Absolutely "top" all your PI-tutorials Sascha. For me as a newcomer in PI your workflows are very very helpful as they are clearly and logically structured and presented in good and understandable English. Thank you very much for all your efforts you always put in all your videos. Gruss + CS Thomas
Sascha, thank you so much for your informative, detailed and exceptionally helpful PI tutorials - they have helped transform my processing and are helping me to move to the next level of sophistication both in image capture (to provide data for RGB stars for example) and image processing. Thank you so much for putting them together. This workflow is brilliant to help me achieve much better results.
A really excellent tutorial. Thank you! I've only started doing monochrome imaging recently and have always feel a little 'lost' deciding where to start, what is important, and what is the best processing sequence. This is a great template! Much appreciated, Sascha. I've also discovered, as you emphasize in your videos, that narrowband stars aren't very reflective of the natural beauty of stars so I've also started doing an RGB star run with my monochrome image captures. Now I also know how to process those, thanks to your star processing video. Keep up the great work!
At PotteriesAstoImagers in Stoke on Trent UK we really like your process chart and have decided to use it and extend it. We have converted it to an Excel sheet to enable hyperlinks to the videos so that if a user gets stuck on an issue and want more information on that issue they can search the correct part of your main video by time. There are also hyperlinks to tabs on the same chart that enable the user to make his own notes on each section. Users can also add to the chart links to other videos on the same subject. If you would like to see this we can forward a copy which you could publish if you wish. It would help us to fill in the hyperlinks to all your appropriate subject videos if you could provide a list of links which we would complete before issue. We could demonstrate this on a shared skype or signal call if you would like to set one up.
That sounds amazing and I'm really honoured that you took my chart as a bases of this. Please send me the excel and I have a look. I might be able to add links or at least on the bases of it see where videos are still missing and providing you the links.
You are my main guy for PI tutorials nowadays. Excellent work on explaining complicated processes. BTW just got my ASKAR SII-OIII from Agena Astro here in the US. Already had the HA-OII. Can see serious potential there already with my limited PI skill set. Looking forward on how to make best use of the pair from you someday soon.
@@viewintospace Have yet to master combining channels of two filters, but already know my L-enhance and L-Extreme are history. Also no halos with either Askar filter. Bought a EFW specifically for these filters and plan to use it to do separate run for stars with L-pro as I gain experience. Am under a Bortle 6-7 sky in East Texas so these filters are pretty much essential gear.
Thanks for another great tutorial! I'd like to suggest an alternative to one part of the process, though. On a recent target, I tried convolving the RGB before combining with the Lum, and as you state, none of the structural detail is lost since that's carried by the Lum. But.....I do see color detail lost. An alternative way to blur the RGB, and which seems to preserve color detail, is to to go crazy with de-noising. E.g. NoiseX at its highest setting. FWIW.
Have a look at this video: th-cam.com/video/F-VUsKF7Q28/w-d-xo.html This is what I think today about shooting Lum when shooting narrowband - simply don't do it....
@@viewintospace Other than adding Ha to LRGB images, I don't shoot NB, but I've been questioning Lum in general.....maybe more time on R, G, & B is better, and it would let me add an Oiii filter without getting a new filter wheel! On the other hand, I have highly variable (and generally poor) seeing, so by shooting Lum on the best seeing nights, I can improve the resolution of the LRGB more than without it. Also, for some targets and an allotted imaging time (I usually aim for 20 hours), the increased SNR of the Lum can show faint details that wouldn't rise above the background noise of just the RGB, even with the extra time used for L. Those details may lack color, though.
Would you be willing to provide a link to your slides that show your workflow? Great tutorials! Much more organized and structured than most of the other 2,000,000 YT tutorials 😄
@@viewintospace Thanks very much for the super fast reply! I just realized you also have a clever color scheme for the headers. Really appreciate all the hard work you have put into this.
until minute 7:20 I thought that this was the definitive workflow for those who use an OSC camera and a dual band filter. However, when you moved to pixinside you started directly with the three channels Ha, OIII and luminance. Steps for the luminance which is easily obtainable, and how do I get the other two starting from the 3 R G B channels that I extracted from the single RGB image?
You go Image -> Extract -> Split RBG Channels. This gives you a red, blue and green pic (all in grey scale obviously). The red one is your Ha pic. The blue and green pic together is your Oiii pic. You can combine them in pixelmath with a a+b formula.
Grüezi Sascha, vielen Dank für deine (wie immer) tollen Infos. Es hilft mir als Anfänger sehr. Eine kurze Frage hätte ich: kannst du etwas zu der Belichtungszeit für die Sterne sagen, die müsst sicherlich nicht so hoch ausfallen wie die anderen Aufnahmen und auch zur Anzahl der Subs. Vielen Dank. LG Thomas
Sascha I have some questions... first of all always congratulations! by mistake and for my ideas, the nebulae as well as the galaxies I shoot in broadband and narrowband, so as to have the right signal with the right contrast. L-pro+l-extreme. How do you recommend I add the poses? Basically for the nebulae I shoot about 5 hours in broadband and at least double/triple in narrowband. For galaxies, on the other hand, I shoot with the same duration per filter. Maybe it's an idea that not everyone likes. 😅 Me I use Wbpp. best way to sum poses? have you made videos like this? one last question, do you think it is useful since I use a 294 color camera to add a third filter in the shots, so as to bring out channels like halfa like a halfa only filter or a triband rgb antlia? Thank you.
Where to start...???? ;-) In general shooting Dual-Narrowband for Nebulae and Broadband for stars (incl. small galaxies makes a lot of sense. You see in this tutorial the nebula side, what this here for the star/broadband side: th-cam.com/video/uw_88wD2NWM/w-d-xo.html When it comes to filters, you can simply split the colors in PixInsight of the L-extreme pic and the red is then Ha and the green and blue combined is Oiii - so you do not need another filter.
Thanks for the video Sasha. In another video published after this one, you said BLUR X, NOISE, and STAR X must always be done in this order. Does this order now apply here as well?
You could do that with altering the PixelMath formula, but given that is trial and error, it is not what I recommend. I would rather use the CurveTransformation to dim the stars before combining them.
I apologize. During this period I watched so many videos. I didn't realize that I had already asked the question. You kindly answered me. You are really good I love your videos “hello and congratulations for the video. Not having astro pixels how can I extract Ha and OIII from my Narrowband image obtained with the L-Enganced filter? I sincerely hope for your response because it prevents me from continuing with this splendid tutorial”
There is something else to consider - the L-Enhance Filter is to wide to do with accurately, as the OIII Band also includes to Hb emissions - which are quite similar to the Ha emissions. So if you want to really go into Narrowband editing I would buy an Optolong L-Extreme (or L-Ultra), an Antlia ALP-T or a Colormagic D1 filter.
@@viewintospace I suspected it wasn't the ideal narrowband filter. among other things, I haven't used it yet, I will reflect on this situation and talk about it with the seller. Thanks so much for the advice
Quite honestly, until now all I had was trouble with Decon - every time I used it I did not see any progress but it messed up my stars. Well, given I committed myself to review all processes, the time will come when I have to fight this thing more seriously, and then let's see.... ;-)
@@viewintospace EZ Decon only use stars to make PSF. Then it protect the stars and the background and use PSF to "unblur" the rest. As you remove stars after, according to me it's the perfect process for you... I only use it on luminance whith default settings
Hi Sascha! Thanks for your videos, they are amazing! 👏👏👏 Can you help me? If I extract RGB channels from a OSC narrowband image in Pixinsight, how do I correctly get the channel corresponding to the O3? I don't use AstroPixelProcessor, just WBPP or DeepSkyStacker. I have seen that the most common formula is O3=0,7*G+0,3*B. How do you do it? Thank you!
Hello Sascha, when do you perform SPCC or color calibration in narrow band imaging (SHO)? I have three bw linear images Ha, Oiii and Sii from my L-Ultimate and Askar Sii/Oiii filter. Thanks.
Good question! So, first of all, with SHO SPCC is a no go - if you do HSO you can do it. Now, if color calibration/SPCC comes always right after you combined the channels. And when you combine the channels depends on what color combination method you chose.
Awesome tutorial - thank you very much :) Keep them coming. I was just thinking about the stars in your image corners. You are using those images for every tutorial and after StarExterminator fails to remove the stars in the upper corners you have to remove them manually. Wouldn't be easier for you to crop the original image just enough to get rid of those problematic corners? That way you won't have to deal with them anymore. Just a thought.
Great feedback - thanks! Obviously I could do that, but I don't want to, because I want to show reality and not something polished. And the reality is that that at the beginning when you do the initial crop you don't know what NXT will eat and what not. And once you are within the process, you can't crop anymore, otherwise the registration is gone. So I rather keep it till the end and then before I publish the picture I decide how to crop it.
@@viewintospace I understand your point, you are right. What I meant was about this particular image which you are using for tutorials - by having it cropped it could save you some time on your next tutorials :)
Hi Sasha....you use a specific formula in pixelmath to add the stars back into the rgb image....you explain that that formula is better than using stars+starless; however, I cannot find the formula. Could you please share? Thanks in advance...your videos have helped me a lot!
Love all your videos, especially how you outline the workflow steps you are using and showing the exact order. I was wondering what method you are using to create the Luminace channel you describe here from the HO or HOS channels. Are you using ImageIntegration and combining them there, or some other process or Pixelmath formula? I was going to use ImageIntegration, but thought I would check your recommendation.
There are many ways depending on how and what you are stacking: I stack in APP and then my Mono picture is also my Luminance pic. In any other situation you can either use the Ha pic or the combined color one and extract the luminance channel in PixInsight by going Image -> Extract -> Lightness.
Hi Sascha, I notice that at the end you protect the starless HOO image with a range mask during the restoration of the RGB stars onto the HOO image. When I try that, it seems that the pixelmath ignores the mask and puts the stars also on the nebulosity. I use (your) ~(~stars* ~starless) Pixelmath formula. Ever noticed that effect? Or should I use the $T and drag the triangle to the masked image? Thanks and keep posting those very useful videos. Greetings ftom Northern Italy.
Very good find! Thanks! This is a cutting error on my side. Not the global button (circle) has to be clicked but the triangle dragged on the masked nebula, and then it works fine. Sorry for that!
Thank you for this great tutorial. However, I am struggling with GHS. When I have a starless nebula, the histogram shows the RGB channels separately (R,B,G and they are on different places on the x axel) and not in one common place under a grey area like in your video. I have selected RGB mode but when I strech, the colour balance gets tilted depending on which SP I choose. What fundamental newbe error am I doing? It makes me crazy....
You could in principle in the "Color Options" area of the process select "colour" instead of "RGB" and then the color channels would be linked. But in my experience that leads to issues. Just leave it ins such cases on RGB and find out with some trial where the optimal SP value is.
I tried a little bit more and a way forward for me was to first make a pre-strech with ScreenTransferFunction applied via the Histogramtransformation. Then the RGB channels are in sync and can be further fine streched in GHS.
If you switch to luminance or colour stretch, you will see the "luminance" histogram. You aren't doing anything wrong, you just have to use the sliders to "protect" the colour balance. If you stretch luminance, you might find your colours being muted, but you can help this by stretching saturation afterwards.
Absolutely "top" all your PI-tutorials Sascha. For me as a newcomer in PI your workflows are very very helpful as they are clearly and logically structured and presented in good and understandable English. Thank you very much for all your efforts you always put in all your videos. Gruss + CS Thomas
Thanks for your kind words Thomas! Very happy to hear! 😊
Thanks Sasha. Watching that was time well spent! Looking forward to the SHO and Galaxies with Ha videos.
Sascha, thank you so much for your informative, detailed and exceptionally helpful PI tutorials - they have helped transform my processing and are helping me to move to the next level of sophistication both in image capture (to provide data for RGB stars for example) and image processing. Thank you so much for putting them together. This workflow is brilliant to help me achieve much better results.
A really excellent tutorial. Thank you! I've only started doing monochrome imaging recently and have always feel a little 'lost' deciding where to start, what is important, and what is the best processing sequence. This is a great template! Much appreciated, Sascha. I've also discovered, as you emphasize in your videos, that narrowband stars aren't very reflective of the natural beauty of stars so I've also started doing an RGB star run with my monochrome image captures. Now I also know how to process those, thanks to your star processing video. Keep up the great work!
This is one of the best tutorials I have seen. I sincerely thank you for this!
You're very welcome!
Very nice/helpful video. Particularly the GHS explanation. Thanks for sharing.
Great tutorial, easy to follow. Also good comparison with RGB. I am still a little fuzzy on why use spcc on narrowband, but I try and see.
At PotteriesAstoImagers in Stoke on Trent UK we really like your process chart and have decided to use it and extend it. We have converted it to an Excel sheet to enable hyperlinks to the videos so that if a user gets stuck on an issue and want more information on that issue they can search the correct part of your main video by time. There are also hyperlinks to tabs on the same chart that enable the user to make his own notes on each section. Users can also add to the chart links to other videos on the same subject. If you would like to see this we can forward a copy which you could publish if you wish. It would help us to fill in the hyperlinks to all your appropriate subject videos if you could provide a list of links which we would complete before issue. We could demonstrate this on a shared skype or signal call if you would like to set one up.
That sounds amazing and I'm really honoured that you took my chart as a bases of this. Please send me the excel and I have a look. I might be able to add links or at least on the bases of it see where videos are still missing and providing you the links.
good job Sascha 👍
Hello from France 🤚
You are my main guy for PI tutorials nowadays. Excellent work on explaining complicated processes. BTW just got my ASKAR SII-OIII from Agena Astro here in the US. Already had the HA-OII. Can see serious potential there already with my limited PI skill set. Looking forward on how to make best use of the pair from you someday soon.
Still waiting for my filter - but even it I would have received it - endless clouds 😢 Good first light - will be thrilled to hear how you like it!
@@viewintospace Have yet to master combining channels of two filters, but already know my L-enhance and L-Extreme are history. Also no halos with either Askar filter. Bought a EFW specifically for these filters and plan to use it to do separate run for stars with L-pro as I gain experience. Am under a Bortle 6-7 sky in East Texas so these filters are pretty much essential gear.
Fantastic tutorial, thank you so much for your efforts! Will continue to follow closely your channel from Australia 😊
So happy to hear!
Such a dedicated teacher. Thank you so much.
Another great video, Sasha
Awesome video. I like this work flow.
More than superb!
Well done 👍 👏👏
Keep ‘em coming !!
Thanks for another great tutorial! I'd like to suggest an alternative to one part of the process, though. On a recent target, I tried convolving the RGB before combining with the Lum, and as you state, none of the structural detail is lost since that's carried by the Lum. But.....I do see color detail lost. An alternative way to blur the RGB, and which seems to preserve color detail, is to to go crazy with de-noising. E.g. NoiseX at its highest setting. FWIW.
Have a look at this video: th-cam.com/video/F-VUsKF7Q28/w-d-xo.html This is what I think today about shooting Lum when shooting narrowband - simply don't do it....
@@viewintospace Other than adding Ha to LRGB images, I don't shoot NB, but I've been questioning Lum in general.....maybe more time on R, G, & B is better, and it would let me add an Oiii filter without getting a new filter wheel! On the other hand, I have highly variable (and generally poor) seeing, so by shooting Lum on the best seeing nights, I can improve the resolution of the LRGB more than without it. Also, for some targets and an allotted imaging time (I usually aim for 20 hours), the increased SNR of the Lum can show faint details that wouldn't rise above the background noise of just the RGB, even with the extra time used for L. Those details may lack color, though.
Great Tutorial THX Sascha !!!
"Estimated 2,000,000 Narrowband tutorials" 😂😂😂 How true is that!!
Would you be willing to provide a link to your slides that show your workflow? Great tutorials! Much more organized and structured than most of the other 2,000,000 YT tutorials 😄
Here you go: 1drv.ms/u/s!AkQJAikmsgNghhIvkd8OGUgIYdz5?e=Bk4Nvn
@@viewintospace Thanks very much for the super fast reply! I just realized you also have a clever color scheme for the headers. Really appreciate all the hard work you have put into this.
@@viewintospace Love it! I've been taking screenshots but this side-by-side workflow is brilliant.
until minute 7:20 I thought that this was the definitive workflow for those who use an OSC camera and a dual band filter. However, when you moved to pixinside you started directly with the three channels Ha, OIII and luminance. Steps for the luminance which is easily obtainable, and how do I get the other two starting from the 3 R G B channels that I extracted from the single RGB image?
You go Image -> Extract -> Split RBG Channels. This gives you a red, blue and green pic (all in grey scale obviously). The red one is your Ha pic. The blue and green pic together is your Oiii pic. You can combine them in pixelmath with a a+b formula.
Very good tutorial. But where and how to incorporate the BlurXterminator process into this workflow ?
Short answer: Right after color combination for Ha/OIII pics and for Lum right after DBE. Long answer here: th-cam.com/video/DeaQdyelhUA/w-d-xo.html
Grüezi Sascha, vielen Dank für deine (wie immer) tollen Infos. Es hilft mir als Anfänger sehr. Eine kurze Frage hätte ich: kannst du etwas zu der Belichtungszeit für die Sterne sagen, die müsst sicherlich nicht so hoch ausfallen wie die anderen Aufnahmen und auch zur Anzahl der Subs. Vielen Dank. LG Thomas
40 x 20s-30s sind perfekt. So stellst Du auch sicher, dass die Sterne keinen Verzug durch das Guiding haben.
@@viewintospace Danke!!!
Sascha I have some questions... first of all always congratulations! by mistake and for my ideas, the nebulae as well as the galaxies I shoot in broadband and narrowband, so as to have the right signal with the right contrast. L-pro+l-extreme. How do you recommend I add the poses? Basically for the nebulae I shoot about 5 hours in broadband and at least double/triple in narrowband. For galaxies, on the other hand, I shoot with the same duration per filter. Maybe it's an idea that not everyone likes. 😅 Me I use Wbpp. best way to sum poses? have you made videos like this? one last question, do you think it is useful since I use a 294 color camera to add a third filter in the shots, so as to bring out channels like halfa like a halfa only filter or a triband rgb antlia? Thank you.
Where to start...???? ;-)
In general shooting Dual-Narrowband for Nebulae and Broadband for stars (incl. small galaxies makes a lot of sense. You see in this tutorial the nebula side, what this here for the star/broadband side: th-cam.com/video/uw_88wD2NWM/w-d-xo.html
When it comes to filters, you can simply split the colors in PixInsight of the L-extreme pic and the red is then Ha and the green and blue combined is Oiii - so you do not need another filter.
Thanks for the video Sasha. In another video published after this one, you said BLUR X, NOISE, and STAR X must always be done in this order. Does this order now apply here as well?
Yes, exactly
Great tutorials sasha!
How would I proceed if I would like to dim the stars a bit? So they would be less prominent when I combine the star/starless?
You could do that with altering the PixelMath formula, but given that is trial and error, it is not what I recommend. I would rather use the CurveTransformation to dim the stars before combining them.
I apologize. During this period I watched so many videos. I didn't realize that I had already asked the question. You kindly answered me. You are really good I love your videos
“hello and congratulations for the video. Not having astro pixels how can I extract Ha and OIII from my Narrowband image obtained with the L-Enganced filter? I sincerely hope for your response because it prevents me from continuing with this splendid tutorial”
There is something else to consider - the L-Enhance Filter is to wide to do with accurately, as the OIII Band also includes to Hb emissions - which are quite similar to the Ha emissions. So if you want to really go into Narrowband editing I would buy an Optolong L-Extreme (or L-Ultra), an Antlia ALP-T or a Colormagic D1 filter.
@@viewintospace I suspected it wasn't the ideal narrowband filter. among other things, I haven't used it yet, I will reflect on this situation and talk about it with the seller. Thanks so much for the advice
Fine process.
Why don't you use deconvolution (EZ Decon) to increase luminance detail (before stretching and removing stars)
Quite honestly, until now all I had was trouble with Decon - every time I used it I did not see any progress but it messed up my stars. Well, given I committed myself to review all processes, the time will come when I have to fight this thing more seriously, and then let's see.... ;-)
@@viewintospace EZ Decon only use stars to make PSF.
Then it protect the stars and the background and use PSF to "unblur" the rest. As you remove stars after, according to me it's the perfect process for you... I only use it on luminance whith default settings
I will give it a try! Thanks!!!!
Hi Sascha!
Thanks for your videos, they are amazing! 👏👏👏
Can you help me? If I extract RGB channels from a OSC narrowband image in Pixinsight, how do I correctly get the channel corresponding to the O3? I don't use AstroPixelProcessor, just WBPP or DeepSkyStacker. I have seen that the most common formula is O3=0,7*G+0,3*B. How do you do it?
Thank you!
To be clear - there is no correct way - whatever works best is king! Anyway, I would also go with the formula you state - seems to be most common....
Hello Sascha, when do you perform SPCC or color calibration in narrow band imaging (SHO)? I have three bw linear images Ha, Oiii and Sii from my L-Ultimate and Askar Sii/Oiii filter. Thanks.
Good question! So, first of all, with SHO SPCC is a no go - if you do HSO you can do it. Now, if color calibration/SPCC comes always right after you combined the channels. And when you combine the channels depends on what color combination method you chose.
Thank you Sascha. I combine Ha, Sii and Oiii after stretching with LRGB combination. Should I then use Color Calibration immediately after?
@@willemwitteveen8374 Yes! 👍🏻
Thank you.
Awesome tutorial - thank you very much :) Keep them coming.
I was just thinking about the stars in your image corners. You are using those images for every tutorial and after StarExterminator fails to remove the stars in the upper corners you have to remove them manually. Wouldn't be easier for you to crop the original image just enough to get rid of those problematic corners? That way you won't have to deal with them anymore. Just a thought.
Great feedback - thanks! Obviously I could do that, but I don't want to, because I want to show reality and not something polished. And the reality is that that at the beginning when you do the initial crop you don't know what NXT will eat and what not. And once you are within the process, you can't crop anymore, otherwise the registration is gone. So I rather keep it till the end and then before I publish the picture I decide how to crop it.
@@viewintospace I understand your point, you are right.
What I meant was about this particular image which you are using for tutorials - by having it cropped it could save you some time on your next tutorials :)
Hi Sasha....you use a specific formula in pixelmath to add the stars back into the rgb image....you explain that that formula is better than using stars+starless; however, I cannot find the formula. Could you please share? Thanks in advance...your videos have helped me a lot!
Here you go: ~((~starless)*(~stars))
Love all your videos, especially how you outline the workflow steps you are using and showing the exact order. I was wondering what method you are using to create the Luminace channel you describe here from the HO or HOS channels. Are you using ImageIntegration and combining them there, or some other process or Pixelmath formula? I was going to use ImageIntegration, but thought I would check your recommendation.
There are many ways depending on how and what you are stacking: I stack in APP and then my Mono picture is also my Luminance pic. In any other situation you can either use the Ha pic or the combined color one and extract the luminance channel in PixInsight by going Image -> Extract -> Lightness.
@@viewintospace Thanks for the extra directions and multiple options.
Agreed, to many dead ends.
Hi Sascha,
I notice that at the end you protect the starless HOO image with a range mask during the restoration of the RGB stars onto the HOO image. When I try that, it seems that the pixelmath ignores the mask and puts the stars also on the nebulosity. I use (your) ~(~stars* ~starless) Pixelmath formula.
Ever noticed that effect? Or should I use the $T and drag the triangle to the masked image? Thanks and keep posting those very useful videos. Greetings ftom Northern Italy.
Very good find! Thanks! This is a cutting error on my side. Not the global button (circle) has to be clicked but the triangle dragged on the masked nebula, and then it works fine. Sorry for that!
Thank you for this great tutorial. However, I am struggling with GHS. When I have a starless nebula, the histogram shows the RGB channels separately (R,B,G and they are on different places on the x axel) and not in one common place under a grey area like in your video. I have selected RGB mode but when I strech, the colour balance gets tilted depending on which SP I choose. What fundamental newbe error am I doing? It makes me crazy....
You could in principle in the "Color Options" area of the process select "colour" instead of "RGB" and then the color channels would be linked. But in my experience that leads to issues. Just leave it ins such cases on RGB and find out with some trial where the optimal SP value is.
@@viewintospace Thank you. I will try this. I wish you a merry christmas!
I tried a little bit more and a way forward for me was to first make a pre-strech with ScreenTransferFunction applied via the Histogramtransformation. Then the RGB channels are in sync and can be further fine streched in GHS.
If you switch to luminance or colour stretch, you will see the "luminance" histogram. You aren't doing anything wrong, you just have to use the sliders to "protect" the colour balance. If you stretch luminance, you might find your colours being muted, but you can help this by stretching saturation afterwards.