A New Approach for Narrowband Processing in PixInsight

[@normanhey8016]

After watching this a couple of times now, and Paulyman Astro's review/tutorial on the "Adam Block Method", I must say I am impressed by a couple of things. One, your creativity combined with precise, careful manipulation of data, and the simplification of this by using some of the scripts now available to achieve these ends. I know you have worked with Mike Cranfield to develop some of these scripts. Mike's scripts are impressive in their own right, and he deserves more credit than I think he gets from the PI community. Thank you for making these kinds of videos available to the a-p community at large. As seen in a pinned comment, you are helping to make PI much less intimidating and far more "fun" and productive by putting this kind of content out there. Making me think seriously about investing the time needed to work through your paid content! It's not the cost, it's the time I'll spend in front of the monitor that has me daunted-- I already sit here 'way too long into the night!

[@AdamBlock]

Thanks Norman!

[@davidkennedy3050]

Adam, if you keep doing videos like this, novice imagers might actually start to think PixInsight is not that hard.

[@AdamBlock]

*smile* Quite a compliment

[@DreBo99]

By now, we should not be surprised to receive such high-level tutorials (or should I call them masterclasses) from you. The resulting images are outstanding in many respects. With that final result of the Rosette Nebula, you still blew me away. EPIC!!! Thank you Adam!

[@franckjobard1285]

Very impressive result with a well mastered technique! Adam, you permit to our community to take advantage of our images and create beautifull ones.

[@astrojet9484]

Well done sir,this is certainly the best NB version of rosset I've seen as a middle school student.

[@ianspector1357]

Truly outstanding, I will watch the new Fundamentals unit today and reprocess some data. It is worth mentioning the sheer joy in general of working with good quality data with enough integration time.

[@Lacquerhead-TX]

NB is one of the disciplines that I've struggled with. Thanks Adam! Glad I subscribe to your content both here and on your website!

[@AdamBlock]

Thanks! I really am trying to make it easier!

[@gooe9561]

I appreciate your thoroughness. Great video as always.

[@AdamBlock]

Thanks!

[@nikaxstrophotography]

Just watched it and wow well done Adam, succinct and straight workflow with just the right amount of information to make this a breeze to follow. I will try this technique soon

[@simonpepper5053]

Incredible Adam that’s the best image of the Rosette I have seen great composition and you have processed that perfectly will be trying this never knew you could colourise individual channels! Ps I love your presentation skills keep the detail it’s what makes you the best!

[@georgiberle1227]

I just can say: WOW, so amazing!

[@Astro-gom]

Thanks for the video Adam. I actually just subscribed to your Horizons collection and super happy with it. Learning a lot and feeling like I am making strides with my images.

[@AdamBlock]

I appreciate your feedback...thanks!

[@nikostriantopoulos9900]

Thanks Adam. It's amazing !

[@danjensen9425]

Thank you , posted the information for Shasta county to check our votes and your video shared. Thank you.

[@robertlowenthal689]

Adam, this is a game changer! Thank you!!!

[@AdamBlock]

Thanks!

[@BGoff]

Great video Adam. Thank you for sharing this.

[@himalaYAK1983]

Incredible image, nice tutorial. I wish I had the means to jump into narrowband right away. Subscribed for when I finally do.

[@IcedReaver]

Great presentation Adam, thanks for sharing. I recently acquired some 20hrs of SHO data on the Heart Nebula so I'm looking forward to trying this approach to see how it compares!

[@LogansAstro]

This technique will come in very handy, especially for those instances when the SII has such gorgeous detail of it's own but often gets swamped by the brighter Ha in a typical SHO combination. Thanks for sharing.

[@AdamBlock]

Thanks for diving in ...

[@MrFlyer201]

Adam, Congratulations! Bravo to you for this outstanding method. I'm a subscriber to Fundamentals and Horizons and I accidentally saw this new posting and very glad I did. I just "completed" my first NB SHO image, M16 with 50 hours of data. I think I will try to redo it trying this method which I'm sure will make for a most interesting comparison. Your videos have the perfect amount of words by the way! Thanks again!!

[@AdamBlock]

Thank you!

[@gspinin]

Super effective tutorial; thank you.

[@AdamBlock]

thanks

[@gregpierens1882]

Thanks Adam. Had a a go using it on a small dataset which I acquired with SHO filters. I was unhappy with my conventional processing but with this one you just showed it looks good! Thanks

[@AlejandroMontiel]

Love the video, super high-quality content as always. You could have made the links for the repositories plain text on the website to just copy and paste them to avoid mistakes

[@pksacoma]

Super 🎉 and thanks for sharing

[@ChucksAstrophotography]

Excellent!

[@seanmasten8187]

Beautiful Adam. You're a wizard.

[@AdamBlock]

Thansk! (Mischief managed...)

[@undersouthernskies519]

Adam, this is exactly what I have been wanting to do for a really long time. My Sulphur data is usually the poorest of my three channels, and being able to give it prominence like this (and avoid so much "green management") might just solve that particular struggle for me. Thanks a lot 🙏

[@AdamBlock]

Thanks for the feedback!

[@haiderbhogadia4829]

Absolutely fantastic! Many thanks Adam

[@AdamBlock]

Thanks.

[@BEC0MM]

Very interesting methodology, thanks for sharing :)

[@AdamBlock]

Thank you for watching...

[@thomasrider5852]

This is mind blowing! Thank you Adam

[@AdamBlock]

Thanks!

[@thomasrider5852]

@@AdamBlockSo Ive watched this a few times now trying to really soak it in, what I keep coming back to is I really like the music, what is it lol

[@AdamBlock]

@@thomasrider5852 LOL. I didn't credit them... I guess I should. There are three bits of music. I have a collection of royalty free music that I use. I would have to look back and see the exact artists/titles.

[@paulmacias6802]

This looks fun!

[@AdamBlock]

I am serious... it is. I look forward to getting to this part of the workflow...that is how you know it is "fun"

[@JonnyBravo0311]

Now I'm going to have to revisit some of my SHO data to create new versions of images. I'm also going to try something like this to blend Ha into an LRGB image. Just so happens I'm about 24 hours into LRGB+Ha data collection of SH2-86. Was pretty happy with the image I created earlier, but this brings an entirely new way to approach it. Thanks for showing this, Adam!

[@AdamBlock]

Thanks for watching!

[@naztronaut]

Amazing result, Adam! Also kudos to Russ Croman for the crisp data. I'm going to try to follow this with my OSC Narrowband Data. Clear skies!

[@AdamBlock]

Great!

[@Mr86Toni]

Is it possible with OSC?

[@AdamBlock]

@@Mr86Toni Yes. People who use the multiple Dual Band filters of Ha/OIII and SII/OIII can extract the Ha, OIII, and SII data...then then proceed with my demonstration. You do need three bands of course for this particular process.

[@Mr86Toni]

@AdamBlock oook thanks 😊

[@DSOImager]

Wow! I shall give this a try. One thing though.. I happen to like a little green in my NB images.. I like using it as a transition color between the Yellows and Blues. Will be interesting to see if I can introduce a little with this method.

[@AdamBlock]

I dislike mapping green from a red band. bleh

[@zaphus]

That is a really interesting approach - I do prefer this look to the SHO palette, but I always feel that HOO is missing something when there is Sii to be captured - so can't wait to give it a try!

[@AdamBlock]

Excellent! But just consider..this approach could be used for SOO and then the Ha becomes the colorized image to be blended in...

[@zaphus]

@@AdamBlock Mind blown!

[@kevinburke8608]

I really like this, I was creating images with Ha in red before so liked this look for awhile now. How do we show you our images? I’m in the fundamentals and planning on horizons eventually. Most likely sooner than later since I have 30 hrs on the Elephant Trunk and about to process.

[@AdamBlock]

Just use any social media and tag me in the appropriate way for that tool (FB, IG, CloudyNights...etc etc)

[@theastrollnaut]

not a huge fan of Narrowband editing, but damn I need to try it. Looks fantastic and like an easy workflow to follow along

[@AdamBlock]

Thanks. This is the idea... I didn't like what saw many people doing as well. It was a lot of manipulation to get to a point. I think this is an easier and more flexible path.

[@dgasparotto]

Excellent video learned a ton. I would have incorporated more stars and bring out the background just a little more.

[@jratino]

Adam, I started the NB Fastrack recently, haven't got through them all yet. But had to watch this one as I was very intrigued. Question: is the NB Color Mapping script an add on? Thanks

[@AdamBlock]

It is indeed a third party script that I collaborated with Mike Cranfield on. Please search the videos on my KZbin site and you will find I have several that cover this topic.

[@jeffratino5456]

@@AdamBlock OK Thanks

[@jeffratino5456]

@@AdamBlock Turns out I have it installed on my laptop, but not my PC that I recently built.

[@jeffratino5456]

@@AdamBlock Question: Once I apply the Colourmap, why is my image stretched?

[@AdamBlock]

@@jeffratino5456 Sorry... I am not certain I understand. NBColourMapper will work with either linear or non-linear images. It does not stretch anything (unless you mess around with the histogram feature). In my video, I am working with a stretched image. I stretch the SII before colorizing it. BUT... if you use NBColorMapper to create an image from many layers...the brightness values can add up... kind of like stretching. This is would be something to avoid. I am not showing anything along these lines in this video. Finally.. .because now I am just guessing... remember, in ColorMapper you should turn OFF the STF display if your image is already stretched. Maybe it is this last thing.

[@Arcteek]

Fascinating thank you

[@AdamBlock]

Thank you Mr. Spock!

[@Skyman82]

Great video. The only thing I wished you did more of was go through steps geared for One Shot Colored Cameras. I think the majority of amateur astrophotographers use a OSC.

[@AdamBlock]

I always include OSC in my tutorials. NB FastTrack is no exception. This technique applies to both (once you have the extracted Ha, OIII and SII). I demonstrate this in my videos. I also believe that OSC is only superficially different than mono... once you have the right data.

[@ramprasadprabup6025]

Love it!!!

[@AdamBlock]

Good... get the course (if you are no already a member)! :) thanks...

[@MrGeert1972]

All the scripts u used are native to the latest version of PixInsight? Or do I need some new repositories? The end result is jut Whooow 😯

[@AdamBlock]

Not native. If you follow the link to my NB FastTrack course you will see the list of the scripts and respositories that are used. It is a public link you can click on.

[@MrGeert1972]

@@AdamBlock thx I will take a look at it

[@kuendla2453]

I'm just wondering if Spaghetti Nebula weak O3 signal can boosted similar way? Great video BTW...

[@AdamBlock]

Yes... you see. A new method provides a new way of thinking about solving problems. This is what I hope makes my content and instructional videos useful. :)

[@chriskagy6143]

Adam, at 2:30 you remark that the O3 is significantly bright that you won't need to make it any brighter. If it weren't significantly bright, or if it were lower contrast (say it were shot under more light pollute skies), how would you have addressed that?

[@AdamBlock]

Buy my course... NB FastTrack? lol The quick answer is linear fit or NB normalization (or both).

[@chriskagy6143]

@@AdamBlock lol! I knew what part of your answer would be! Thanks, and we all appreciate you showcasing these new techniques.

[@Infinity_Focus]

Thanks for another very interesting tutorial. I just started watching and I asked myself: Why are you starting with a starless image, instead of starting with BXT and then applying SXT. This way you could also use the automatic PSF detection. So where is the advantage?! Thanks a lot!

[@AdamBlock]

Stars of narrowband images are really not a good reference to use if I want to apply BXT equally to each of the bands. In addition and more importantly I want to apply BXT *after* I have applied Linear Fit. This changes the values within the weaker bands and will give different answers. To understand why it is important to do this in my details... get my masterclass. I don't process without explaining- and I address you exact question in my course.

[@Infinity_Focus]

Thanks a lot@@AdamBlock . I just thought that BXT does a PSF estimation bases on stars rather than on background. If you apply BXT using PSF parameters, it will probably only do an isoplanatic deconvolution. This might not be a good way for everyone, especially when you have lower performance in the corners. But I might be wrong.

[@AdamBlock]

@@Infinity_Focus It is true you will not be taking advantage of the aberration correction. You can then do a two step BXT - with just correction on the images with stars first. You are not wrong... but you are not necessarily optimal either.

[@plofstof]

I have a question. My understanding was that NarrowbandNormalization should only be applied to non-linear images? Perhaps I am wrong? But here I see you applying it prior to the stretch. In any event, thank you for amazing content. I am busy with the NB Fast Track videos as we speak.

[@AdamBlock]

It can be used in either domain. You should NOT use that lightness feature though if you are linear. lol (If you are a member of my new course... you will understand this comment)

[@oakleywindowcleaning]

Nice, thanks.

[@AdamBlock]

Thank you

[@haley25joel]

Hi Adam, thanks for the video. I would like to ask if this method can also be used if I used the ultimate filter on a color camera. How can I proceed in this case? Thank you very much Adam.

[@AdamBlock]

So many variations and permutations right? The Ultimate is a DUAL band (two color) filter. This technique uses THREE bands (colors). In my course I show how to process DUAL band OSC data as well.

[@haley25joel]

@@AdamBlock Thank you so much Adam, Can you kindly tell me the name of the course?

[@AdamBlock]

@@haley25joel Please see the description below the video for a link. It is Narrowband FastTrack.

[@anata5127]

Is this a Hubble palette or modified HSO image? Is it applicable for any narrowband image or only with strong Sii and Oiii? Thanks

[@AdamBlock]

It is applicable for any narrowband image that has three significant colors. Some objects are just Ha and OIII...so nothing more to do. This is something like an HSO in this particular case. However, if you start with an SOO base image.. you can make a SHO like result.

[@anata5127]

@@AdamBlock Thanks.

[@Jcastleinfo]

Is this what you are calling the Gilding Method in the NB FastTrack series?

[@AdamBlock]

Yeah... I did not come up with a better name. That is probably a terrible name. lol

[@Jcastleinfo]

@@AdamBlock meh, it makes sense for Sii like this. Now I have to go back and finish watching that series after this preview :)

[@baz_astra]

What scope was that image shot with btw?

[@AdamBlock]

FSQ

[@sheberly]

Do you have any tutorials covering subpar data? I can't get past the 3rd step because I have horrible background gradient from light pollution and moon. All the tutorials I see are working with nearly flawless data in comparison to me so its very difficult to follow.

[@AdamBlock]

Yes. Many of my examples come directly from members. But guess what... when I use crappy data people don't like to watch because they do not have the exact same problem. You want to watch someone solve *your* problem... but are you willing to watch videos that show how to solve *other people's problems*??

[@sheberly]

@@AdamBlock Absolutely, every single video I watch is fixing issues I don't have. I still watch the video to learn. I find the videos with more cleanup involved to be more interesting myself, not sure why others don't. When you've got incredible data to work with in the first place your just polishing a piece of art. I'd rather watch people turn trash into art. Bought the first course from you because I haven't used PI since 1.4 and everything is foreign to me again here 6 years later. Will do Horizons after I get thru this and hopefully come across more "less then perfect" workflow examples.

[@AdamBlock]

@@sheberly An example of a "less than perfect" is the M51 example. I really got a lot of criticism for publishing it. You are in the minority. Here is the link to it in Fundamentals: www.adamblockstudios.com/categories/m51-courtesy-josep-drudis However it is old enough that processes like "MURE Denoise" and Deconvolution have been replaced with BXT/NXT .

[@jonathanritter7364]

So if im using a dual narrowband that only uses ha and oiii, how do i obtain the sii to use in my project?

[@AdamBlock]

Yeah, this requires three bands. With only two mapped colors (that do not typically overlap ) adding a third isn't possible. You can however still use NB ColourMapper to colorize and ImageBlend to put together in creative ways. I show this in my course under HOO examples.

[@kmh032008]

Finally photoshop-like controls in pixinsight

[@kertahoon7328]

diferent spectroscopy means duferent timing... nanotiming means freetime astronomy for universe mappers

[@charliemiller3884]

What I need is a set of Pixel Math formulae that can create synthetic SHO frames from OSC narrow band data.

[@AdamBlock]

But you don't If you join my course you will see how to use the DBXtract script and get this in one button press. Don't you agree that is easier?

[@MatthewHolevinski]

Those poor stars didn't get much love 😢

[@AdamBlock]

They got as much as necessary. lol

[@nikaxstrophotography]

Please don't make it too wordy, love your videos but sometimes I get lost in the detail.

[@mjfrascaroli]

The same happens to me, they are technically rich but hard to follow

[@AdamBlock]

@@mjfrascaroli Well... was it? You watched?

[@AdamBlock]

Well, was it ?

[@jamesmorse7867]

Keep the detail!!!

[@stephenames09]

Keep the details.😊

[@jonathanritter7364]

This shit looks confusing for the noobs

[@AdamBlock]

I don't think so. The typical workflow is much more confusing, more variable, and often less rewarding. Don't take my word for it...

[@jonathanritter7364]

@AdamBlock maybe it's just cause I'm not familiar with any of it. I'll give it a go. Can this be done using a OSC? My dual narrowband filter only allowed Ha and oii. Can i use this technique without having a sulfur channel?

[@AdamBlock]

@@jonathanritter7364 This particular technique is for three bands. You can use the technique with OSC... but three colors.