PIPP help

[brrttpaul]

Hi guys, I have been doing some full moon shots in LRGB, but I think im stuck with PIPP, I notice that it says "convert colour images to monochrome" this is ticked automatically. Should I untick it? also is there anything else I should tick or untick?. I have been capturing as AVI then running it through PIPP the autostackert then registax for wavelets, im hoping to end up with 4 images "LRGB" then combine them in pixinsight ( not sure how that works either with it being the moon as I have always done star alignment but thats not going to work with the moon is it? so how would I align the four images up. Thx in advance

Paul

[vlaiv]

In mine version, that is 2.5.9, it is not ticked by default.

This option is not what you want if you are interested in doing color imaging. This option is meant to enable you to produce Mono image from color source. It just combines R, G and B (or you can select what channels go into it) to produce single Mono image/stream of subs. This applies only if your camera is OSC and movie that you captured is already debayered (either by capture software / drivers or in camera itself - like DSLR).

What gear are you using to capture AVI? AVI is not the best format for planetary imaging if you have a choice of formats. If you are using DSLR to capture, then I'm afraid you don't have much choice, but if you are using planetary camera (or any dedicated astro cam like ASI1600 from your signature) and doing proper LRGB, meaning movie with each filter, then I advise you to switch to SER file format.

If you already have your movies in AVI and they have been captured with mono cam and filters - meaning you have 4 movies, just process them as Mono (turn off all color stuff in PIPP, like debayering, protecting bayer matrix preservation, ...) and produce Mono stack of each filter - then combine them in software of choice.

 

 

[brrttpaul]

Im using a zwo asi 1600 mono, actually i think i captured in SER (know I said avi). so I untick the convert to mono, is there anything else I need to do? lets say I end up with four images, how would I align them in pix then? i couldnt do a star alignment could I?

[vlaiv]

I think you can use following settings:

Depending what you actually want to do with PIPP.

For LRGB with ASI1600, I would personally use PIPP to do calibration only (darks, flats, flat darks, no bias files - those are not necessary, each channel would have set of respective calibration frames).

Export as SER as well (16 bit), or FITS - pity there is no 32bit option for Fits files.

Load each channel into AutoStakkert and stack. After that you can either use Registax to compose image (it has align option for channels), or use some software to align channels. Alignment of channels should be done based on "features/correlation" rather than stellar based alignment (most stacking software for DSO images uses stellar registration, so not sure what software is good for this). Alternatively you can use ImageJ and do stack alignment with one of its plugins (I've done it with regular astro images but not with planetary, but I suspect it would work). Do image compose after aligning and then run Registax to do wavelets.

 

[brrttpaul]

thanks Vlad 

[brrttpaul]

well i got an image but cant figure out why my colours are so messed up, either that or there is vegetation growing on the moon lol

[vlaiv]

Colors can get messed up if you applied different wavelet transform to each channel separately. How did you process your image?

Other thing to note is that you should do some sort of color balance - ASI1600 has a bit different sensitivity in different parts of spectrum, and human eye also has different sensitivity to R, G and B. Moon is actually very colorful when you ramp up saturation. In this image I would say that green is a bit too dominant.

Have a search on google - moon images in color (or high saturation) - you will find that there is big variety of different "color" schemes that people get with their color moon shots. You can be pedantic and do filter/camera calibration on stars to get "proper" color balance matrix and then use that on your moon shots, or you can be more artistic and do color balance to your liking.

[brrttpaul]

Thankx vlad I will have another go at it at least im in the ballpark ATM thanks for the help