BlurXTerminator - Wow!

[Laurin Dave]

52 minutes ago, ollypenrice said:

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

 

 

Excellent Olly..  Hidden no longer!

Edited December 19, 2022 by Laurin Dave

[PeterCPC]

4 hours ago, Stuart1971 said:

According to Russ himself, there are no plans for it….🙁

I think that, if enough people ask for it, he may relent. I have asked. I cannot stand PI. I have it but don't use it anymore as I value my sanity.

[Stuart1971]

4 minutes ago, PeterCPC said:

I think that, if enough people ask for it, he may relent. I have asked. I cannot stand PI. I have it but don't use it anymore as I value my sanity.

It won’t work in PS, something to do with it needing linear data…🤷🏼‍♂️

I switched to PI recently and find it pretty straight forward, easier than any other I have used….maybe it just suits my way of thinking…..who knows…

Edited December 19, 2022 by Stuart1971

[Stuart1971]

I have asked Russ, about porting the old GradientX to PI, and his reply, was that an AI version may be on the cards for PI…..👍🏻

[ollypenrice]

47 minutes ago, PeterCPC said:

I think that, if enough people ask for it, he may relent. I have asked. I cannot stand PI. I have it but don't use it anymore as I value my sanity.

I know what you mean but this is so easy. You open the image, give it a screen stretch (Ctrl A will do), open BlurXterminator and apply the defaults. There are not many slider choices and you can ignore them if you feel like it. From there onwards processing is significantly easier.

Olly

[ONIKKINEN]

First time trying PI yesterday. Hate it so far, but i will cave in and get it just for BlurX to work. I will probably not be doing anything else with PI as its just so unbearably slow at doing anything simple whereas Siril will register, normalize, and stack 2000 subs faster than PI does star analysis on the same set of subs.

BlurX flat out improved any linear stack i found on my HDD without any negatives that i found. It makes all the images i tried it on look like they were taken on a bigger scope under stable skies and great guiding (none are true in normal conditions). The future is now and AI is here to stay.

[ngc1535]

On 16/12/2022 at 08:27, gorann said:

I saw the whole video, but maybe I got it wrong. However, near the end he demonstrates the artifact that it can produce, exemplified by the Crab nebula. What worries me then is that if you apply it early on and then much later realize that it has produced artifacts, it will be a bit frustrating. It suggests that you need to do two processes, one with and one without BXT.

Goran,

For clarification to clear any doubt- in the video I operate on linear images that were created after RGB combination (having been DBE'ed and SPCC corrected). 

Concerning the artifacts- all deconvolution algorithms produce them. The extra work you suggest you should have been doing all along if you deconvolution of any sort. This suggests nothing new and is not more frustrating than before. There is a good argument it is less frustrating. all you need to do and compare traditional decon to BXT. BXT with modest settings minimizes a number of artifacts that traditional decon produces. 

 

-adam

[ngc1535]

On 18/12/2022 at 09:48, wimvb said:

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.

Just to clarification... the latest image I published on AstroBin (linked to above) is from my own effort. It is not the same at the M51 data in the video (which is from a friend and I used his data as an example in my tutorials- it was taken with a 16-inch telescope. My latest version is with a telescope twice the size). I do think my latest version is pretty good since it leverages many tools and techniques of today. The original image I produced from this data is from 2011. 

-adam

[AMcD]

15 hours ago, ONIKKINEN said:

First time trying PI yesterday. Hate it so far, but i will cave in and get it just for BlurX to work.

I found PI absolutely infuriating to begin with, and walked away from my desk in disgust multiple times muttering darkly about user interfaces.  However, once I found the Light Vortex tutorials and video tutorials from the likes of Adam Block and Visible Dark, and worked through them methodically, things got less frustrating quite quickly.  My understanding of the nuts and bolts remains limited, but I have noticed that many of the game changing processing applications, like BlurXTerminator, that are emerging seem to require linear data, so I suspect learning PI is going to be a good investment of my time.

[Lee_P]

@ngc1535 I'd love to get your thoughts on why I'm not seeing much improvement using BlurX on the nebulosity in these stacks -- is it because I need a higher SNR, as was suggested earlier in this thread? Thanks in advance if you're able to help!

[powerlord]

I've found the same thing - yes, it does stars well, but does nowt at all with nebulosity on anything I've tried on it. IF I do it a second time it does, but it overdoes the stars - and I suppose I could just do the 'non-stellar' for second pass ? But so far I'm not seeing anything that qualifies the massive hype over this.

[powerlord]

On 16/12/2022 at 21:17, tooth_dr said:

Possibly, here’s the official response:

which I don't get as a reason - affinity photo accepts FIT files fine.

[powerlord]

On 18/12/2022 at 14:31, DaveS said:

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

Do  what I'm doing - and badger Russell for a PS plugin like he has done for the others. His reason not to is dubious. does make me wonder if there was a deal with PI made...?

[PeterCPC]

18 hours ago, Stuart1971 said:

It won’t work in PS, something to do with it needing linear data…🤷🏼‍♂️

I switched to PI recently and find it pretty straight forward, easier than any other I have used….maybe it just suits my way of thinking…..who knows…

I don't know what that means. I stack using APP so I end up with a TIFF. Can that then be used with BlurX?

[PeterCPC]

18 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

I know what you mean but this is so easy. You open the image, give it a screen stretch (Ctrl A will do), open BlurXterminator and apply the defaults. There are not many slider choices and you can ignore them if you feel like it. From there onwards processing is significantly easier.

Olly

I stack using APP so I end up with a TIFF. Can that then be used in PI with BlurX?

[powerlord]

1 minute ago, PeterCPC said:

I don't know what that means. I stack using APP so I end up with a TIFF. Can that then be used with BlurX?

exactly, or as I say Affinity photo natively supports FITs.

PS you might struggle with, as it doesn't do 32 bit well.

Anyway, I'm seeing lots of images of galaxies improved, but nothing much for nebula which ties in with my tests - just doesn't seem to do much at all for nebulosity detail ? I'll keep trying with old data but so far it's no game changer as far as I'm concerned, as I'm:

1. not gonna ever buy PI if my life depended on it. So I can only hope we does a plugin for real software.

2. not paying 90* quid for something that only helps with galaxies.

*feels a bit mean imho to only get a tenner off for owning the other two.

[powerlord]

3 minutes ago, PeterCPC said:

I stack using APP so I end up with a TIFF. Can that then be used in PI with BlurX?

yeh PI doesn't care - you can use it on a jpg of a cat if you like.

just save it out of APP unstretched.

[DaveS]

Since I'm something of a galaxy obsessive BlurXT might be exactly what I'm looking for.

[ollypenrice]

10 minutes ago, DaveS said:

Since I'm something of a galaxy obsessive BlurXT might be exactly what I'm looking for.

It IS exactly what you are looking for!    I haven't been imaging galaxies recently because our present rigs are 'fast and wide,' but I'm working through my old galaxy collection and enjoying the combined benefits of deconvolution and star removal-replacement.

Olly

[ollypenrice]

2 hours ago, PeterCPC said:

I stack using APP so I end up with a TIFF. Can that then be used in PI with BlurX?

I work from linear TIFFS.

Olly

[Adreneline]

2 hours ago, PeterCPC said:

I stack using APP so I end up with a TIFF. Can that then be used in PI with BlurX?

Why not set APP to save as .fit and retain the header information which PI uses? I didn't think linear tif files retained the .fit header but please tell me if I am wrong.

[PeterCPC]

27 minutes ago, Adreneline said:

Why not set APP to save as .fit and retain the header information which PI uses? I didn't think linear tif files retained the .fit header but please tell me if I am wrong.

No I don't think they do. I just use TIFF because that's what gets put into Affinity for tweaking.

 

[scotty38]

36 minutes ago, Adreneline said:

Why not set APP to save as .fit and retain the header information which PI uses? I didn't think linear tif files retained the .fit header but please tell me if I am wrong.

Unless it's been fixed in the last few months APP bins most of the fits info in its final images. I had issues with this for ages and asked for it to be looked at. It was on the list to be remedied but don't know if it has yet.

[powerlord]

I've been trying it on more images and yes, galaxies it seems to understand and do a good job. Better than other methods I'd been using ? Difficult to say without taking each through a new processing cycle. I mean, yeh it clearly 'understands M51' and you get lots of lovely detail. But I seem to have managed to extract most of that detail in other ways when I look at the final image I arrived at. So - it works.

So showing before and afters from raw to after blurX is interesting, but not a fair comparison really - It needs more 'doing whatever you did before blurx to get to a final image vs now with blurX in you processing workflow' really.

Just a pity it's PI only.

Nebulas - not a sausage though 😞

 

So seems pretty clear cut to me it's ony useful for galaxies  - star shapes aside. I won't be buying it until its available as an affinity plugin. come on Russell - there's more to Life than Pi (sic)

 

 

Edited December 20, 2022 by powerlord

[DaveS]

I just watched Adam's video on YT, and I guess I'm convinced. Damn, gonna cost me ££££, as I really need a new workstation since my 11 year old gen 2 i7 is probably marginal at best.