A comparison of BXT/NXT vs SyQon

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Daniel J. Givens avatar
Daniel J. Givens avatar

I heard about SyQon Parallax and Prism, and after watching a couple reviews on YouTube, figured I would try them out. Despite people saying the new tools would supplant BXT and NXT, that they don’t make up details, having compared the results, I’m not so sure. I’m going to share some screen shots comparing the output of the tools with their default settings.

This is the original image. It’s less than 2hr of data from Bortle 7, from about 30°-35° over the roof of my house. It’s not great. All that’s been done is SPCC, MultiscaleGradientCorrection, and an auto-STF.

OriginalScreenshot 2026-06-15 at 14.40.39.png

Deconvolution - Parallax vs BlurXTerminator

Original - Parallax - WideOrig-Parallax-Full.pngOriginal - BXT - WideOrig-BXT-Full.pngBXT - Parallax - WideBXT-Parallax-Full.pngOriginal - Parallax - 1:1Org-Parallax-1.pngOriginal - BXT - 1:1Orig-BXT-1.pngBXT - Parallax - 1:1BXT-Parallax-1.pngNoise Reduction - Prism vs NoiseXTerminator

The following are all post deconvolution

Original - Prism - WideOrig-Prism-Full.pngOriginal - NXT - WideOrig-NXT-Full.pngPrism - NXT - WidePrism-NXT-Full.pngOriginal - Prism - 1:1Orig-Prism-1.pngOriginal - NXT - 1:1Orig-NXT-1.pngPrism - NXT - 1:1Prism-NXT-1.png

I would say BXT and Parallax are pretty comparable. On the other hand, I’m really disappointed with Prism. Despite the promise of it not making things up, I feel like it does in the form of artificially emphasizing contrast that looks blotchy.

Note that I emphasized default settings earlier. I was able to get better results from both tools by tweaking settings, but I feel like I still got better, cleaner results out of BXT/NXT.

Also, this isn’t great data. For other targets or cleaner data, Parallax and Prism could be fantastic. I’ll continue to play with it.

I will also add that I’m fairly new at this, so there may be something I’m missing.

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Tony Gondola avatar
Tony Gondola avatar

Daniel J. Givens · Jun 15, 2026, 08:03 PM

Also, this isn’t great data. For other targets or cleaner data, Parallax and Prism could be fantastic. I’ll continue to play with it.

This is what i have found also. I think if you have very clean data, Prism has potential. If not it just seems to emphasize defects in the data. Parallax works as advertised but has a completely different look from BXT. I actually get the best result by blending both results together.

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SyQon Astro avatar
SyQon Astro avatar

Hi, thanks for the comparison. Unfortunately, it looks like something didn’t work correctly with Prism, as we can tell from the way it altered the color, shifting it toward green.

Could you please send us the file used for the comparison at contact@syqon.it? We’d like to analyze it to better understand the cause of the issue.

Thank you!

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Scott Badger avatar
Scott Badger avatar

I’ve been playing with Parallax this afternoon using the Lum master of a variety of targets. First up was an emission nebula I’m currently working on, SH2-254, and the additional detail Parallax brought out over BXT was striking. I then tried Parallax on another current project, the galaxy NGC 3184, and again the difference was striking, but this time BXT was the winner. BXT also did better with the Draco Triplet, but Parallax outperformed BXT on NGC 4725. It seems when the target is small relative to the image resolution, BXT brings out more detail, but Parallax brings out more with larger targets. In fact, where Parallax did better with 4725, in the same image BXT exceeded Parallax with the much smaller galaxy NGC 4712. FWIW, I’m shooting at 2350mm (9.25 SCT) and an image scale of 0.33”/pixel, but very seeing limited and way over sampled.

Cheers,
Scott

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Tony Gondola avatar
Tony Gondola avatar

Yes, exactly. If you have an APS-C or larger sensor filled wit nebulosity Parallax is the clear winner. On a small 585 sensor BXT often delivers a more pleasing result.

SyQon Astro avatar
SyQon Astro avatar

Scott Badger · Jun 17, 2026 at 12:23 AM

I’ve been playing with Parallax this afternoon using the Lum master of a variety of targets. First up was an emission nebula I’m currently working on, SH2-254, and the additional detail Parallax brought out over BXT was striking. I then tried Parallax on another current project, the galaxy NGC 3184, and again the difference was striking, but this time BXT was the winner. BXT also did better with the Draco Triplet, but Parallax outperformed BXT on NGC 4725. It seems when the target is small relative to the image resolution, BXT brings out more detail, but Parallax brings out more with larger targets. In fact, where Parallax did better with 4725, in the same image BXT exceeded Parallax with the much smaller galaxy NGC 4712. FWIW, I’m shooting at 2350mm (9.25 SCT) and an image scale of 0.33”/pixel, but very seeing limited and way over sampled.

Cheers,
Scott

Thank you very much! These comments will help us improve Parallax!

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Bill McLaughlin avatar
Bill McLaughlin avatar

I have bought it but only tried a couple samples. I hope to try it in a real processing session tomorrow. Overall it looks good and my impression is that the non-stellar portion almost looks like mild BXT with a later use of some HDRMT for contrast. Clearly it is superior to BXT alone in terms of contrast.