Pixinsight non-processing tools

[Topographic]

Does anyone use PixInsight for registration, stacking and other analytical tools and then StarTools for processing?

If so what is your PI process and whch tools are really useful and would make it worth the purchase price?

Thanks


David

[Russ.Carpenter]

I've used both PxInsight and StarTools for a long time. These days, I use PixInsight for creating masters and StarTools for post processing. But there are now a lot of preprocessing programs, and I don't know if PixInsight is still the best choice.

One small thought. PixInsight has a virtual monopoly in astro processing. As irritating as PixInsight can be, it still is a kind of "universal language" in our hobby. If you want to have a comprehensive understanding of where astro imaging Is heading, you almost have to have a working understanding of PixInsight. In addition, it will make you appreciate StarTools all the more!

Russ

[admin]

@Russ.Carpenter is 100% on the money.

If you can swing it, I believe PI is definitely worth the money for its stacking and platesolving abilities alone. That said, other apps are getting close in terms of stacking quality now, specifically Siril, ASTAP and APP (though given the pricepoint and rest of the capabilities of the latter, I would personally choose PI over APP any day).

PI is also an incredibly comprehensive collection of separated modules/algorithms, and can really help you understand how these (used to) work in isolation without ST's Tracking/workflow layer on top enhancing things. As Russ says, it can help you "see the matrix", so to speak, when you take that knowledge of how things "used to work" from PI, and regard how ST improves on it.

The latter can be done with the 45-day trial if you really want, but I believe having PI on hand is useful past its trial. Plus the more we support our AP software community, the better (though it's obviously not my place to tell you what to do with your hard earned cash).

[Topographic]

I currently use Sirilic to stack, but it doesn't provide any image inspection tools. I tend to weed out the bad images using DSS and APT. I looked at ASTAP for stacking but one stack of 90 images plus calibration frames ran whilst I sat with my feet up watching a half of American Football live and, it still hadn't finished (my computer does not have a slow processor nor is it short of ram or an ssd hard drive). I struggle to get my head around Siril for stacking, but I did use it to align images from a mono and a colour camera (I hope I wrote the process down somewhere!

I understand some of the theory behind processing but I do not want to spend the rest of my life working my way through PixInsight, even in retirement i don't have that much time on my hands. However what is another £250 on top of the cost of the mount/three scopes/five cameras/filters/focus motors/power boxes/batteries/PC/miniPC/various other bits and pieces, oh yes and the Observatory.

[Cheman]

I use Siril for stacking. You need A LOT of disk space and a ssd is pretty much manditory if you are looking for any speed. With that I last night stacked 250lights 48 flats, 48 bias. 15minutes from start to finish. I just completed APP trial. Same data took over an hour. And while I dont see any apprecialbe improvement(if any) in the APP stack v Sirl, there are still parts of APP that I like. Such as mosaics and easily registering images of different sizes. For now I will stay wil Siril. For mosaics, I can stitch them in Microsoft ICE easily. I no longer use DSS. All these programs have their merits, but for me, Siril is free and works well.
Che

[hixx]

Hi Cheman, you can get better speed out of APP if you disable Local Normalization Correction and MultiBand Blending and Using 'average' as Intergration method
Anyway, the math behind APP is quite advanced but produces great results
cheers,
jochen

[Cheman]

Hi Cheman, you can get better speed out of APP if you disable Local Normalization Correction and MultiBand Blending and Using 'average' as Intergration method
Anyway, the math behind APP is quite advanced but produces great results
cheers,
jochen

Hi hixx, i did that and it still took over an hour. I have 64gb ram. Speed is not a deal breaker for me. Just reporting my results and view. Not dissing APP at all . results were good.