Not returning to normal colours after Autodev

[astroguy]

Hi,
I have run into a problem using Autodev. I can’t get my image to return to normal colours after keeping the first Autodev result. If someone can please show me what I am doing wrong I would really appreciate it. I am following the quick start guide on the Star Tools site, and have opened my image in Star Tools, run Autodev and kept the result. I cropped to try to avoid stacking artifacts. I ran the lens module and kept the default, then binned the image slightly. I ran the Wipe mode with default settings and a 3 pixel dark anomaly filter. When I reran Autodev and chose to ‘Redo global stretch’ it doesn’t return to normal colours but stays in the ‘hypercolour’ of Autodev. My understanding of the quick start guide on the Star Tools site was that I should get normal colours back to the image at this stage. Could someone please show me what I am doing wrong? I can attach screenshots if they would help.

Thanks,
astroguy

[micheleorsini]

which camera are you using? I have a modded canon DSLR and this happens every time ... then the color module fixes it every time

Can you share your file? I can try to help you

Other things that are good to know: stacking software ... and all other information you are able to provide

[astroguy]

Hi,
Thanks for the help. I use a Canon 450D (unmodded) and use Deep Sky Stacker to stack my shots before taking them into Star Tools. I did select the option in DSS to ‘Reset white balance for a modded DSLR’ by mistake when I first started using it and couldn’t change this back even though I reset the recommended settings. Could this be my problem? I use DSS for pretty much just the stacking (I do get it to detect and clean hot pixels, is this a mistake with Star Tools?) and leave the data as virgin as possible for Star Tools apart from that. I tried to attach the FTS file but take it that it is too big as I kept getting dropped out of the site. I will continue to try to find a way to attach a file. Thanks for any feedback.

astroguy

[micheleorsini]

Hi!
there is a similar setting in Raw/Fits DDP Settings (under "Options" in the left panel) even if does not mention modded DSLRs

I use DSS with same params, everything should work fine, but if you wat to double check, there should be a post about DSS settings somewhere in this forum

You can try uploading the file in a temporary internet bin, dropbox or mega for example, and then posting here its public link

Michele

[astroguy]

Hi,

Here is the link for the FITS file as requested. There are also some screenshots of my settings in DSS there. Any feedback would be really appreciated. By the way I had a look at the Options you mentioned. I can see an option for Use Camera White Balance (if that is what you mean) and I have this unticked but I still have the Recommended Setting for resetting the white balance for a modded DSLR in green and set in the Recommended Settings. How did you mean that I can turn off this setting in the Options section? It turns out that dropcanvas has a 6 hour canvas timeout so sorry if that is a problem. I can post a new link if needed.

Thanks,
astroguy

http://dropcanvas.com/hpkxg

[micheleorsini]

Hi,
wow, this is really an hard to manage image!

concerning the white balance setting, now I found the one you are mentioning and I don't think this could be a problem, because it is exactly what Startools expects for input data.

I could see wipe module operating without too much success and I'm wondering whether the problem is in the image been not calibrated, I guess you did not use flats/darks and so on, isn't it? From what I know, wipe is able to remove gradients, vignetting and uniform background, while this seems a very irregular one

Anyway, this is the best I could do

7th Aug 2017 M13 2nd go from DSS.jpg (478.08 KiB) Viewed 10293 times

(tiff file here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ph0tzhrzq93c9 ... .tiff?dl=0)

and this is the log file

Code: Select all

-----------------------------------------------------------
StarTools 1.4.327
Sun Aug 20 14:06:35 2017
-----------------------------------------------------------
File loaded [/Users/morsini/Downloads/7th Aug 2017 M13 2nd go from DSS.FTS].
--- 
--- Auto Develop
Parameter [Ignore Fine Detail <] set to [Off]
Parameter [Outside ROI Influence] set to [15 %]
--- Crop
Parameter [X1] set to [916 pixels]
Parameter [Y1] set to [1104 pixels]
Parameter [X2] set to [4365 pixels (-838)]
Parameter [Y2] set to [3736 pixels (-256)]
--- Wipe
Parameter [Mode] set to [Correct Color & Brightness]
Parameter [UNKNOWN] set to [No]
Parameter [Precision] set to [256 x 256 pixels]
Parameter [Dark Anomaly Filter] set to [1 pixels]
Parameter [Drop Off Point] set to [0 %]
Parameter [Corner Aggressiveness] set to [100 %]
Parameter [Aggressiveness] set to [75 %]
--- Develop
Parameter [White Calibration] set to [Use Stars]
Parameter [Gamma] set to [1.00]
Parameter [Skyglow] set to [0 %]
Parameter [Digital Development] set to [66.39 %]
Parameter [Blue Luminance Contrib.] set to [100 %]
Parameter [Green Luminance Contrib.] set to [100 %]
Parameter [Red Luminance Contrib.] set to [100 %]
Parameter [Dark Anomaly Headroom] set to [5 %]
Parameter [Dark Anomaly Filter] set to [Off]
--- Wipe
Parameter [Mode] set to [Correct Color & Brightness]
Parameter [UNKNOWN] set to [No]
Parameter [Precision] set to [256 x 256 pixels]
Parameter [Dark Anomaly Filter] set to [1 pixels]
Parameter [Drop Off Point] set to [0 %]
Parameter [Corner Aggressiveness] set to [100 %]
Parameter [Aggressiveness] set to [75 %]
--- Bin
Parameter [Scale] set to [(scale/noise reduction 70.71%)/(200.00%)/(+1.00 bits)]
--- Color
Parameter [Cap Green] set to [To Brown]
Parameter [Bias Slider Mode] set to [Sliders Reduce Color Bias]
Parameter [Style] set to [Scientific (Color Constancy)]
Parameter [LRGB Method Emulation] set to [Straight CIELab Luminance Retention]
Parameter [Dark Saturation] set to [2.00]
Parameter [Bright Saturation] set to [Full]
Parameter [Saturation Amount] set to [200 %]
Parameter [Blue Bias Reduce] set to [1.36]
Parameter [Green Bias Reduce] set to [1.42]
Parameter [Red Bias Reduce] set to [1.53]
Parameter [Mask Fuzz] set to [1.0 pixels]
--- Wavelet De-Noise
Parameter [Scale 1] set to [90 %]
Parameter [Scale 2] set to [90 %]
Parameter [Scale 3] set to [90 %]
Parameter [Scale 4] set to [90 %]
Parameter [Scale 5] set to [0 %]
Parameter [Mask Fuzz] set to [1.0 pixels]
Parameter [Scale Correlation] set to [6]
Parameter [Color Detail Loss] set to [12 %]
Parameter [Brightness Detail Loss] set to [12 %]
Parameter [Grain Size] set to [2.9 pixels]
Parameter [Read Noise Compensation] set to [Off]
Parameter [Smoothness] set to [80 %]
File saved [/Users/morsini/Downloads/7th Aug 2017 M13 2nd go from DSS.tiff].

as you can see, I used wipe twice which is highly unrecommended (and maybe this is a sign of having an image with problems, don't worry, it happens: it occurred to me too ... several times!)

I've also looked at your stacking settings and I didn't see anything "dangerous", the look like mine

Here are a list of recommendations:

1. use more than two frames to reduce noise effectively, go for tens (50-100 for example)

2. use "normal" stacking mode, in any case it it very difficult to handle the image parts that do not overlap and you will end up cropping them anyways

3. ... for the same reason try to use aligned frames, with a computer connected to the imaging system reframing "accurately" is a matter of 10 minutes and the "loss" of field is minimal. Here is an example of stacked frames across 4 nights, and, as you can see, the lost part is minimal

20170818_NGC7000_dss_2.jpg (326.95 KiB) Viewed 10293 times

4. do the calibration frames: lights, dark, darkflats and bias. I know that these are boring things but the are fundamental if you want a good final image.

5. your image show partial star trails: you need better guiding or, if you are shooting from a fixed tripod, you need to lower your exposure time a little, again, having a computer connected to the imaging system helps a lot because you can examine the frames with a screen bigger than your camera LCD

good luck and clear skyes

Michele

[astroguy]

Hi,

Thanks very much for that. You are right, the image was not properly calibrated. I will try to make a point to do proper calibration for my shots from now on and follow the rest of your recommendations too. By the way did you have any luck with Autodev with my FITS file or was the data just not good enough?

astroguy

[micheleorsini]

Hello!
I'm sorry but autodev failed, I used develop module, I found that when the data are super-ok autodev is awesome, but in some cases it fails and you have to go back to develop

Concerning develop: there is an home in button, if you press it several times, the strecthing "converges" to a value, then usually I push it up a little (of 0.5-2.0 max), if you push the value too much do not worry, Startools has limited undo capabilities but saves a log file with all the steps you made. Starting from scratch and repeating all the steps in the log changing just a few params became quite usual for me (and yes, we already asked Ivo the option to "play" the log file to do this automatically)

Last thing: time spent in calibration is rarely wasted!! by chance, in this period I found that my "modest" calibration procedure is what is keeping me from extracting the best images from my data, so I'm improving the procedure right now!

Michele