Hi, new here. I’m trying to nail down a process in Pixinsight for processing my images, but I’m having a crisis of where to go from here. I was also hoping to get some general image critiques. Anything helps! (a brief note that I know about the star trails, our off-axis guider has been uncooperative recently)
https://app.astrobin.com/i/v36wy1
Thanks!
Overall it looks good but it does need more time. I background is rather dark and I suspect you could go a lot deeper into this field given your hardware. There are some odd red streaks up near the top of the frame which I assume are reflections from a bright star outside the FOV. You could and probably should retouch those out.
Hi David,
the picture of NGC 4535 doesn't look bad. I had a look at the histogram and think, you could try to stretch it a little bit more. You cannot expect much more from only 42 minutes of integration though.
What is your general workflow? Maybe we can tell you, which steps you can make or improve.
Greetings
Tony Gondola · Oct 27, 2025 at 08:24 PM
Overall it looks good but it does need more time. I background is rather dark and I suspect you could go a lot deeper into this field given your hardware. There are some odd red streaks up near the top of the frame which I assume are reflections from a bright star outside the FOV. You could and probably should retouch those out.
I suspect the background is darker due to those red flares being present. OP, you can try to blemish blast/clone stamp those flares in PI, Seti Astro Suite, or Photoshop on the starless layer. Im very confident they’d come right out.
Thanks for the feedback! What tools should I use for removing the blemishes inside PI?
I’m following this process in the image. 📷 RGB2-Processing_of_monochrome_LRGB_images.png
Thanks again for the feedback, I’m planning to take more subs in the future.
David Friedlander-Holm · Oct 27, 2025 at 08:48 PM
Thanks for the feedback! What tools should I use for removing the blemishes inside PI?
I’m following this process in the image. 📷 RGB2-Processing_of_monochrome_LRGB_images.png
Thanks again for the feedback, I’m planning to take more subs in the future.
I use Seti Astro’s Blemish Blaster in PI.
David Friedlander-Holm · Oct 27, 2025, 08:48 PM
Thanks for the feedback! What tools should I use for removing the blemishes inside PI?
I’m following this process in the image. 📷 RGB2-Processing_of_monochrome_LRGB_images.png
Thanks again for the feedback, I’m planning to take more subs in the future.
The clone stamp tool that can be found in most photo processing packages like PhotoShop, GIMO and Affinity Photo.
Please feel free to correct me if I’m out of place, but something seems off about the galaxy colour. I’d expect a barred spiral to be warm in the core and blue in the arms, and other images of this target do show that pretty normal trend, but yours is warm in the arms and blue in the core.
Daemon de Chaeney · Oct 28, 2025, 10:52 AM
but something seems off about the galaxy colour.
Good catch! Perhaps the colour channels might have been mixed up when using ChannelCombination or something equivalent to it.
Daemon de Chaeney · Oct 28, 2025, 10:52 AM
Please feel free to correct me if I’m out of place, but something seems off about the galaxy colour. I’d expect a barred spiral to be warm in the core and blue in the arms, and other images of this target do show that pretty normal trend, but yours is warm in the arms and blue in the core.
That is a good catch, thanks.
My G subs stood out quite a lot (seen here) 📷 Screenshot 2025-10-28 at 09.34.04.png
but after plate solving and using SPCC, this is what I got.
📷 Screenshot 2025-10-28 at 09.33.21.png
I’m confident that I selected the correct channels in Channel Combination, is there anything else that would cause the odd inversion that you pointed out?
Which galaxy type are you selecting in SPCC?
I think, this galaxy is a “Sc” galaxy
In the White Balance dropdown in SPCC the default is “Average Spiral Galaxy” —> in the dropdown menu you must scroll down to the bottom, where you find Sa, Sb, Sc, Sd.
Sometimes it helps to try the adjacent types.
(For M81 I struggled a lot … until I learned to select Sa in SPCC.)
I don’t think it’s possible for the SPCC white balance choice to fully transpose colour Michael. It can make a hash of the colour and give you odd things like purple galaxies (I found out by trying to work out how people got purple galaxies with RGB subs), but not transpose the yellow and blue information. Again of course, I speak from little experience with PI, but a lot as a photographer.
Ok, I’ll take another look, thanks for the feedback.
Just FYI, I seem to recall a recent post somewhere of someone who had unexpected colours in his stacked images. The “right” images were added into ChannelCombination, however, it turned out that he had interchanged a few filters in his filterwheel or put in the wrong slot numbers in the software.