How long (in general) does it take you to process your images?

I'm just wondering how long it takes for other people to process their deep sky photos. I'm more interested in after stacking, as that process can vary greatly. Not so interested in planetary, but feel free to let us know that too if you like.

I would say I generally spend about 60-90 minutes lately. I feel I could improve if I slowed down. Maybe make smaller adjustments and more trial and error. Also if I was more patient and didn't jump right in to processing each morning after gathering data. By that I mean if I know I want to add more time to a project, I shouldn't process an image until I'm fairly confident I'm done capturing data. I do have a fairly consistent workflow once I'm in Pixinsight which speeds things up, but I do still experiment with new/different processes.

Depends on the type of data for me. Narrowband I can process through in under an hour. Galaxies/RGB I can probably keep under an hour… but when you get into HaRGB, or HaLRGB, I'm anywhere from 2-3 hours upwards to an entire evening, 6 hours or more. It's mostly because I can get so tunneled and sometimes ignore simple errors. Getting up, getting a drink, dinner, or simply just a break helps. You come back and have a whole new perspective, catching things you previously missed.

It varies a lot for me. Some images it's maybe 1-2 hours. Other times I have spent multiple days experimenting in PI.

Running Blurx and Starx seem to take a long time for me, so I sort of have to trigger it, then come back 10-15 minutes later

Somewhere between 90 minutes and three months.

It takes from 30 minutes to infinite time. Usually it takes weeks but when things don't work as expected, I leave a project aside and process something "easier".

Even if someone has sorted out location and equipment issues, quality datasets can be pushed more during post-processing. That's why having good processing skills is essential to astrophotography. Such skills are very hard to acquire (harder than purchasing expensive equipment) while it takes a critical eye on what techniques to adopt from all those presented by the so-called experts and gurus. That's why it can take an infinite time for me to process an image

Thanks for the replies. I can see I might not be too far off for some images. I think one thing I’m taking away is doing it in multiple sessions might help too. Makes sense, what looks good with tired eyes after an hour of work might not look as good after a bit of a rest.

Die Launische Diva:
It takes from 30 minutes to infinite time. Usually it takes weeks but when things don't work as expected, I leave a project aside and process something "easier".

Even if someone has sorted out location and equipment issues, quality datasets can be pushed more during post-processing. That's why having good processing skills is essential to astrophotography. Such skills are very hard to acquire (harder than purchasing expensive equipment) while it takes a critical eye on what techniques to adopt from all those presented by the so-called experts and gurus. That's why it can take an infinite time for me to process an image

I'd tend to agree with Diva here although probably 30 min is a bit optimistic for me, as I normally deal (with data sets acquired by me) with multi-session data sometimes overlapping different instruments and years. The ones harder to crack are the data sets I get from remote systems as they are plagued by noise and instruments defects (and rather short exposures too).

An evening's worth of work usually, so a few hours. But typically i dont post the image anywhere or consider it done after the first go, but instead leave it for a while and look at it occasionally. Usually by the next day i have figured out something that needed to be done differently and go and redo that.

Particularly colour balancing and too much use of sharpening (or too little, or in the wrong places) is what sees a second go. Sometimes i notice i did something wrong but cant be bothered to go and redo that because the first image was "good enough" which isn't a practice i would recommend to anyone but lazy do as lazy is.

I would say a full process is anywhere from 90 minutes to 3-4 hours. Like others have said, data type does matter. My habit (maybe a bad one) is to do a "quick" stack and edit with each new nights worth of data. These are normally only 30 minutes or so in processing. I can see how things are coming without all of the steps and usually only process the stars once before the final edit.

Nick Grundy:
It varies a lot for me. Some images it's maybe 1-2 hours. Other times I have spent multiple days experimenting in PI.

Running Blurx and Starx seem to take a long time for me, so I sort of have to trigger it, then come back 10-15 minutes later

If you can, you need an NVidia video card. I have a 9 year old 980ti and I can run the X suites in under a minute each on very large 47 megapixel images. Any xx60, 70 or 80 with 6gb or more of ram will help you a ton. Yes even an old 1060.

Between an hour or so and 8 years.

As most of my images are OSC/dual band it takes less time in general. Not including WBPP time I'd say I average 30-45 minutes to get my images where I want them. This is because I have the process structure mentally down, I have processes/process containers setup to do a lot of what I want for the drudge work, and I just don't spend countless hours trying to tweak little tiny details. I'll generally only revisit a target when I either get a lot more data on it or I discover some new process.

It depends the object.
Clusters within 1/2h I'd say.
Nebulae min. 2-3h when you do a nice job shooting your object. The more demanding you are during your shooting session, the less time you need for post treatments, that also includes taking your time by making a good set of DOF frames. It's an essential part of the game 😉

If I'm feeling super lazy, maybe 25-30 minutes. That's running BlurXTerminator and NoiseXTerminator on default settings and use the STF Autostretch as the permanent stretch with some tweaks of the starless and stars-only images.

Nowadays, I do a preliminary stretch in roughly 45 minutes, and then do subsequent iterations to see if I can improve upon it. Final image usually ends up being a blend of two or more iterations.

And it depends on the object. Rho Ophiuchi and friends with a 135mm lens really ramped up the PITA Factor.

Clear Skies,
Phil

If I am using the software often it takes about 2 hours. When not using often it takes 6 or more hours

Phil Creed:
Rho Ophiuchi and friends with a 135mm lens really ramped up the PITA Factor.

I can feel you

Wow.. I had no idea everyone is that fast lol. My images usually take almost 20 hours minimum and I've done 30. I kind of dont have a workflow so i just keep messing with it until i get it as good as I can. I have a blazing fast high end system so its not for lack of power, just me being picky.

OK, I must be missing something, from the moment open the stacked image in Pixinsight to the time I save my low-resolution versions in Jpg, it would be no more than 30 minutes at most. I must be missing several steps in the process. I am fairly new to Pixinsight I will admit.

1hr to 30 hrs depending on a lot of things

For me, there's a correlation where I spend less time processing the more integration time an image has :p

Too often, I find myself spending excessive time trying to fix less than great data. What I learnt from this is that if you're spending way more time processing than what the integration time was, maybe reconsider (if weather and other conditions permit) getting more data.

Iterations like what @Phil mentioned also helps greatly in improving an image. A fresh pair of eyes really works wonders.

Having said and considering all of the above, about 3 hours to a month is what my range is. This doesn't include pre-processing like WBPP and stacking. Those take can take a long time. Especially Local Normalization.

3 to 4 hr for simple image, which are generally rare for me. Tens or even hundreds times of that for tricky images or big mosaics.

Like many have stated it varies for me as well. I do have a pretty consistent workflow that I have really worked on that makes me happy.
If I’m shooting globular clusters and or open clusters I’d say I’m in the 1-2 hour range. I don’t rush or hurry through a processing step as that just causes problems down the pipeline but I try and do the best I can with what I know and it isn’t uncommon for me to scrap a processing try and start over if I don’t like the result.
My last couple images I processed it took me in the 4-5 hour range but I use a lot of masks and pixel peep a lot which can take time in itself.
On another note, I’ve invested in a pretty good computer and that helps with BX, NX, SX processing, especially since I did the GPU speed up trick. 😊

Dale

I stacked the last files in December 2022 (love those clouds!), but I still have to process the masters

But when I PP, it usually takes me ~2h.

OSC:
- Best case ued to be ca. 1 hour
(assuming my default process works without tweaks I have great subs and dared to delete enough poor ones)
- extreme case was 2 month on Orion, as I had a steep learning curve processing the bright core and faint peripherie
- average is about 2 hours

Narrowband / seperate RGB channels:
- steep learning curve for last 2 months
- Narrowband processing overlapped with 2x Dualfilter SHO processing
- 4-6hrs currently for an acceptable output

Hi,

I have a mediocre desktop for processing but a standard workflow for Galaxy/Nebula.

It used to be 1-2 hours wile working on 294MM data (usually small because of bin 2). It takes 2-4 hours with ASI6200MM, StarXterminator and blurXterminator consuming 90% of the processing time.

While processing mosaics, it could take me multiple days due to file size.

I only image with OSC/dual band and i have a fairly established workflow so i rarely go over 1hr for my images. I also rarely go for really challenging targets, so i don't really have a need to spend too much time on an image to bring out the details or specific features.

I find that whenever i take much longer than an hour, my images become "overcooked" and lose out a lot on their natural selves, so i have adopted a more minimalistic approach.

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