Back to forums

Combine bin1 bin2 in PI?

Pleiades Astrophoto PixInsight Processing LRGB
9 replies•712 views
Sean Mc avatar
Sean Mc avatar
I know a bunch of people take lum and ha in bin1 on the 294mm and combine them with bin2 rgbos. 

Could a generous soul give me a quick bullet point tutorial on how to do this?  Or point me to a resource that doesn’t include multiple hour long videos. 

thx muchly!
andrea tasselli avatar
andrea tasselli avatar
1. Create RGB
2. Create L
3. Create stretched RGB
4. Create Stretched L
5. Align RGB to L
6. Combine with LRGB
7. Done. Season to taste.

P.S.:

Depending on the nature of the stretch it might be necessary to do 5. after 2.
padiac avatar
padiac avatar
I suppose bin2 has same dimensions with bin1 so just combine them with l regularly
Michael Gorman avatar
Michael Gorman avatar
Sean Mc:
I know a bunch of people take lum and ha in bin1 on the 294mm and combine them with bin2 rgbos. 

Could a generous soul give me a quick bullet point tutorial on how to do this?  Or point me to a resource that doesn’t include multiple hour long videos. 

thx muchly!

I think you've already got some fine answers(Just register/align and it'll work). Something I would like to point out is that you can just BIN in software. PixInsight has IntegerResample which means you don't loose the BIN1 data, but have more options.   The default parameters (downsample/average) perform a 2x2 binning on the selected image.
Sean Mc avatar
Sean Mc avatar
Interesting. Thx all!
Rick Fair avatar
Rick Fair avatar
I found this pic explains Binning... Hope this helps
Tim Ray avatar
Tim Ray avatar
Hi Sean, 

If you Mix bin1 and bin2 subs in PI during the stacking process. It will automatically pic a bin1 sub as a reference frame and do everything else automatically.  Be sure to have matching bin flats, darks etc for your respective subs…

CS Tim
Arny avatar
Arny avatar
Sean Mc:
I know a bunch of people take lum and ha in bin1 on the 294mm and combine them with bin2 rgbos. 

Could a generous soul give me a quick bullet point tutorial on how to do this?  Or point me to a resource that doesn’t include multiple hour long videos. 

thx muchly!



and if I may add a question: what would be the benefit of taking bin2 images with CMOS cameras?
My understanding is that it reduces file size (great) but not sensivity, as full well capacity does not increase on CMOS cameras.

Am I missing something?
andrea tasselli avatar
andrea tasselli avatar
Bin 2 mode in an IMX294 is an hardware mode so you do get more sensitivity and larger FWC (and 14 bit). There might be circumstances when this capacity comes in handy. Sadly it cannot be used with ROI. But you'd buy the camera for operating in Bin 2 mode otherwise there are better/cheaper options out there.
Michael Gorman avatar
Michael Gorman avatar
Arny:
Sean Mc:
I know a bunch of people take lum and ha in bin1 on the 294mm and combine them with bin2 rgbos. 

Could a generous soul give me a quick bullet point tutorial on how to do this?  Or point me to a resource that doesn’t include multiple hour long videos. 

thx muchly!



and if I may add a question: what would be the benefit of taking bin2 images with CMOS cameras?
My understanding is that it reduces file size (great) but not sensivity, as full well capacity does not increase on CMOS cameras.

Am I missing something?

It basically turns 4 pixels into 1 super pixel. This can help with sensitivity and also with quality if you are oversampling. That said, it can be done in software after and will get the same benefits. If you are dithering you can also use drizzling and you can also  reclaim the lost resolution from BINing.