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,
Relatively new to APP (2.0 Beta 4). Have been using Pixinsight for some time. Looking to use APP for Mosaic and other processing.
I ran a test using the same exact data set on the same laptop. I'm not concerned with time but for those that matter APP was much faster. What I did notice though is that the stars did not come out as expected with APP.
Test Rig
Samyang 135mm with ASI533MC-Pro Camera
Integration of 157 Lights @ 120s
30 Darks, 30 Flats, 30 FlatDarks
APP on the left (11 minutes to process) PI on the Right (55minutes to process)
Dell Laptop ith I9 and 64gb memory with SSD Drive
Defaults settings on both. Normalization and Cosmetic Correction on both
The image on the left (APP) overall looks good. However, when you compare to the PI image on the right you can see the APP Image has almost square stars when zoomed in. In PI the stars are pixelated but still round.
Can someone suggest what changes could be made in APP to address this? I ran it twice with the same exact results.
Thanks!
Sorry for the delay Joe,
Could you share the settings you used in APP?
Hi Joe @joesphotovideogmail-com,
Sorry in the delay in our response to your question/issue. I was on holiday myself, but I am back now 😉
The screenshot that you show seems to indicates that you have undersampled data. There are different solutions to get better results in this case.
I assume that you used the normal integration mode and not Drizzle integration, right?
In normal integration, a pixel interpolation/resample filter is used, Lanczos-3 with under and overshoot protection. The settings are in menu 6) Integrate.
Can you try turning off the under- overshoot protection to see if that improves things?
2nd option, is to turn on Drizzle, simple try the following settings first:
set integrate mode to drizzle, keep scale at 1.0, use droplet size 1.0, and the tophat kernel.
I would think that that the drizzle result would be much better.
If your data is OSC/color data, you can also try bayer drizzle, in that case try:
set integrate mode to bayer/x-trans drizzle, keep scale at 1.0, use droplet size 2.0, and the tophat kernel as a first test.
Please let us know if this improves your result 😉
Mabula
Hi and thanks for the response.
I re-ran a few tests and using the Drizzle worked. I purposely did not Drizzle either sample (APP and PI) wanting to stick with defaults as much as possible. I know the ASI533 is undersampled with my 135mm lens but if not blown up it looks ok. With Drizzle on it makes a big difference of course. Particularly when zoomed.
At least knowing what I need to do is a big help so thanks again. I think that will work going forward.
I am gathering data and will post another (sorry 😉 ) where I was processing a 16 panel Mosaic (307 lights). According to APP I needed 500+ gb free (I had 1tb) and I have 64mb of memory. It ran out of memory somewhere around the beginning of Integration (I didn't save the log and should have noted exactly where so might need to repeat it). Like I said, will put that in a separate post.
Thanks again
One other question please: I know there was discussion a while back here on the forums about the ability to save settings on exit. At the time it didn't exist but the thought was in a release or two. Just wondering if that is yet available and I just don't see it. Thanks again
One other question please: I know there was discussion a while back here on the forums about the ability to save settings on exit. At the time it didn't exist but the thought was in a release or two. Just wondering if that is yet available and I just don't see it. Thanks again
Dear Joe @joesphotovideogmail-com,
The new 2.0 beta's are already saving/remembering settings between APP restarts. The 2.0 stable version on which we are working will provide save/load settings and projects as we promised. Hope that clarifies it?
Mabula
Hi and thanks for the response.
I re-ran a few tests and using the Drizzle worked. I purposely did not Drizzle either sample (APP and PI) wanting to stick with defaults as much as possible. I know the ASI533 is undersampled with my 135mm lens but if not blown up it looks ok. With Drizzle on it makes a big difference of course. Particularly when zoomed.
At least knowing what I need to do is a big help so thanks again. I think that will work going forward.
I am gathering data and will post another (sorry 😉 ) where I was processing a 16 panel Mosaic (307 lights). According to APP I needed 500+ gb free (I had 1tb) and I have 64mb of memory. It ran out of memory somewhere around the beginning of Integration (I didn't save the log and should have noted exactly where so might need to repeat it). Like I said, will put that in a separate post.
Thanks again
Hi Joe @joesphotovideogmail-com,
Great, thank you for you feedback!
Mabula
