First try at RGB in AstroArt6

[Craig123]

Hiya

Could anyone who has knowledge of AA6 point me in the right direction.I have been trying to combine RGB in AstroArt 6 which i got recently.The subs of each look ok for a first go ( as in pic1 ) and i cant see any trials on R,G or B.When i stack the individual channels they also look ok (Apart from dust as in pic2) but when i try and combine with auto alignment in Trichromy it all goes pear shaped with eveything out of alignment.The 2 hrs or so of Luminance when stacked looks ok.What is happening..ive tried all sorts to get it lined up.

 

Many Thanks

[ollypenrice]

Don't use auto alignment in trichromy.

Open R, G and B on the desktop and nothing else. Make Red the top image on the screen. Go to Image, Align, Align All, Star Pattern Translation and Rotation, increase the star count to 40 and click. 

In Trichromy be sure that red is in red, green in green, etc.

I confess that I haven't yet studied the AA6 white balance business so I'll leave that to you! (I sneak back to AA5 which I do understand!)

Olly

[Craig123]

Great.I will give it a go.It may be a while before I can report back about white balance with any confidence  judging on the twists and turns of today but i can feel that I'm slowly getting there.Many thanks 

[Craig123]

13 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

Don't use auto alignment in trichromy.

Open R, G and B on the desktop and nothing else. Make Red the top image on the screen. Go to Image, Align, Align All, Star Pattern Translation and Rotation, increase the star count to 40 and click. 

In Trichromy be sure that red is in red, green in green, etc.

I confess that I haven't yet studied the AA6 white balance business so I'll leave that to you! (I sneak back to AA5 which I do understand!)

Olly

Hi Olly..i tried a few more times following the above and the final image is still misaligned.Have you any other ideas i could try out...i feel im getting close to my first proper colour image but this has me stumped.Thanks

[Freddie]

I think you will find that the "misalignment" is just due to the stars being different sizes/shapes on the R, G and B files. You can select the same star on each file to measure and check.  You also have some hot pixels which you should be able to remove when stacking if you select the appropriate filter on the "extras" tab.

[Craig123]

5 minutes ago, Freddie said:

I think you will find that the "misalignment" is just due to the stars being different sizes/shapes on the R, G and B files. You can select the same star on each file to measure and check.  You also have some hot pixels which you should be able to remove when stacking if you select the appropriate filter on the "extras" tab.

Thanks Freddie...what would that be caused by? Perhaps a focussing issue with the different colour filters.Not sure if it Is an issue with the original subs or a processing problem.

Craig

[carastro]

Looking at your first mis-aligned image, the mis-alignment is in different directions, and this is where Registar wins hands down as it will stretch the image so the stars will sit on top of each other. 

This doesn't however make any difference to differing star sizes of different filters, I normally have to shrink the biggest stars slightly before combining to prevent this happening.

Carole 

[Craig123]

3 minutes ago, carastro said:

Looking at your first mis-aligned image, the mis-alignment is in different directions, and this is where Registar wins hands down as it will stretch the image so the stars will sit on top of each other. 

This doesn't however make any difference to differing star sizes of different filters, I normally have to shrink the biggest stars slightly before combining to prevent this happening.

Carole 

Thanks Carole...yes i'm starting to think Registar maybe the way i have to go with this...i've spent a good few hours on AA6 so far and not got it close to aligning the colour channels yet.

[carastro]

Can you post up your stacked individual filters and I'll put them through Registar for you so you can see if you think it is better.

Carole 

NB:  I have never tried AA for registering different filters as I already had Registar.  Prior to buying Registar I tried using Maxim and Nebulosity for this job, but never got satisfactory results. 

[Craig123]

Thanks Carole...that is very kind of you.Ive uploaded them( they are tiffs as i couldn't view Fits  files on my laptop when i was imaging when i did this)

Craig

pin@green7.tif

pin@blue7.tif

pin@red7.tif

[carastro]

I have registered the images in Registar and the stars line up nicely now (I also used the crop tool), however there is a new problem, you have mis-aligned hot pixels now.  

Maybe these could be dealt with in the stacking process, did you use darks?  did you use sigma kappa stacking?

Alternatively dithering should help.

 

 

pin@red7.tif

pin@green7_reg_cp.tif

pin@blue7_reg_cp.tif

[carastro]

Do you have a luminance channel to add to this RGB, and do you use photoshop? 

I found if you do filter/dust and scratches (1 point) the hot pixels disappear (mostly and the remainder could be cloned out) and then you can place the luminance over the top.  Though the luminance itself may have hot pixels.

Of course it would be best if they could be treated during the stacking, but just to "save" your current image.

Any way - hope this helps. 

Carole

[carastro]

RGB after Registar and combining with a small levels stretch (showing the mis-aligned Hot Pixels).

 

RGB after small dust and scratches treatment and a bit more of a stretch. 

 

 

[Craig123]

Thanks ever so much Carol..im back at work so will have a look when I get home and get back to you.I did  take darks on the session but didn't load them in to the stacking process as I was just figuring out the software.I can try again.Also have a luminance stack that looks better than my colour efforts but im sure theres stuff that needs fixing!!

[Craig123]

39 minutes ago, carastro said:

RGB after Registar and combining with a small levels stretch (showing the mis-aligned Hot Pixels).

 

RGB after small dust and scratches treatment.

 

 

Wow..well done.Its just loaded up on my phone.

[carastro]

Looks like some flats are also needed, but I guess you're just trying to get everything to work at the moment.

Carole 

[Craig123]

At least it shows there was nothing badly wrong with my gear or subs from a beginner point of view.After scrambling up to this point I was really scratching my head wondering where it had gone wrong...many thanks for that Carole.I do already have photoshop and light room..What do you use to process apart from registrar?

C

[carastro]

I stack in Astroart, process in Photoshop CS3, and register in Registar.  

Just need to crack those hot pixels, and make sure you have a good registering software (or Registar), and brush up on post-processing and you'll be away.  

I remember having a bit of a struggle to combine filters when I first changed from DSLR to Mono CCD, took me a bit of time to get it right, but Registar was my saviour. 

Carole