You could try Deep Sky Stacker, which is free. I use AstroArt.

Olly

[Owmuchonomy]

Ah yes, I feel your pain.  Stacking in OS X.  I have successfully got AS!2 and ImPPG to run in Wineskin on OS X.  This doesn't help you for Deep Sky images though, just planetary, lunar and solar.  I haven't tried DSS that Olly suggests above in Wineskin.  I have to resort to a PC and Windows Vista to run that, maybe I should try Wineskin with that too.  I have Nebulosity 4.1 downloaded on OS X but it has several bugs in El Capitan allegedly that need sorting.  It also won't capture images with my ZWO cameras (yet) due to a driver incompatibility according to the ZWO user forum.

[iapa]

2 hours ago, sophiecentaur said:

Yes. I found that - you have to go through it to do the de mosaicing. I need the actual numbers in order to get the right .fit results, though. Nebulosity clearly doesn't recognise the DNG that I am giving it. But I have found a way round, by using Aperture as a (better) image prep facility (and some batch capabilities too) and saving  tiff files. Those go into Nebulosity and turn out 'right'. Final result of stacking is showing promise. With the sky tracker set up right and using the focus mask, the stars don't look too bad either. Just a matter of getting everything together all at the same time (whilst fumbling around in the dark).

Apologies, I thoughtyou were after doing it, not setting up for it

duh.