15th Feb 2024: Astro Pixel Processor 2.0.0-beta29 released - macOS native File Chooser, macOS CMD-Q fixed, read-only Fits on network fixed and other bug fixes
7th December 2023: added payment option Alipay to purchase Astro Pixel Processor from China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Korea, Japan and other countries where Alipay is used.
Hi,
I am new to this software and an struggling, I can’t find an online or printable manual for this software, I know there are video tutorials, but am hard of hearing and so can’t follow them, i need something written down, I wish I had waited to buy the software for a while as I am finding it difficult without a book or something to follow, so can any one point me in the right direction…
I get the calibration side of the screen, but have no idea about the controls on the right side, they seem really confusing the way the sliders work and the fact that they are not labelled as to what they actually do, it’s very difficult to understand…
regards
William
Hi William,
Sorry for the lack of that yes. There are a few 3rd party "manuals" you can find by googling for it and you can click on the red question mark on the right as well, there is quite some information behind that for that part. After the release of 1.083 which is near, Mabula and others will start work on a good manual from our side. If you have any questions I am more than happy to explain them all in this thread.
Hi William,
Sorry for the lack of that yes. There are a few 3rd party "manuals" you can find by googling for it and you can click on the red question mark on the right as well, there is quite some information behind that for that part. After the release of 1.083 which is near, Mabula and others will start work on a good manual from our side. If you have any questions I am more than happy to explain them all in this thread.
Hi,
thanks for the reply, so is this the update that people have been waiting for since may this year..?
can you point me to some of these 3rd party manuals for the processing tools please as I desperately need one…
thnaks
It is yes, it's been discussed in great length on another thread as to why etc. Mabula is going to change the release schedule back to how it used to be, way more frequent that is.
Did you check the red button? It basically has a mini manual inside of it for that part.
It is yes, it's been discussed in great length on another thread as to why etc. Mabula is going to change the release schedule back to how it used to be, way more frequent that is.
Did you check the red button? It basically has a mini manual inside of it for that part.
Yes but not detailed enough, please link me to some,of the 3rd party manuals you mentioned…much appreciated….as they will be written more for mere mortal to understand and I won’t need a degree in physics to understand….
William
Also we have a video tutorial by Christian Sasse, and in the part 3 video at 17:33 he works a bit with the right hand side as well. That may already, together with the info from the red button, give you a good grasp. https://www.astropixelprocessor.com/complete-lrgb-tutorial-of-ngc292-the-small-magellanic-cloud-by-christian-sasse-itelescope-net-new-version-app-1-081/
A full written manual on that part will be made, unfortunately it's not there yet. But I can always walk you through it as well right here.
Also we have a video tutorial by Christian Sasse, and in the part 3 video at 17:33 he works a bit with the right hand side as well. That may already, together with the info from the red button, give you a good grasp. https://www.astropixelprocessor.com/complete-lrgb-tutorial-of-ngc292-the-small-magellanic-cloud-by-christian-sasse-itelescope-net-new-version-app-1-081/
A full written manual on that part will be made, unfortunately it's not there yet. But I can always walk you through it as well right here.
I have already said I am deaf, are you trying to be horrible, so videos are not good to me….I said this in first message….just please link me too the third party manuals you mentioned above please……I have now asked three times….or do they just not exist…??
Apologies, but let's keep it civilized. There are a few tutorials online, but not specifically on that part. Like I mentioned, I can provide you with written steps right here as well, even including pictures.
Apologies, but let's keep it civilized. There are a few tutorials online, but not specifically on that part. Like I mentioned, I can provide you with written steps right here as well, even including pictures.
Please provide all steps on how to use all the sliders on the right side, and what they actually do, with pictures, that will help, and I am civilised, I was not the the one who did not read my first message and then proceeded to tell me to watch a video when I had already said I was deaf….not very professional really….
Again, apologies. It's busy and sometimes people make mistakes, like I did here. Just no need to jump into arms about it so fast. If you take a look at the help I'm providing on this forum you'll find me being both professional and helpful as much as I can.
Ok, let's put that to rest, I'll work on some pictures and talk about what the controls do, you can then ask further clarifications about them when necessary and bookmark this thread to go back to later. Is that good? It'll take a bit of time, but I'll start on it today.
This is the part where you'll find the histogram of the displayed image. By default the displayed image is stretched, however everything in APP is always done linearly. This means all operations on the data are done on the non-stretched data and only shown to you stretched. The stretch is only applied permanently when you save it using the save button shown here. If for some reason you want to save it unstretched, you deselect the stretch checkbox. Furthermore the histogram is shown in a logarithmic scale. Deselecting that makes it linear. The histogram is nice to have as you can see if your signal is nicely separated from the background (which is the most left-hand side of the histogram).
These sliders control the black- and white point of the image. The white point you want to keep at 1 (only applicable to 32-bits data), lowering that will limit the dynamic range of the data which is almost never what you want, so leave it at the standard setting. Dynamic range is the range of values your sensor can have to capture data, between black and white basically. You can see sensors being 14-bit, 16-bit etc. that is talking about that dynamic range, the higher it is the more the sensor is able to both capture dark and very light parts without clipping (over saturating). With the automatic stretch APP is doing, you usually won't need to change these settings.
Now about how the sliders work, these will be improved upon as it's not very standard. On the left of a slider you see the value of 1, on the right 2. This is the coarsest setting and when sliding a slider, the effect will be big fast. If you want finer control, you click on the right button to decrease sensitivity and with the left to increase it again. Each time you change a slider, the preview image will update for you to see the effect.
This part involves the stretching of the image. The DDP checkmark is the automatic stretch APP applies with the settings under that. Next to the red button you can see the auto-stretch settings, to increase the auto-stretch you can do so by selecting a higher setting in that pulldown menu. You can also influence this stretching with the slider underneath, which work in the same way as explained above. Usually the settings you can select are already fine for the majority of the data. There is also a saturation option, clicking this will apply saturation to the colors in the preview image. The amount of which can be influenced in the post-processing section.
Here you find the saturation sliders, the SAT slider is the setting for saturation, the SAT TH. is saturation threshold. This allows you to protect the background from getting extra color saturation (so noise will not get more color). If you have faint nebulosity, which is more towards the background in the image, you may experiment with lowering the threshold a bit to also get color in there.
CON is for contrast, upping that will increase contrast between light and dark parts. SHARP is for adding sharpness, with the PROTECT setting protecting parts of the image to prevent artefacts. You can also experiment with these two, zooming into your image and seeing what these do. Adding a bit of sharpness can be quite nice for galaxies and bands of dust.
Please ask further questions for extra clarification when needed.
This might help:
Thanks yes it does, although not much on the right side panel tools, which is where I struggle…
the issue with APP is the tools on the right hand side are just all wrong, they are labelled poorly, the sliders are a terrible design and everything is abbreviated..the sliders should just move from one side to the other, and not have these extra settings where the value of the sliders change, this is really confusing and not needed, it had been set up and designed as if everyone using will have a degree in maths and or physics, yet the left side tools, the calibration tools, are well laid,out and much easier to follow and use
2 posts above I'm explaining the right hand side including what the abbreviations mean, which indeed needs improvement to make it more intuitive. If you have further questions about the explanation I wrote down, please do so as I hope that will help.
