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BlurXTerminator - Wow!


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I, personally am only using the “correct only” option for my corner stars, I am not using any other option as I am not convinced that it’s not adding detail that was not there already in my images, and so would not be “real”, but for me it’s worth the cost just to give me much better star shapes to the corners of my images…

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14 minutes ago, Lee_P said:

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 👍

High light pollution using a OSC is a hard nut to crack, I am lucky in that respect at bortle 3/4 ish if my neighbour turns his outside light off as there are no street lights in my village.

Edited by Gary Clayton
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15 minutes ago, Stuart1971 said:

I, personally am only using the “correct only” option for my corner stars, I am not using any other option as I am not convinced that it’s not adding detail that was not there already in my images, and so would not be “real”, but for me it’s worth the cost just to give me much better star shapes to the corners of my images…

I get a slight improvement using the default settings in both stars and background, so I will purchasing it once the 30 day trial runs out.

Soul_nebula.jpg

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16 minutes ago, DaveS said:

Damn. I've been a PI refusenik but I may have to bite the bullet.

 

9 minutes ago, geoflewis said:

I'm in a similar place Dave. I think what BlurX has done might be a tipping point for me too....🙄🤔

Although I love PI I do understand why it tends to be the Marmite of processing software.
However, unless strapped for cash, the WBPP script for me almost makes it worth it on its own for the pre-processing and now with this BlurXTerminator and maybe NoiseXTerminator (although available without PI) means that you can at east get an integrated, sharp and pretty noiseless image very easily and quickly, and then if its your preference revert back to your usual preferred software for the finer details.

Steve
 

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I know this thread is already full of posts like this, but here is a crop of my IC342 before and after SPCC and BlurXterminator have been applied. I could never get close to version 2 with my processing abilities so it's $80 very well spent IMHO (assuming you already use PI). Having tried to improve my processing skills the hard way, it does feel a bit like cheating, but I'll take it anyway.😉

Image06-lpc-cbg-Stcrop.thumb.jpg.96604e030f8bf3af2fa17e825c38a38d.jpg

Image04BXTcrop.thumb.jpg.acc0d12cb0e0f2e18af5a58872f56bcc.jpg

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3 hours ago, Lee_P said:

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 👍

As in real estate, AP is really only about three things: location, location, and (you guessed it) location. So far, not even Russell Croman can beat the advantage that a dark site offers. 😉

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1 hour ago, DaveS said:

Having seen the result that John @silentrunning obtained with my Cetus A data on the WA group may have tipped me over the edge.

But can I afford the strait jacket and padded cell to go with PI?🤣

Up until 3 months ago, I was an APP and PS user, then I thought I would try PI, and was worried how hard it would be, and it really isn’t, at all. I watched a boat load of YouTube videos and found it really user friendly, and intuitive, and not at all what I had been led to believe, or imagined…

So my advice, BlurXT aside, give the free trial a go, you may be really surprised just how intuitive it is, and the WBPP script is as good as APP for stacking and integration, and just as easy to use….👍🏻

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I had the free trial some time ago but it was on a very small boot drive which was getting clogged up by junk and something had to go. I now have a much bigger boot drive but I may specc out a new machine for PI. I can save a bit by foregoing Win-Dross for Kubuntu.

Even Warren Keller's book didn't help.

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4 hours ago, tomato said:

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

I think a 14" BXT processed image should beat a 6" APO BXT image, because what BXT does is take care of blurring by atmosphere, guiding, and focus issues. All that is left after that are telescope optics (read: diffraction limit or spot size), imaging scale, and SNR in the unprocessed masters (BXT is done before any magical noise reduction).

I don't think that a direct shoot out is fully valid. Differences in images of the same target are at least as much due to differences in processing style and processing decisions as they are to differences in equipment and data acquisition.

Case in point: Adam Block recently published an image of M51, processed with "xXT".

https://www.astrobin.com/3ehcpo/?nc=all

The addition of Ha, and different processing, makes this a completely different image from the one Olly linked to earlier in this discussion.

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8 hours ago, Stuart1971 said:

I, personally am only using the “correct only” option for my corner stars, I am not using any other option as I am not convinced that it’s not adding detail that was not there already in my images, and so would not be “real”, but for me it’s worth the cost just to give me much better star shapes to the corners of my images…

Maybe try a BlurX processing next to a regular sharpening process like Unsharp Mask. The regular routines are basically contrast-enhancers at different scales. If you see anything new appear in the BlurX result then you might, and rightly, consider it spurious. In making this comparison myself I've found nothing to make me doubt the BlurX result. It's essentially the same as the USM only finer and with less noise. It also requires less intervention. My feeling is that it is more, rather than less, true to the object.

What I do find interesting is that it seems to find more faint structure just above the background sky. I'm always keen to find this faint stuff and, like another member earlier in the thread, I feel it is enhanced by BlurX despite this not being, on the face of it, what the process is about.

Olly

Edited by ollypenrice
Typo
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8 hours ago, tomato said:

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?☺️

I can't post the magazine article online, I'm afraid. It belongs to Astronomy Now.

However, I have started playing with some old 14 inch linear data and putting it through BlurXT. My initial impression is is that it is less spectacular on the over-sampled data of the big scope, suggesting that the improvement levels off as you move up the scale of resolution. I thought it helped the nebulous stuff more than the stars. During the week, though, I'll see if I can put more time into this and post my findings.

I could be wrong but my first guess is that the new processing is going to close what is already a small gap between large apertures and small.

Olly

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1 hour ago, ollypenrice said:

I can't post the magazine article online, I'm afraid. It belongs to Astronomy Now.

However, I have started playing with some old 14 inch linear data and putting it through BlurXT. My initial impression is is that it is less spectacular on the over-sampled data of the big scope, suggesting that the improvement levels off as you move up the scale of resolution. I thought it helped the nebulous stuff more than the stars. During the week, though, I'll see if I can put more time into this and post my findings.

I could be wrong but my first guess is that the new processing is going to close what is already a small gap between large apertures and small.

Olly

I think you may be right Olly. I just had a go at my 14" image of NGC7331 and it only produced those worm-like artifacts that Block showed in his video of the Crab Nebula. No improvement at all and I will not even show it here (actually I deleted it just after I saw the result).

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4 hours ago, Karl Perera said:

Do we know if this tool will become available in Photoshop? I haven't tried Pixinsight yet.

Even if you, like me, prefer PS for most procedures, there are several useful functions in PI that complements what you can do in PS, so it is well worth getting. I do all stacking, calibrating and integrating of images in PI. DBE and Starnet2 in PI are useful if GradXT or StarXT occasionally do a poor job on an image.

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33 minutes ago, gorann said:

Even if you, like me, prefer PS for most procedures, there are several useful functions in PI that complements what you can do in PS, so it is well worth getting. I do all stacking, calibrating and integrating of images in PI. DBE and Starnet2 in PI are useful if GradXT or StarXT occasionally do a poor job on an image.

I would struggle to do without PI's ABE, DBE, SCNR green and now BlurXT. I also use LHE but as a layer in Photoshop! :D  That's all I use but I rate them as 100% essential.

Olly

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As others have said, IC342 is an obvious candidate. I already had a StarX version but starting everything from scratch and anticipating what the three Russ Croman tools would do, I was able to process accordingly. This gives us an entirely new way of imaging the Hidden Galaxy. If you haven't tried it before the starfield is brutal. Not any more it ain't. Big thanks to Russ Croman. This is full size on my Smugmug page if you go to full screen and click on the image. The BlurXT version was, again, smoother, sharper and deeper than my original.

https://ollypenrice.smugmug.com/Other/Galaxies/i-Chmdm43/A

Olly

 

 

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20 minutes ago, ollypenrice said:

I would struggle to do without PI's ABE, DBE, SCNR green and now BlurXT. I also use LHE but as a layer in Photoshop! :D  That's all I use but I rate them as 100% essential.

Olly

HLVG (Hasta la Vista Green) is almost identical to SNCR and is free for PS, maybe you know about it already...

I think NoiseXT even on non-linear images in PS is very useful. His starshrink tool, when careful is OK too.

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19 minutes ago, GalaxyGael said:

HLVG (Hasta la Vista Green) is almost identical to SNCR and is free for PS, maybe you know about it already...

I think NoiseXT even on non-linear images in PS is very useful. His starshrink tool, when careful is OK too.

I won't be doing any star shrinking now that I can process a starless object. It has to be the way to go. You can stretch differently and more honestly when you don't have to constrain the upper brightnesses in order to manage the stars. The clean separation of stars from object is an incredible breakthrough, I think, and one which also makes processing more enjoyable. No more agonizing over where to flatten the curve when stretching!

Olly

 

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