Best way to speed things up

I have thought about this as well. I’m guessing all the calculations have to be kept on hand as a temp file until you exit or indicate you are done. It would be a nice feature, though. Maybe this should go into the request for changes forum?

There are a few helpful guides people have done and some YouTube videos. It’s a bit of a learning curve but I’m discovering most of the time the default options done everything I need. 

Posted by: @brendanc

Hi,

So, I stack, say, 100% of my subs, try processing it, then decide to try, say, 90% instead. As well as having to load everything up again (please can we have default loading options soon?), it seems APP has to go through everything else again - calibrating, normalising, integrating etc. 

If I've already been through all this, and all I want to do is restack a smaller percent of my subs, what are the top tips for being able to speed things along a bit?

Thanks, Brendan

PS A user manual would really, really, really, really, really help

Hi Brendan,

You can simply use the stack percentage slider at the top of menu 6) Integrate to only stack the best 90% of your images 😉

As promised, APP 1.084 will be completely about save/load settings and complete projects.

And a full printable manual is promised to be there soon as well.

Mabula

Posted by: @turtlecat1000

I have thought about this as well. I’m guessing all the calculations have to be kept on hand as a temp file until you exit or indicate you are done. It would be a nice feature, though. Maybe this should go into the request for changes forum?

There are a few helpful guides people have done and some YouTube videos. It’s a bit of a learning curve but I’m discovering most of the time the default options done everything I need. 

Yes indeed, APP 1.084 will be able to keep the status of complete projects in a saved file, so you can reload it in the next APP session. THen you can immediately continue where you were the session before 😉

You can simply use the stack percentage slider at the top of menu 6) Integrate to only stack the best 90% of your images 😉

Sure, but then it seems to through every module again, which I don't quite understand. I'd have thought all the pre-processing would still apply and it could just stack the changed percentage? I've been looking to see whether I can for example use masters to avoid integrating all the calibration files, but I have to say I find the mixture of all the files in the working folder very confusing - without a filename actually saying 'master' in it, I really don't know which is which.

Posted by: @brendanc

I've been looking to see whether I can for example use masters to avoid integrating all the calibration files, but I have to say I find the mixture of all the files in the working folder very confusing - without a filename actually saying 'master' in it, I really don't know which is which.

MD == Master Dark
MDF == Master Dark Flat
MF == Master Flat
MB == Master Bias

And, yes, reusing masters certainly saves processing time. Do make sure that your lights have the same gain, offset and temperatures as the master dark and master bias if you use one. If you don't use a master bias then the lights also need to have the same exposure time as the master dark. Flats you should shoot with every imaging session though, if you don't disconnect the camera from the telescope, you may be able to reuse them and, in that case, the master flat. 

Great advice, thank you. 🙂

I think this is a big deal and will be appreciated.  The other might be a a PC Benchmark profile with estimated processing times for registration and integration of a couple data sets. Say 1-50, 50-100, 100-150 frames etc utilizing cpubenchmark.net or similar benchmark standard. Might start a thread asking for people to share their profile, benchmark and time it took them to process. https://www.cpubenchmark.net

Example:

I am working on a 4 panel mosaic utilizing 130 frames from an ASI 1600. My star count is set at 2000 (and any other pertinent setting that might affect performance greatly)

My processing times are:

Registration Time: X hours

Integration time: X Hours

My system is:

Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-1650 v2 @ 3.50GHz 3.50 GHz, 32.0 GB RAM and Windows 10 x64 OS

Class: Server

Average CPU Mark

9280

Single Thread Rating: 2006
Samples: 639*
*Margin for error: Low

+ COMPARE

PerformanceTest V9

John