BlurXTerminator - Wow!

[wimvb]

One more comparison that got me thinking. Here's a crop of Stephan's Quintet. Quite an improvement. All the details in my BXT version are visible in the SDSS plates, so no introduction of invented details.

BUT: would it even be possible for me, with a 7.5" telescope, to capture such detail, even accounting for imperfect collimation, focusing, guiding and seeing? In other words, Can we now get images that are better than the theoretical telescope specs? And if that's so, and ok, why would one even bother investing in a large CDK and putting it in Chile or New Mexico?

(top is conventional processing, bottom is BXT)

[ollypenrice]

10 minutes ago, wimvb said:

One more comparison that got me thinking. Here's a crop of Stephan's Quintet. Quite an improvement. All the details in my BXT version are visible in the SDSS plates, so no introduction of invented details.

BUT: would it even be possible for me, with a 7.5" telescope, to capture such detail, even accounting for imperfect collimation, focusing, guiding and seeing? In other words, Can we now get images that are better than the theoretical telescope specs? And if that's so, and ok, why would one even bother investing in a large CDK and putting it in Chile or New Mexico?

(top is conventional processing, bottom is BXT)

Great.

To be honest, I think the large amateur telescope has been on the run for some time. Small pixel cameras and this kind of processing get you so near to the big stuff with quite small apertures.

Olly

[wimvb]

5 minutes ago, ollypenrice said:

Great.

To be honest, I think the large amateur telescope has been on the run for some time. Small pixel cameras and this kind of processing get you so near to the big stuff with quite small apertures.

Olly

And a lot cheaper. I remember an article you wrote a few years ago, where you compared results from large telescopes to those obtained with smaller refractors. Now, the difference gets blurred even more. (Pun intended)

[Stuart1971]

Well here are my before and after images, these were very poor images with no calibration and full of noise, also before I had the flattener and also with poor tilt in the left bottom corner shown in these images, well what can I say…wow….

EDIT: This was using the “correct only” setting, so no sharpening on anything, just star shape correction…./

 

Edited December 17, 2022 by Stuart1971

[geeklee]

1 hour ago, wimvb said:

BUT: would it even be possible for me, with a 7.5" telescope, to capture such detail, even accounting for imperfect collimation, focusing, guiding and seeing? 

I think this is the question I've been wondering to - is BlurX giving me what my telescope might resolve in perfect conditions and limited/no atmospheric effects... or something slightly less / more?

1 hour ago, wimvb said:

And if that's so, and ok, why would one even bother investing in a large CDK and putting it in Chile or New Mexico?

I'd guess these scopes would get the benefit of this tool as well, perhaps not to the same degree but as the images are already (usually) very good, this tool would elevate them again.

1 hour ago, wimvb said:

Quite an improvement.

Fantastic.  Serious improvement on an already very good image.

What setting did you use for "Sharpen Nonstellar" ? Did you use the "Nonstellar then Stellar" option?

 

Edited December 17, 2022 by geeklee

[geeklee]

29 minutes ago, Stuart1971 said:

EDIT: This was using the “correct only” setting, so no sharpening on anything, just star shape correction…./

Wow @Stuart1971 That's not subtle, that's superb. 👍

[Stuart1971]

5 minutes ago, geeklee said:

Wow @Stuart1971 That's not subtle, that's superb. 👍

Well, I thought so, I have now got the flattener for my scope and so the issue are no where near as bad, but still a tiny bit of tilt I can’t seem to get rid of, well I assume it’s tilt, or maybe it just the flattener is still not correcting right to the edges, either way this seems to solve the issue….👍🏻

[geeklee]

It's worth reading the official documentation provided with the tool in PixInsight.  It's more comprehensive - of course - than the information on his website.  It not only covers the function of the tool, but as much as he can say about how its working and some theory.

On Windows you can find it directly here - outside PI - C:\Program Files\PixInsight\doc\tools\BlurXTerminator\BlurXTerminator.html.  Just paste that into a browser window.

Edited December 17, 2022 by geeklee

[ONIKKINEN]

1 hour ago, wimvb said:

One more comparison that got me thinking. Here's a crop of Stephan's Quintet. Quite an improvement. All the details in my BXT version are visible in the SDSS plates, so no introduction of invented details.

BUT: would it even be possible for me, with a 7.5" telescope, to capture such detail, even accounting for imperfect collimation, focusing, guiding and seeing? In other words, Can we now get images that are better than the theoretical telescope specs? And if that's so, and ok, why would one even bother investing in a large CDK and putting it in Chile or New Mexico?

(top is conventional processing, bottom is BXT)

This is so crazy how much it improved the original that i thought was already pretty good. Not only is the improvement but also i cant see any negatives from the tool. Doesn't look quite as detailed as a planetary image with this aperture in excellent conditions so i wager there is still ways to go before we get into the realm of too much detail for the aperture.

Gotta jump on the PI gravy train now.

[wimvb]

56 minutes ago, geeklee said:

What setting did you use for "Sharpen Nonstellar" ? Did you use the "Nonstellar then Stellar" option?

This was a first test, so default settings only. For the very first test, I used BXT on the L master only, but that didn't correct star colours and star halos. Using BXT on the RGB master as well, fixed this.

[ollypenrice]

M51, just the lumnance layer reprocesssed from linear with all three Russ Croman routnes working overtime. 5 inch telescope.

https://ollypenrice.smugmug.com/Other/Galaxies/i-d5BBZQp/A

Olly

[Knight of Clear Skies]

This does look like a bit of a game changer. It may be a tad funky but it does seem to be doing a good job of pulling out detail which matches well with higher resolution images.

Edited December 17, 2022 by Knight of Clear Skies

[AMcD]

How does this new RC software fit together with the other Russell Croman products?   For example, does BlurXTerminator negate the need for NoiseXTerminator?   I suspect not, as it would appear they are directed at different issues.

[teoria_del_big_bang]

14 minutes ago, AMcD said:

does BlurXTerminator negate the need for NoiseXTerminator?  

No, in fact if you watch the Adam Block video it should be used on an image before the noise reduction.
But after using BlurXTerminator you can then use NoiseXTerminator.
I am no expert but I guess the fact that the noise is not really affected shows how good the process is at sharpening what is there rather than adding stuff that isn't in the data (so long as you do not push it too far) as it works on small scale stuff and this is supposed to sharpen the image whereas essentially noise reduction is actually blurring the background to achieve the noise reduction.

If you haven't watched Adams video then I suggest you have a look, it is very good.

Steve
 

Edited December 17, 2022 by teoria_del_big_bang

[ollypenrice]

12 hours ago, AMcD said:

How does this new RC software fit together with the other Russell Croman products?   For example, does BlurXTerminator negate the need for NoiseXTerminator?   I suspect not, as it would appear they are directed at different issues.

Certainly use all three, but I'm certain that BlurX is close to offering noiseless sharpennig, unlike any other sharpening routine.

Olly

[tomato]

I agree these tools are a game changer, the killer is they are so easy to use. 
It reminds me of when auto guiding came in, a whole raft of intense effort required to produce good results in AP was just taken away by the advances in hardware, this one is processing related which suits me just fine.

[gorann]

44 minutes ago, tomato said:

I agree these tools are a game changer, the killer is they are so easy to use. 
It reminds me of when auto guiding came in, a whole raft of intense effort required to produce good results in AP was just taken away by the advances in hardware, this one is processing related which suits me just fine.

Yes, they are so easy that it may mean that now (or soon) many years of perfecting your processing skills may no longer be as important and being able to afford the best equipment. I hope not🥴

[mftoet]

I gave BXT a first try on M33 for combining recently acquired H-alpha data (captured from home) with RGB (OSC) data captured in Southern France (at Olly's Les Granges). It's excellent! As demonstrated by Adam Block in his recent video, it also helps fixing bad star shapes (reducing elongated stars), which is nice to tighten up the stars in the corners of full frame images captured with my Epsilon-180ED at f/2.8.

Here's an animated GIF of the center of the galaxy (in H-alpha only) to show the capabilities of BXT.

  

[wimvb]

20 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

Great.

To be honest, I think the large amateur telescope has been on the run for some time. Small pixel cameras and this kind of processing get you so near to the big stuff with quite small apertures.

Olly

The comparison before was that a 6" refractor could produce results comparable to much larger reflectors. But that was with atmospheric conditions and central obstruction effects included. In real life telescopes rarely perform at their theoretical limit. With BXT, we are able to remove many of the factors that degrade performance from the equation, and get closer to that theoretical limit.

In my image comparison of Stephan's Quintet, the BXT image showed a lot of extra detail. Comparing the improved image with professional data from terrestrial telescopes, there was no false detail. BXT didn't invent anything. And of course, it didn't go online to check with the HST archive. I can only conclude that BXT brings the level of detail close to my scope/camera's theoretical limit (Rayleigh limit of 0.7" and pixel scale of 0.95"/p). If that is true, it should be able to do so for large reflectors as well. The playing field is constantly changing.

[ollypenrice]

56 minutes ago, wimvb said:

The comparison before was that a 6" refractor could produce results comparable to much larger reflectors. But that was with atmospheric conditions and central obstruction effects included. In real life telescopes rarely perform at their theoretical limit. With BXT, we are able to remove many of the factors that degrade performance from the equation, and get closer to that theoretical limit.

In my image comparison of Stephan's Quintet, the BXT image showed a lot of extra detail. Comparing the improved image with professional data from terrestrial telescopes, there was no false detail. BXT didn't invent anything. And of course, it didn't go online to check with the HST archive. I can only conclude that BXT brings the level of detail close to my scope/camera's theoretical limit (Rayleigh limit of 0.7" and pixel scale of 0.95"/p). If that is true, it should be able to do so for large reflectors as well. The playing field is constantly changing.

Yes, I need to see if I have any very oversampled 14 inch linear data on an old hard drive...

Olly

[tomato]

So I suppose the question is would a 14” ODK BXT processed image beat a 6” APO BXT processed image? 
 

@ollypenrice, please could you dig out your AN article data by any chance?☺️

[tomato]

Olly, you beat me to it.👍

[Lee_P]

Would anyone mind trying BlurX on some freshly integrated stacks of mine to see what a difference it makes? I've given it a go and while I definitely see tighter stars, the difference in the nebulosity seems to be minor, if visible at all in some parts. I'm wondering whether I'm doing something wrong in executing the process; or perhaps my expectations are just a bit off. Really, I want the "wow, what a difference!" reaction that others seem to be getting 😂

 

[Gary Clayton]

8 minutes ago, Lee_P said:

Would anyone mind trying BlurX on some freshly integrated stacks of mine to see what a difference it makes? I've given it a go and while I definitely see tighter stars, the difference in the nebulosity seems to be minor, if visible at all in some parts. I'm wondering whether I'm doing something wrong in executing the process; or perhaps my expectations are just a bit off. Really, I want the "wow, what a difference!" reaction that others seem to be getting 😂

 

As you say the main change seems to be in your stars, I think that this down to the low signal to noise ratio in your images and it looks like longer integration time is needed, I have had good results with my own images using this tool.

[Lee_P]

1 minute ago, Gary Clayton said:

As you say the main change seems to be in your stars, I think that this down to the low signal to noise ratio in your images and it looks like longer integration time is needed, I have had good results with my own images using this tool.

Ah drat, the Elephant's Trunk photo is 22 hours of integration already... My light-polluted skies don't make things easy! Thanks for checking 👍