Pixinsight and Extracted Stars (SXT with a HNY)

Happy New Year!
This video briefly explains the "issues" surrounding extracting stars from images and how to deal with them. A referential video on this can be useful so that each time the issue arises- you can point here and clear everything up!
In the video I am obviously using StarxTerminator. You can try it out or purchase it from the link below. (Doing so does help me in a small way, this is my only affiliate connection I have.)
BlurXTerminator
www.rc-astro.com/software/bxt...
StarXTerminator
www.rc-astro.com/software/sxt...
NoiseXTerminator
www.rc-astro.com/software/nxt...
00:00 Intro
01:00 Examples from Forums
02:40 Demonstration from Recent Data
03:00 Stars Removed, Linear Images
03:40 AutoSTF is key understanding
05:16 The "Bizarre" Result of AutoSTF
06:30 Using the Original Stretch
07:00 Mini Workflow
07:20 Don't Touch it! (LOL)
08:00 The Permanent Stretch
08:40 Modify the Mid-tones (transfer function)
10:00 Screen Blend the images
12:10 The Other Issue Demo
14:10 Amazing Outro
More at:
AdamBlockStudios.com
See the Reviews:
www.adamblockstudios.com/cate...
Those just starting out in PixInsight will enjoy FastTrack Training!
(Updated to include SPCC, FastIntegration and more!!!)
www.adamblockstudios.com/cate...
(see the video • Introducing FastTrack ... )
#PixInsight #StarXTerminator #Deconvolution #neuralnetworks #NGC1569 #NGC2392 #AdamBlockStudios #happynewyear

[@JonnyBravo0311]

I'm not too proud to admit that even though you said "Happy New Year" right at the beginning of the video, I kept waiting for you to explain this new HNY process you were using on extracted stars with SXT. Yeah. I'm at 11:36 in the video and I _JUST_ now realized what the HNY meant.

[@AdamBlock]

Well...I did not intend it to be clickbait...but cool. LOL

[@sochin33]

LOL-- I did the same thing :)

[@davidrousseau8066]

I was so confused, I did a Google search for "what does HNY mean in PixInsight" :) :) :)

[@MrMrduke1975]

I just want to say thank you! You helped my to my first PI post processed image! The Heart Nebula! Thanks!

[@AdamBlock]

Excellent! Please do consider becoming a member of my site... I can help in many other ways!

[@starsips]

Great video. I got excited when I read "HNY" in the title as I thought it was a new Adam Block & Co Pixinsight script! Haha

[@AdamBlock]

LOL...

[@aerozg]

I had this happen last week, forgot to stretch the stars image. Used a pass of Arcsinh in GHS, and then some GHS itself, followed by some Curves transformation, and the screening them back with Bills Pixel Math scripts, and another version with the new ImageBlend script. It all worked nicely, i saved a bunch of versions and saved the pixinsight project for later.

[@Si-fp2ij]

Hi Adam Hope you have a fantastic 2024 Cheers Simon

[@astrofromhome]

Wow! Your stretch on the starless image is amazing! I would love to see some brief "Dark Nebula Stretch" introduction video as I always fail to properly stretch any dark neblua.

[@AdamBlock]

Members of AdamBlockStudios.com see these kinds of examples. Specifically this one: www.adamblockstudios.com/categories/ngc1333-wf

[@elbass0]

This makes total sense yet I never realized the mechanics behind it. Thanks!

[@miguelmorales9667]

Happy New Year

[@ewa7709]

as usual i admire your brilliant work

[@glentyan2505]

Thank you, another excellent explanation of a confusing issue and of course an extra special Scottish HNY to all.

[@AdamBlock]

Thanks!

[@Jacq_Deepsky-Villa-Karimunjawa]

Happy new year for you as well Adam.

[@mr.d.8121]

And a very happy, and clear, new year to you. Thank you for your content.

[@steveweintraub1113]

HNY Adam, thanks for the insight. This is very helpful!

[@MrPedalpaddle]

Happy New Year, Adam! Thanks for the video

[@jeffweiss2131]

Outstanding explanation Adam, thank you!

[@Aerostar509]

I wonder if someone in NGC1569 is looking back thru a gap in a nebula in their galaxy and saying that the Milky Way Galaxy is just a little nothing galaxy? Thanks for the HNY script!

[@BrokenPik]

thats to funny, but yea!!!

[@darkmatterastro]

Thanks for sharing this info Adam!

[@sathyavenkataraman4061]

Happy New Year Adam and thanks for this video. It really helps.

[@davidstearn1342]

For NB images I use Bill Blanshan’s Merge RGB Stars to NB . I could see using your workflow for Broadbsnd images.

[@deep_space_dave]

I thought to myself, that strange acronym looks familiar then ah Happy New Year Adam! 🙂 Yep when I was a PI noob, I freaked out then realized this was what I call the "Iceberg reveal" effect. So from then on I'd either stretch right away or now that I am really becoming comfortable with PixelMath I just fix it later and abuse $T 😀 Have a great 2024 Adam! Love the outro BTW!

[@fazergazer]

Nice NewYear Video!❤

[@nikivan]

Happy new year!

[@mxquattro]

Happy New Year to you too, Adam!

[@AdamBlock]

Thanks!

[@user-ku4yk4ut4z]

Thanks for the video Adam its always nice to watch your informative content ....I always use abbreviated names for my images like stars STA and say the Horse Head as HOR and then use STA+HOR in Pix Math saves the typing out complicated names for combining

[@atafaghihimohaddess7682]

Thank you very much Adam, Happy new year

[@AdamBlock]

Happy New Year!

[@SunJao]

Thank you for the informative tips! I also like the AI generated picture of "man extracting stars from the earth".🎨

[@AdamBlock]

I thought it was a clever idea..and DALL-e delivered!

[@gomanastro]

Thanks Adam! great job on this video and explanation. HNY to you as well.

[@FAstroHD]

Happy New Year mate, thanks for another great video.

[@AdamBlock]

Thank you!

[@_ethereal_astro]

Fantastic vid Adam. This was perfect. I’m getting back in imaging after almost a year out and this is the exact issue I ran into. I’ll have to get back onto to your site for some refreshers. HNY to you too.🎉

[@AdamBlock]

FastTrack Training and Workflow videos in Fundamentals have been updated as well as many other new videos. Quite a bit has happened in a year...but all of the information is there on my site.

[@ekalbkr]

Yes, Happy New Year! And your presentation has helped my new year start off with a big bang - no, not THAT big bang, but close enough. Still something of a Pixinsight noob, I have been puzzled over the holidays by this same issue with 7 hours of integration of M45. I created the same ghastly star images you described using the same faulty logic you demonstrated. I really appreciate your explanation of how STF works to do a linear stretch and why it fails on star only images. Those why's are the truth gems in your presentations. A little kernel of truth makes it so much easier to understand. Thanks!

[@jesusbilbao]

Thanks Adam and Happy New Year to you as well. Although I had figured out the cause of why some of my star images were looking the way they were, your explanation as to the “whys” of STF certainly sheds new light on the issue (no pun intended). I certainly need to get back to the Fundamentals course which I purchased at Adam Studios a few weeks ago and abandoned due to personal issues. Your teaching ability is certainly unique. Thanks again.

[@YTMegiddo]

Ok, the extracted star background is 0, that explains things…. Thanks!

[@stephen2615]

Bravo!!

[@old_photons]

Adam Block, now coming to us in 4K!! This is new right? Just seemed to notice this in this issue, perhaps it came earlier and I missed it. Happy New Year - looking forward to all the new content here and on ABS.

[@AdamBlock]

Yes, I am recording from my large monitor. Large recordings... but hopefully this helps with the quality of the recordings.

[@terrizittritsch745]

Nice video Adam on sharing what’s going on when you extract linear stars. It took me a while to noodle on what’s going on the first time I saw this (pre starxterminator). There are many variations on processing stars and background separately and might be worth a whole video if you haven’t already (i am trying to catchup on your videos these cloudy Vermont months). Things like processing stars and background in linear mode and when to bring them back together and why. Is it best to combine linearly and then stretch together vs. process separately right through stretching and combine them non-linear forms and the differences in how these recombinations are done and why. Happy New Year!

[@Spaced_Out_Bill]

Happy new year Adam! Thank you for this video, it answers a lot of questions I didn't know i had yet. I just installed Star X Terminator, It is amazing. Is there ever a situation when one should use it on a non-linear image? That is how I've been using it just playing around.😀

[@AdamBlock]

There are reasons to use it in both cases. I demonstrate on my site at AdamBlockStudios.com

[@arnsteindale5531]

Thanks for the walktrough regarding the star image. I have a question. Why not use the GHS on this purpose?

[@AdamBlock]

You could. You can use any stretching means you like. (That wasn't the point, this issue is understanding the distinction between a linear stars-only image and a stretched one- no matter how you stretched it). I explain in greater detail in my course called Stretch Academy: www.adamblockstudios.com/categories/stretch-academy

[@ibnulhussaini3791]

Hi Adam, I've been having a bit of trouble with losing some detail in the nebulosity after running SXT on my NB images. Atm, I've been manually clone stamping out everything from the stars only image except the lost detail to add it back in. Is there a more accurate & efficient way to add the lost detail back? I intend to add RGB stars to my NB data at a later stage.

[@dbkokinda]

Thanks for explaining. I'm fairly new to PI, but made it past the unstretched stars obstacle, somehow ending up at the process of turning off the STF and using an Arcsin stretch of the GHS process on the linear stars until I get them the level I want. Is there an advantage to using the STF midtone slider method you illustrate here over an Arcsin stretch? And oh, Happy New Year to you as well!

[@AdamBlock]

No particular advantage. However, Arcsin stretch can get you into some trouble with star colors and weird halo results... something to be wary of.

[@dbkokinda]

@@AdamBlock Good to know. Thank you for taking the time to respond.

[@lardo2]

Thanks for the video. I'm learning a lot from your FastTrack course. Wondering if doing the HistogramTransformation using STF's auto stretch setting before doing StarXTerminator would simplify things. Then do whatever additional stretching on the starless image before recombining. Or maybe I should just ask; do you recommend using StarXTerminator in the linear or non-linear domain?

[@AdamBlock]

Doing HT (permanently stretching the image) before SXT does not allow you to independently stretch the two images (starless and stars only). Technically, given your proposal, you can do a "reverse stretch" on the stars-only image. But you think this simplifies things? Bill B thinks so... but this requires a script to perform the operation.

[@lardo2]

@@AdamBlock Thanks for your response. I probably got the idea of doing HT before SXT from one of Bill B’s videos. I’m still in the learning process and haven’t yet started your stretching tutorials…

[@AdamBlock]

@@lardo2 OK. There is some good stuff in those videos. :)

[@michaelthunquest3341]

Hi Adam, what is the syntax of your Pixelmath ‘combine’ operation? Is that better than a + b after gently stretching the stars with HT?

[@AdamBlock]

the combine statement using screening. Screen blending is multiplicative and different than addition. You use screen blending on non-linear images. Addition is for linear images. I explain this in many tutorials on my site!

[@davidrousseau8066]

Does the operations "combine(X,Y,op_screen())" and "X+Y" give identical results or is it best to use the "combine" operation in Pixelmath? Thank you!

[@AdamBlock]

No, screen is multiplicative . When values are small, it can approximate the results of addition- but they are different operations.

[@bronco_fv]

So far I’ve been using SXT right after the stretch and checked “un-screen stars”. Russel suggests to use sxt as soon as possible, preferably right after integration. In that case, how about SPCC and BXT?

[@AdamBlock]

Become a member of my site and find all of the answers to these kinds of questions!

[@bronco_fv]

@@AdamBlock well, I working my way through Fundamentals right now. It’s so much 😀

[@AdamBlock]

@@bronco_fv Ok... then I will be specific. The answer is in both my Worklow videos on NGC 1491 and NGC 1333 in Fundamentals.

[@Steve_The_Ignorant_Astronomer]

Go info Adam , question , what is the best way to learn Pixel Math ??? Thx

[@AdamBlock]

Become a member of my site- watch my videos. AdamBlockStudios.com (you asked!)

[@caviestcaveman8691]

Hiya Happy New Year! I was looking to finally sign up for your studio but i cant seem to find the sign up tab its only a login could you plz help

[@AdamBlock]

The "Buy Now" and "Access Videos Now" both lead to the payment page: www.adamblockstudios.com/subscribe Thanks!

[@caviestcaveman8691]

@AdamBlock okay so when I buy it thats when my account is made and can login gotcha I was just a little confused cause normally you could still make an account but not purchase yet on some websites you know? But awesome can't wait to be learning!

[@AdamBlock]

@@caviestcaveman8691 RIght... on my site you can see all of the content titles and subject matter (so you know the amount of stuff you are getting) as public pages...but you need to purchase access to watch the actual videos themselves.

[@keithhanssen7413]

What’s the advantage of using STF?

[@AdamBlock]

I am not certain I understand the question. You use this tool to visualize linear images.

[@keithhanssen7413]

@@AdamBlock is it essentially the same as using the Histogram Transformation Tool? Just quicker? Sorry, I should probably read about it first. My apologies!

[@AdamBlock]

@@keithhanssen7413 See these videos: kzbin.info/aero/PLAzMa9eIVQkAj9urQ7SJJmlCPgPnNokP_ Then purchase my FastTrack Training course from AdamBlockStudios.com :)

[@keithhanssen7413]

@@AdamBlock thank you, Sir!

[@davidstearn1342]

Thanks for the video Adam. For OSC NB images I have been using Bill Blanshan’s Narrowband Normalization process and then using his Merge RGB stars to NB script. I can see using this workflow for Broadband targets.