StarTools

Hello all,
This is my first post of many to come at this brilliant forum!
I have downloaded a free trial of startools as well as Pixinsight to compare the two astronomical softwares. However, there have been a few issues. I had managed to produce some wonderful images with Pixinsight's DBE function and the amount of detail it brought out was astonishing. However, when I tried to process the same image with startools, the result was not even close. I have watched a few tutorials and have discovered that the wipe function is the equivalent to Pixinsight's DBE but it does not achieve the results of what the DBE managed to do. So my question is, can startools live up to its rival? And if so, what processes are there to produce wonderful images. I have heard many good things about startool and seen wonderful images processed with it, so I am confident that I will be able to produce a decent image with the software. I think this is due to my low level of knowledge about astrophotography.

Thanks, Seb

Maybe worth while posting a screenshot of your result along with the processing log txt which can be found in the startools folder this will help in identifiying your troubles ,ivo i am sure will be able to help with said problems if you can post the above file and screen shot

Of course should have thought about that earlier.
Here is the link for dropbox, however, it might take some time to download. I have tried to reduce the size and my screenshot button isn't working for some reason

https://www.dropbox.com/s/t0kiakzwg6npk ... 3.tif?dl=0

seb

Your experience with Wipe is not a shortcoming of Startools or Pixinsight. It's a difference. I see it often when importing imsges from Pixinsight.

The easy way out is to use DBE or ABE and then import to Startools to complete post processing.

Other preprocessing programs dont seem to be a problem for Wipe.

Hi Seb (and thank you Burly and Rowland!),

Thank you for your interest in StarTools, as well as for uploading your data.

Wipe is indeed similar to DBE or ABE, but with some distinctions and subtle differences in purpose and algorithms.

The sort of gradient elimination that Wipe and ABE/DBE performs comes down to creating a model of just the gradient/light pollution/etc. and then subtracting the model from the image, so that you are left with the "correct" pixel values.

As Rowland alluded to already, there are different ways to establish that model, and there are even subtly different ways of subtracting that model.

Without knowing what DBE/ABE produces (so I can address the issue of what you expected vs what you got), I can at least try to explain what Wipe is doing to your data (and why).

First off, as opposed to ABE/DBE, Wipe is extremely sensitive to dark anomalous data - pixels that are darker than the true interstellar background you recorded. Such pixels can be stacking artefacts (as is the case with your data), dead pixels, dust specks not caught by your flat frames, or even terrestrial foreground objects (e.g. trees, mountains). In extremely noisy data, a dark pixel can even be due to be sheer misfortune of no photons registering (due to shot noise).

The reason for this treatment is a conscious design decision; Wipe was programmed to *never ever* subtract more than the background allows; you will see Wipe back off in areas that contain the anomalies, actually leaving in enough light pollution/gradient to make sure that that the anomalous dark pixel doesn't clip (e.g. goes below 0) when the model is subtracted. The result is halos or gradients at borders (where stacking artefacts are).

The rationale is one of detail preservation. You may not care about the extremely faint detail or nebulosity at this point (you just want to get rid of the gradient), but getting the amount to subtract wrong (by misplacing a sample in DBE for example) can cause extremely faint nebulosity to be subtracted along with it (and be lost). StarTools is all about signal preservation and being smarter with your signal - because its target audience doesn't have any to spare.

That's why Wipe is more "neurotic" about artefacts - signal preservation takes precedence over convenience in this case; it is better to know find the root cause than to just pretend all is well.

Can you tame this neuroticism, even if you completely ignore the root cause? Sure. You can tweak Wipe's settings, tell it to disregard areas, etc. You should be able to get something half decent out of Wipe no problem.

However, it is important to understand Wipe wasn't designed to work around problems of your own making - Wipe was designed to get the absolute most out of the cleanest data you (and anyone!) can reasonably muster. Specifically, this means, StarTools expects data that was calibrated with flat frames and dithered between sub-frames. They are basic acquisition "musts" regardless of what software you decided to stack and process your data in.

The gradients in your data look somewhat "suspicious"; they are very local and undulate with high frequency (something else that Wipe is very sensitive too; high frequency gradients are typically nebulosity, not unwanted light!). Sometimes this signature can be caused by condensation ("foggin up") on a part of the optical train.

I hope the above helps, and do let me know if you have a particular end-result you like in PixInsight that you would like to achieve in StarTools.

Below, a conservative (no HDR, sharpening, etc.) "textbook M42" created with your data. The colouring (default settings using the Color module) is particularly interesting in M42; it's teal OIII-rich core, red Ha emission, blue reflection and Hb.

admin wrote:Hi Seb (and thank you Burly and Rowland!),

Thank you for your interest in StarTools, as well as for uploading your data.

Wipe is indeed similar to DBE or ABE, but with some distinctions and subtle differences in purpose and algorithms.

The sort of gradient elimination that Wipe and ABE/DBE performs comes down to creating a model of just the gradient/light pollution/etc. and then subtracting the model from the image, so that you are left with the "correct" pixel values.

As Rowland alluded to already, there are different ways to establish that model, and there are even subtly different ways of subtracting that model.

Without knowing what DBE/ABE produces (so I can address the issue of what you expected vs what you got), I can at least try to explain what Wipe is doing to your data (and why).

First off, as opposed to ABE/DBE, Wipe is extremely sensitive to dark anomalous data - pixels that are darker than the true interstellar background you recorded. Such pixels can be stacking artefacts (as is the case with your data), dead pixels, dust specks not caught by your flat frames, or even terrestrial foreground objects (e.g. trees, mountains). In extremely noisy data, a dark pixel can even be due to be sheer misfortune of no photons registering (due to shot noise).

The reason for this treatment is a conscious design decision; Wipe was programmed to *never ever* subtract more than the background allows; you will see Wipe back off in areas that contain the anomalies, actually leaving in enough light pollution/gradient to make sure that that the anomalous dark pixel doesn't clip (e.g. goes below 0) when the model is subtracted. The result is halos or gradients at borders (where stacking artefacts are).

The rationale is one of detail preservation. You may not care about the extremely faint detail or nebulosity at this point (you just want to get rid of the gradient), but getting the amount to subtract wrong (by misplacing a sample in DBE for example) can cause extremely faint nebulosity to be subtracted along with it (and be lost). StarTools is all about signal preservation and being smarter with your signal - because its target audience doesn't have any to spare.

That's why Wipe is more "neurotic" about artefacts - signal preservation takes precedence over convenience in this case; it is better to know find the root cause than to just pretend all is well.

Can you tame this neuroticism, even if you completely ignore the root cause? Sure. You can tweak Wipe's settings, tell it to disregard areas, etc. You should be able to get something half decent out of Wipe no problem.

However, it is important to understand Wipe wasn't designed to work around problems of your own making - Wipe was designed to get the absolute most out of the cleanest data you (and anyone!) can reasonably muster. Specifically, this means, StarTools expects data that was calibrated with flat frames and dithered between sub-frames. They are basic acquisition "musts" regardless of what software you decided to stack and process your data in.

The gradients in your data look somewhat "suspicious"; they are very local and undulate with high frequency (something else that Wipe is very sensitive too; high frequency gradients are typically nebulosity, not unwanted light!). Sometimes this signature can be caused by condensation ("foggin up") on a part of the optical train.

I hope the above helps, and do let me know if you have a particular end-result you like in PixInsight that you would like to achieve in StarTools.

Below, a conservative (no HDR, sharpening, etc.) "textbook M42" created with your data. The colouring (default settings using the Color module) is particularly interesting in M42; it's teal OIII-rich core, red Ha emission, blue reflection and Hb.

as.jpg

Many thanks for writing this Ivo and assisting me with my image. However, I have experimented with many options with wipe and the outcome image is still not very good. Is it due to the software I am running at (startools 1.4)? Could you possibly post a log of what you have done so I can try for myself? I know different processing techniques are used for different images but at least I can have a fairly good grasp on what I have to do to have a good image.

Thanks again,
Seb

Hi Seb,

I processed your image as follows;

--- Auto Develop
To see what we got.
We can see a blue bias, coma, stacking artefacts, a fair bit of noise and oversampling. The is a slight pattern to the noise, making me wonder
--- Bin
To make the most of the oversampled data.
Parameter [Scale] set to [(scale/noise reduction 35.38%)/(798.89%)/(+3.00 bits)]
--- Lens
Instead of immediately cropping, I'm using the Lens module to correct coma (somewhat), which will also (necessarily) crop the image in places.
Parameter [Curvature Linked] set to [148.70 %]
--- Crop
Just making sure I got all stacking artefacts.
Parameter [X1] set to [24 pixels]
Parameter [Y1] set to [14 pixels]
Parameter [X2] set to [1407 pixels (-17)]
Parameter [Y2] set to [931 pixels (-16)]
--- Wipe
Vignetting preset. As said, the gradients appear "suspect" as they undulate at very high frequency.
Parameter [Precision] set to [512 x 512 pixels] due to high frequency undulation (you may even want to use 1024x1024 if you can wait a bit longer)
Parameter [Dark Anomaly Filter] set to [5 pixels] to catch any small dark anomalies
Parameter [Drop Off Point] set to [0 %]
Parameter [Corner Aggressiveness] set to [100 %]
Parameter [Aggressiveness] set to [91 %]
--- Auto Develop
Final stretch. RoI over M42.
Parameter [Ignore Fine Detail <] set to [2.4 pixels]
Parameter [Outside ROI Influence] set to [15 %]
--- Deconvolution
Auto-mask. Masked back in some of the core that isn't over-exposing - careful though it is close to, or already over-exposing and probably not linear anymore.
Parameter [Radius] set to [2.0 pixels]

--- Here you could do other stuff such as Wavelet sharpening ---

--- Color
Automatic color balance.
Parameter [Dark Saturation] set to [4.50]
Parameter [Bright Saturation] set to [4.50]
Parameter [Saturation Amount] set to [127 %]
--- Wavelet De-Noise
Parameter [Scale 5] set to [50 %]
Parameter [Smoothness] set to [81 %]

And that's it.

If there are any particular problems you're running into, a screen shot is very helpful.

Hope this helps,

Hi Ivo,
Thanks for posting the log. I have now discovered the root of the problem. I was using a converted Fits file to process this image, with a severe loss of quality. For me, Startools won't accept tiff files so I'm wondering how you managed to process this image.
Everything you have posted above has been extremely useful and I have used that info to process a number of images successfully.
Thanks again for taking your time,
Seb

Hi Seb,

I couldn't resist having a go at your tiff file in dropbox. Of course it's all a matter of taste but this is my work on the data. I overly denoised and smoothed it. There's some good potential in your image. Let me know if you're interested in the steps I took in processing (assuming you like the image:)

https://www.flickr.com/gp/rkonrad/801rYT

Richard