UPDATE FROM MABULA
I have had a very rough 2 months unfortunately health wise. I was struck 3x in a row with bacterial infections. The second infection occurred after a routine hospital checkup and I became very sick. I had to rest and take a lot of antibiotics. Once I was recovering and restarting work 1 month ago, I again became sick. The infection was not yet gone, so even more antibiotics and rest was needed. Needless to say, it took a lot of my energy and I needed a lot of rest.
Finally, the infection is really gone and my energy is coming back step-by-step now and I have started work again. I am terribly sorry to have kept you waiting for support. I will address all outstanding questions and e-mails step-by step and will be on the forum daily from today.
APP 2.0.0-beta47 will come soon as well, a lot of work was already completed before I became very ill, so the release is also nearly ready for you. Beta47 will be much faster actually. Many workflows will be more than 2x faster, mosaics can even be 10x faster than before because registration really received a major boost... all compared to beta46. Before I release it, I will make sure that everything is working properly and then I will release it.
Is there a way to save ones setting before you exit APP so that it starts up again with the previous settings?
Not yet, but it is a top request. I'm pretty sure it will be possible in 1 or 2 versions down the road.
Is there any way to remove a (Mac) preferences file to get back to the original settings or do the settings go back to default when you exit and restart APP?
I ask because my light frames are very green but when I first started using APP I dont belive I had the green cast.
Restarting APP does reset most settings yes, except for amount of memory and cores used. What exactly is the workflow you used for the image? Normalization usually works for this and light pollution correction might also remove the background.
Hi Vincent, thanks for your reply.
Being a newbie I haven’t established a workflow as such and was trying various different options, some which I understood, some that I didn’t, trial and error mostly.
I thought the green cast was something I was doing wrong until I found Mabula's video which allayed my fears and given me hope that I’m going in the right direction- https://www.astropixelprocessor.com/post-processing-background-and-star-color-correction/
What made things much worse is that I was saving the Integrated file as 32 bit TIFF and importing the file into Photoshop only to find that the image was totally blown out and would humbly suggest a tool tip somewhere or text warning that 8 or 16 bit TIFF is the way to go for Photoshop!
All good at the moment, more reading to try to understand what I’m doing, the only question I have now is what causes the green cast? I’m using an ASI 294MC-PRO, a Williams Zenithstar ED80ED with ASIAir PRO which I really like for PA. I dont have a filter yet. Testing with 30 x 300 sec light frames, 20 x 300 sec dark frames and a few bias frames just to get the hang of things.
I’m also thinking of using a Canon 5D Mk4 for my next attempt.
Thanks again.
Thanks for that, I have to watch Mabula's video again and probably more than once!
I'm pretty familiar with Photoshop but the development panel in APP on the right hand side takes a bit of getting used to. The initials BA and ST? And I still havent grasped how the numerals 1 - 3 etc work as there's some clever scaling of the numbers going on. Also adjusted the white and black levels with some distrous results on whites ending up with tiny bright blobs of colour 🙂
I'll get there in the end though.
Yes the panel on the right needs some work, we're aware of that. There is a question mark in red there, clicking that will show some extra information.
@vincent-mod
Thanks again Vincent, I believe I ran 5) NORMALIZE with the oprtion for neutralize background checked (default) when I first started using APP which eleimiated the green background but leaving it unchecked and following Mabula's video I have some reasonable results.
This one needs fewer stars and more detail but I'm getting somewhere now.
Still a work in progress 🙂
Hi Guys,
A simple question, which CALIBRATION MODE should I be using when calibrating star colours?
I have a ZWO ASI 294MC-PRO.
Thanks in advance.
Calibration is applicable to the calibration data you have, the automatic modes are fine usually. Star color calibration is a different beast.
Calibration is applicable to the calibration data you have, the automatic modes are fine usually. Star color calibration is a different beast.
I've spent many hours trying lots of different combinations but unfortunately I can't get the correct colours for M31 from APP without extensive use of Photoshop which is really disappointing and with only 2 weeks left of my trial period it looks like I'm going to have to look elsewhere. I'm not a scientist and do not know the difference between Balance RGB, Black Body & Extinction and Adaptive Black Body & Extinction to get the best star colours!!
Shame as I really want to like this software and have heard many good reports.
It might have to do with your data in this case, especially since you need to do a lot in Photoshop as well to get a nice result. Can you share how you took the data, how many subs, length, etc? Maybe show a few screenshots to get the idea? Getting a good color out is pretty difficult sometimes, especially concerning blue, they are faint signals.
@vincent-mod
Hello Vincent, sorry for the dalay.
This link should get you into Dropbox where I have 32 lights and only 5 darks when time ran out-
Dropbox File (Private or Invalid)
You'll also find a couple of screenshots there.
I'm not bothered about vignetting or noise at this point in time, just the colours in M31.
I've seen plenty of excellent images using DSLR's and I might have to choose that option to get better colours especially the blues but if a DSLR can detect those colours, why cant the ASI 294MC-PRO with APP?
I'm using a WO Zenithstar ED80.
I've been using the RGB channel when loading Lights and running through all sections using default values. Most of the time when selecting an area in Calibrate Star Colors I get a blue or purple cast, If I select CALIBRATION MODE > Balance RGB I sometimes get some yellow in M31 and can pull the other colours out in Photoshop with a lot of work.
It looks to me like the white balance is way out.
Let me know if you encounter any problems with Dropbox.
So, to begin with; the calibration files are there for a reason. The bias, darks and flats all work together to get a nicely calibrated background. This, when done right, results in the ability to stretch a bit more, to tease out faint signals (including color) etc. I would definitely invest in trying to get those working first. Apart from that, take a lot of data.. many of the nice results with blue color, are results that amount to hours of data.
Why do I get a java failure when trying to save images as either TIFF orJPEG?
@chris-eagleton There can be several reasons for that and it is hard to tell without more information. What version of APP are you using? Which images are you trying to save (processed by APP or imported from another application)? What OS are you on. What steps did you take to get to that failure? Please be as verbose as possible.
Wouter
i am new here. i just started the trial yesterday and already i have found this software is really great! and i naturally came to think about saving the settings with which i can get my best result. then, i found this thread and now understand the ability to save/load the settings is not implemented yet ;-(
then, i wonder if it is possible to write some charms in the AstroPixelProcessor.cfg file that i found in the install folder, to tell the software to start with my preferred settings.
any advice?
Unforunately not yet, you shouldn't change those files as it may lead to problems running the software. Mabula has this on the todo-list for version 1.085.
