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Re: May 2020 AP Challenge

Posted: Sun May 03, 2020 2:22 pm
by KingClinton
Something else I have noticed is that your image has star colour whereas mine they are all white.
I should have masked them sooner, might have to give it another bash.

Re: May 2020 AP Challenge

Posted: Sun May 03, 2020 2:24 pm
by Jockinireland
Graeme1858 wrote: Sun May 03, 2020 6:03 am
KingClinton wrote: Sat May 02, 2020 9:43 pm how do you get rid of the hot pixels

I wondered if those artefacts are hot pixels? They're all the same shape and orientation, reds and blues, two blobs, one bigger than the other and the fits file is a stacked and calibrated DSS export. Should that process not have removed the hot pixels?

Either way, I gained knowledge of the clone tool getting rid of them!

Regards

Graeme
Right, so here is the result of my sleuthing on those hot pixels/artifacts

Images;
Single light frame
Single framej.jpg
Zoomed in on the light frame anomaly
zoomed lightj.jpg
Single dark frame (same image location)
Single darkj.jpg
Zoomed in on the single dark frame
Zoomed darkj.jpg
Stacked file
integrationj.jpg
Zoomed on stacked file.
Zoomed stackj.jpg
So its pretty clear those bright spots are mostly 3X3 groups of pixels visible in both lights and darks. Now I am not technical enough to know if this is a normal hot pixel type (i.e. 3x3 pixels or if this is something else - anyone?)The smeared out view in the stacked version is clearly because my tracking/guiding has been off and therefore the hot pixels have moved relative to the image.

What I dont get is why app has failed to get rid of them. I'm going to dig into APP settings and see if there is something I need to do to beef up the hot pixel rejection - but if anyone knows, do tell!

I'm currently running the same data through DSS to see if it chucks them out. But with 89 lights 100 darks and 200 bias it could be Thursday before its done :lol: - one of the reasons I use APP.

Re: May 2020 AP Challenge

Posted: Sun May 03, 2020 3:11 pm
by yobbo89
i gave it ago, typically how my galaxy images turn out, noisy and gradients :lol:

Re: May 2020 AP Challenge

Posted: Sun May 03, 2020 3:17 pm
by Jockinireland
OK, so after what feels like an eternity I've got the output from DSS. opened, stretched and background neutralised in APP to see the difference.

And indeed the hotpixels are gone. Vanished. Like they were never there!

Stacked in APP
integrationj.jpg
Stacked in DSS
blackeye in dss.JPG
Apart from the hot pixels there is not really much to draw between them i think.

So, Now I need to work out why APP failed on those hot pixels. Or go back to using DSS.

I will put the DSS stack in the same Drive folder as the original if anyone wants to see what its like.

rgds

David.

Re: May 2020 AP Challenge

Posted: Sun May 03, 2020 4:48 pm
by Gordon
I typically start out with 'Autodev' just to see what I'm dealing with. It's not a permanent stretch so you can revert back at any time. Autodev can give you better detail on where the image has to be cropped if you are trying to save as much of the image as possible. In this case it was easy to crop it down to center and isolate the galaxy.

I very seldom mess with the colors. ST does a great job from the get go.

As to the hot pixels DSS has a setting to remove them. It appears that there are a few and if you zoom in you can see how the stacking process 'stacked' them. [mention]Jockinireland[/mention] Take a look at DSS and click on the 'remove hot pixels' box. It appears from your last image, you figured that out!

Re: May 2020 AP Challenge

Posted: Sun May 03, 2020 5:31 pm
by Graeme1858
yobbo89 wrote: Sun May 03, 2020 3:11 pm i gave it ago, typically how my galaxy images turn out, noisy and gradients :lol:


You got some nice colour in the core there Yobbo. How did you process the image?

Regards

Graeme

Re: May 2020 AP Challenge

Posted: Sun May 03, 2020 5:53 pm
by Jockinireland
Gordon wrote: Sun May 03, 2020 4:48 pm I typically start out with 'Autodev' just to see what I'm dealing with. It's not a permanent stretch so you can revert back at any time. Autodev can give you better detail on where the image has to be cropped if you are trying to save as much of the image as possible. In this case it was easy to crop it down to center and isolate the galaxy.

I very seldom mess with the colors. ST does a great job from the get go.

As to the hot pixels DSS has a setting to remove them. It appears that there are a few and if you zoom in you can see how the stacking process 'stacked' them. @Jockinireland Take a look at DSS and click on the 'remove hot pixels' box. It appears from your last image, you figured that out!
Thanks Gordon, if id dont mess withe the colours you'd be looking at a virulent green galaxy :lol: - no seriously !

yes it came out fine in DSS - I just need to work out how to do the same in APP

Re: May 2020 AP Challenge

Posted: Sun May 03, 2020 6:27 pm
by Jockinireland
OK, so here is my new effort after taking looking and reading the above.

Less noise, less in your face sharpening of the core, nicer colour (I think)
Blackeye second round STj.jpg
Startools work flow as follows;
Type of Data: Linear and was Bayered, but not whitebalanced
--- Auto Develop
Parameter [Ignore Fine Detail <] set to [Off]
Parameter [Outside RoI Influence] set to [15 %]
Parameter [RoI X1] set to [0 pixels]
Parameter [RoI Y1] set to [0 pixels]
Parameter [RoI X2] set to [4278 pixels (-0)]
Parameter [RoI Y2] set to [2864 pixels (-0)]
Parameter [Detector Gamma] set to [1.00]

*** Like Jim (Juno16) I cannot get my whoe workflow in here - after the above the font turns red and huge. So I have put the workflow in the file where you got the data as a word document***

Re: May 2020 AP Challenge

Posted: Sun May 03, 2020 6:37 pm
by yobbo89
Graeme1858 wrote: Sun May 03, 2020 5:31 pm
yobbo89 wrote: Sun May 03, 2020 3:11 pm i gave it ago, typically how my galaxy images turn out, noisy and gradients :lol:


You got some nice colour in the core there Yobbo. How did you process the image?

Regards

Graeme
i used pixinsight ,

split the channels
background extraction each
histogram stretch
recombine channels
background extraction
re adjust channels/saturation ectt with curves tool
build a star mask
clone the frame for a lum mask
build a psf star profile
apply the lum mask
deconvolution 35 x,using star mask for deringing and the psf profile
remove mask
adjust small scale for noise reduction with ATrousWaveletTransform
save as jpeg 90%

Re: May 2020 AP Challenge

Posted: Sun May 03, 2020 7:13 pm
by Gordon
Jockinireland wrote: Sun May 03, 2020 6:27 pm *** Like Jim (Juno16) I cannot get my whoe workflow in here - after the above the font turns red and huge. So I have put the workflow in the file where you got the data as a word document***
It's a problem with the 'coding' in the ST log. We have a BBcode for using 'shadow' text. The log uses the word shadow with a bracket in front if it. I found if you edit each instance of the word shadow with a period (shadow.) the problem goes away.

Re: May 2020 AP Challenge

Posted: Mon May 11, 2020 3:05 am
by bobharmony
I took a crack with StarTools with an eye towards exposing the outer areas of the galaxy:
Davids Black Eye.jpg
General process:

Autodev (no ROI)
Crop - to remove most of the gradients
Bin to 71%
Wipe
AutoDev with ROI
HDR
Deconvolution
Color
Life
Noise reduction (turn off tracking)
Repair to remove the hot pixels

Then a quick trip to PhotoShop to do a little Noise Ninja reduction and convert to .jpg.

Bob

Re: May 2020 AP Challenge

Posted: Mon May 11, 2020 7:50 am
by Jockinireland
bobharmony wrote: Mon May 11, 2020 3:05 am I took a crack with StarTools with an eye towards exposing the outer areas of the galaxy:

Davids Black Eye.jpg

General process:

Autodev (no ROI)
Crop - to remove most of the gradients
Bin to 71%
Wipe
AutoDev with ROI
HDR
Deconvolution
Color
Life
Noise reduction (turn off tracking)
Repair to remove the hot pixels

Then a quick trip to PhotoShop to do a little Noise Ninja reduction and convert to .jpg.

Bob
Nice. The faint areas go way out all right. When I tried to show them the whole image got nasty noisy. I might try taking it into ps and try that.

Re: May 2020 AP Challenge

Posted: Mon May 11, 2020 7:38 pm
by jerrysykes
Here is my attempt at processing using Star Tools 1.6.382 Alpha.

Autodev
Crop
Bin 50%
Wipe
Global redo (Dev)
Decon
Sharpen
HDR
Color
Denoise
Repair
Heal (to get rid of hot pixels)
M64-chalenge-st1.6.JPG

Re: May 2020 AP Challenge

Posted: Mon May 11, 2020 7:45 pm
by Graeme1858
jerrysykes wrote: Mon May 11, 2020 7:38 pm Here is my attempt at processing using Star Tools 1.6.382 Alpha.

That's a nice image Jerry. Quite a few distinct levels of galactic density.

Regards

Graeme

Re: May 2020 AP Challenge

Posted: Mon May 11, 2020 9:12 pm
by Jockinireland
jerrysykes wrote: Mon May 11, 2020 7:38 pm Here is my attempt at processing using Star Tools 1.6.382 Alpha.

Autodev
Crop
Bin 50%
Wipe
Global redo (Dev)
Decon
Sharpen
HDR
Color
Denoise
Repair
Heal (to get rid of hot pixels)

M64-chalenge-st1.6.JPG
That is a really great process. The way you have managed to get the outer limits of the galaxy showing but without any grain while also retaining the detail in the core is just fantastic. How have you achieved that?

Thanks for sharing

David.

Re: May 2020 AP Challenge

Posted: Mon May 11, 2020 9:39 pm
by JimMinCT
Here's my 2¢ adjusted for the cosmic inflation...
Blackeye May AP image.jpg
In Pixinsight
I did very little processing to this image really. Compared to some I've worked on, this wasn't too bad.
Cropped it down a bit
I used the clone stamp to remove the red and blue pixels.
Automatic background extraction for the gradients. (Division with no normalization applied).
Made a star mask to try to get some color from the stars, but they are pretty much saturated.
Made a range mask for the galaxy and used both local histogram equalization and HDR Multiscale transform to bring out the dust lanes and black eye areas.
Adjusted curves and levels to get a pleasing color balance.
Saved as jpeg for posting.
Pixinsight has a few nice methods for coaxing details out...
thanks for the data!
Cheers!

Re: May 2020 AP Challenge

Posted: Mon May 11, 2020 10:49 pm
by jerrysykes
Jockinireland wrote: Mon May 11, 2020 9:12 pm
jerrysykes wrote: Mon May 11, 2020 7:38 pm Here is my attempt at processing using Star Tools 1.6.382 Alpha.

Autodev
Crop
Bin 50%
Wipe
Global redo (Dev)
Decon
Sharpen
HDR
Color
Denoise
Repair
Heal (to get rid of hot pixels)

M64-chalenge-st1.6.JPG
That is a really great process. The way you have managed to get the outer limits of the galaxy showing but without any grain while also retaining the detail in the core is just fantastic. How have you achieved that?

Thanks for sharing

David.
The Global redo module brings out a lot of the outer limits. Decon and sharpen bring out some of the detail in the core. In the HDR module there is a setting called "reveal" that enhanced the core detail. The Denoise module in Star tools version 1.6 really works nicely to get rid of grain and noise.

Hope this helps. I tried to post the entire work flow but I just couldn't make it work.

Re: May 2020 AP Challenge

Posted: Tue May 12, 2020 10:41 am
by Jockinireland
jerrysykes wrote: Mon May 11, 2020 10:49 pm
Jockinireland wrote: Mon May 11, 2020 9:12 pm
jerrysykes wrote: Mon May 11, 2020 7:38 pm Here is my attempt at processing using Star Tools 1.6.382 Alpha.

Autodev
Crop
Bin 50%
Wipe
Global redo (Dev)
Decon
Sharpen
HDR
Color
Denoise
Repair
Heal (to get rid of hot pixels)

M64-chalenge-st1.6.JPG
That is a really great process. The way you have managed to get the outer limits of the galaxy showing but without any grain while also retaining the detail in the core is just fantastic. How have you achieved that?

Thanks for sharing

David.
The Global redo module brings out a lot of the outer limits. Decon and sharpen bring out some of the detail in the core. In the HDR module there is a setting called "reveal" that enhanced the core detail. The Denoise module in Star tools version 1.6 really works nicely to get rid of grain and noise.

Hope this helps. I tried to post the entire work flow but I just couldn't make it work.

Thanks for that. It ooks like the only thing I've done different is to use autodev after wipe instead of dev - i'll give it go and see if I can get it as good.

I had problems with copying the full work flow and Gordon told me;

"It's a problem with the 'coding' in the ST log. We have a BBcode for using 'shadow' text. The log uses the word shadow with a bracket in front if it. I found if you edit each instance of the word shadow with a period (shadow.) the problem goes away."

I've not tried it yet though!

Rgds

David.

Re: May 2020 AP Challenge

Posted: Sat Jun 06, 2020 11:33 am
by Graeme1858
Thanks to everyone that contributed to the May 2020 Astro Photography Processing Challenge.

I hope everyone got something out of it. I know I did!

This thread is now locked.

Regards

Graeme