16 hours plus maybe another 8

[geeklee]

5 hours ago, TiffsAndAstro said:

also i think my image(s) have more than a hint of a  "vaseline smeared lens" type of look to them. this could be a slight focus issue or something else. a lack of deconvolution (i don't use it) or some other processing utility maybe. 

As you say, could be slight focus (although stars look good), seeing, tracking inconsistencies - even minor elements of these together will work against you.  Lack of deconvolution will also play an indeterminate part - with tools like BlurXTerminator so widely used now it seems easy to forget what unmodified images from certain equipment can look like! (I include myself as a BlurXTerminator user!)

[TiffsAndAstro]

Just now, geeklee said:

As you say, could be slight focus (although stars look good), seeing, tracking inconsistencies - even minor elements of these together will work against you.  Lack of deconvolution will also play an indeterminate part - with tools like BlurXTerminator so widely used now it seems easy to forget what unmodified images from certain equipment can look like! (I include myself as a BlurXTerminator user!)

Pixinsight is on my list, but not top

And I think you're right...a little not perfect focus, plus a little not great guiding plus other tiny things  will add up. And probably not linearly 

Let me get back to my bank heist planning.

[geeklee]

Just now, TiffsAndAstro said:

And I think you're right...a little not perfect focus, plus a little not great guiding plus other tiny things  will add up. And probably not linearly 

It's always hard to tell on a processed image as each step will impact the image in some way and depending on a variety of things (e.g. data quality, skill, experience etc) it can compound or deviate and what you end up with isn't always what you expect/hope. 

After each step I check and ensure my goal of that process has been achieved without impacting something else (or at least I've accepted some compromise).  I routinely  look back at the lightly stretched and auto stretched original stack (after basics like crop and background extraction) to ensure the basics never got lost.  

[TiffsAndAstro]

13 minutes ago, geeklee said:

It's always hard to tell on a processed image as each step will impact the image in some way and depending on a variety of things (e.g. data quality, skill, experience etc) it can compound or deviate and what you end up with isn't always what you expect/hope. 

After each step I check and ensure my goal of that process has been achieved without impacting something else (or at least I've accepted some compromise).  I routinely  look back at the lightly stretched and auto stretched original stack (after basics like crop and background extraction) to ensure the basics never got lost.  

I have undo and multiple saves with things like sat20 rgn asinh30 in their names.

I'm actually thinking of using some sort of version control/diff software as .fits are text files? Maybe just the meta data is.  Though vss etc may support binaries in this day and age, who knows?

Edited Monday at 19:07 by TiffsAndAstro