Add H-alpha to a galaxy using PixInsight (and a mask trick!)

[@PopeAstro]

Thanks!

[@VisibledarkAstro]

Thank you! 😊 appreciate the donation. Cheers.

[@alexanderreinders4009]

Another great and useful Video from Shawn! Thank you so much for sharing!

[@stefanbalzer611]

Thanks for the great tutorial. Using Pixelmath is an elegant and fast way to insert the H-Alpha signal into the RGB. Additionally you have the possibility to adjust the strength of the Ha signal. I like it very much. Thanks a lot, have a nice weekend and clear skies! Greetings Stefan

[@SteveKennedy2902]

Excellent content, and very timely. Thank you!

[@trevorgreen2232]

Thanks again Shawn . Fantastic , easy to follow and helpful as always

[@martinjacobvitz886]

Shawn, Once again a wonderful tutorial. Easy to use and not alot of steps.... Previous method is to create a "Clean Ha" file by removing red from the Ha file then add the Clean Ha to the RGB file and the Clean Ha to the Lum file all done while all files are still Linear

[@3SistersAstroOldAcct-fh3hd]

Straight forward indeed! Nice job!

[@mariospenard5125]

Very nice image details! I will try your processing technique.

[@enriqueboeneker]

Shawn, hey! Great tutorial!! Thanks so much for sharing. I just followed your technique but with the Horsehead-Flame nebulae and I had (to my eyes) an astounding result. Thanks again, my friend!

[@astrodug]

Thanks for this tutorial. I've been shooting M31 over the last couple weeks and have 13 hours of OSC data on it. I took a couple hours of Ha data with the Optolong L-Extreme the other night and was wondering how to combine it with my OSC RGB data. This tutorial, along with your video on Dynamic Alignment did the trick. You rock!

[@robertmartin4445]

Thanks Shawn! Great video as always. I have a 8" RASA and uncooled ASI585MC with UV/IR Cut filter and IDAS NBZ Nebula Booster UHS. I extracted linear red channels from my broadband and narrowband data sets and then isolated the Ha (and likely S2) component using some simple pixel math I found on the Galactic Hunter channel. (Video title: How to Combine Ha with RGB for Galaxies - Easy Tutorial) RGB/K: Ha-Q*(Red-med(Red)), Symbols: Q=0.15. I stretched this isolated 'Ha data' and was then able to easily add it to my stretched starless broadband data using your Ha_RGB_Combine pixel math script. Your videos have been extremely helpful as I continue my climb up the learning curve so once again, thank you!!!

[@AstroDenny]

This was great- I've struggled with this idea since I started shooting mono. I'll be trying this later! Thanks!

[@VisibledarkAstro]

Hope it helps! Thanks for watching. Cheers.

[@dalilama2000]

Great tip about using the Ha image as a mask for the combination. Thanks!

[@VisibledarkAstro]

Works good using it as a mask. Thanks for the comment and watching!

[@ericsmiths]

Thanks Sean. Good timing for galaxy season. Great image too. 👍👍

[@VisibledarkAstro]

Thanks 👍

[@bosseblomqvist2272]

Really helpful, thank you!

[@CaptRescue2]

Spot on once again!

[@VisibledarkAstro]

Thanks! :)

[@astrogirlau]

Ohh I am editing M33 now too and was looking at how to add the Ha data. Samsies! Thanks mate!

[@thepuffybird]

Good technique. I will try this. Just learning and want to add Ha to my galaxy images.

[@VisibledarkAstro]

Wonderful!

[@dpalms24]

I really like your method! Your Pixel Math is much more straight forward and easy to understand. Those formulae should make it much easier to tweak to preference. Good job!

[@jeffballphoto]

Thanks so much Shawn. I don't do much with galaxies. But, I have to image something until the Milky Way comes around. At the Texas Star Party I gathered some Ha to add to my M51 and M101. Your tutorial and pixel math was perfect! Thanks for the help and have a great day!

[@avt_astro206]

Great Tutorial!!

[@xsplendor8075]

Great Tutorial, can you explain how you removed the stars please?

[@janelubenskyi1177]

Thank You Shawn ….will try this on the Whale Galaxy☺️

[@paulwilson8367]

Yippy Hippie, this actually worked for me! Bright pink Ha regions got popped into my M101 after a night of collecting NBZ data and then following this method to add the Ha. Yeah, I decided to just leave the whole NBZ data alone instead of trying to extract the Ha first (not that doing that is difficult) and so far I don't see any issues with that. I worried that the ratios wouldn't work so well shooting at F/2, but it seems ok too. So, for a first try, I am pleased though I need more practice. I did have to not be "starless" because Starnet II removed much of the light and stars in my face on M101 Ha data and the remaining galaxy looked poor for the experience. Don't know why that happened or what to do about it. This resulted in some background red glow. Again I need more practice. Thank you very much for this video.

[@Thunder_Dome45]

Thanks. I'll go back and try this on M33, M51, and M101. I always shoot Ha data on galaxies big enough to see it.

[@walterhaase]

Love the videos! I have one question. How or at what point are you aligning the images?

[@VisibledarkAstro]

Alignment would be done during calibration and stacking using WBPP in Pixinsight. Or you could manually align the rgb and Ha images but this would also be done early on. Before any processing.

[@alandyer910]

Excellent tip! Thank you. That’s a clever trick using the image as a mask to restrict the Ha contribution to just where there are bright Ha emissions. And it looks like you are adding the Ha to both the red channel, boosted somewhat, plus also into the blue channel but subdued a lot, to yield a pinkish contribution from the Ha? If I’m interpreting your Pixel Math script correctly! Cheers!

[@nicolaspuig7261]

Hi, Thanks for this great tutorial. For info against the process does not appear in pixinsight.

[@nicolaspuig7261]

it's ok it appears on my window pix thank you

[@VisibledarkAstro]

Great! Glad you figured it out. Cheers.

[@robertvilla6939]

Great video learned a lot, I was able to download your pixilmath for HA but how do I add it into pixinsight. I keep getting errors. I am a newbie to pixinsight. Thanks

[@arod4314]

Thanks, great. How do you incorporate the Ha-RGB pixelmath into Pix insight? I do not remember in which video you showed this in the past. Thanks again

[@VisibledarkAstro]

Hi! So download the pixelmath icon via the link and unzip. Inside PixInsight right click on the workspace and select "process icons" and then "merge process icons. Select the pixelmath icon that was downloaded and it should appear in workspace 1 in the center of the screen.

[@andynowlen]

Great advice. When I double click the xpsm file PI says it installed it. But now I cant find it even after multiple attempts. Any quick and easy solution for a beginner?

[@paulwilson8367]

What do you do differently for OSC data?

[@bdavis123321]

Shawn - awesome video. This worked perfectly on M33 but I am having issues with M31, primarily due to the core of the galaxy. I’ve also noticed that my background still has a hint of red to it even with the mask in place. Am I doing something wrong? Thanks so much for your incredible and easy to follow tutorials!

[@osamadessouky802]

Very helpful as always Sean. Thanks. How can something similar be done with OSC? Can I take an H Alpha image with my OSC using a 2” H alpha filter? If possible, how would I then pixel map the H alpha image to my RGB image? Thanks

[@ronlundgren4391]

Thank you Shawn. I will give it a try if my southeast Wisconsin skies would give me a freaking break. 🍻🔭

[@VisibledarkAstro]

Good luck! Let me know how it goes. Thanks for watching!

[@ronlundgren4391]

Off topic, I’ve been thinking about a new desktop computer to dedicate to image processing. I found the PixInsight recommended system configuration. May I ask what you use? Did you put one together or buy off the shelf? Do you run with Linux OS? I’m currently using the same HP laptop that I image and run the mount with. Windows 10, 8GB Ram, AMD Ryzen 3 processor. Pretty slow but doesn’t crash so far.

[@BipTunia_Microtonal_Cats]

I did this with good data (12 hours OSC, 4 hours Ha, F/4 Newt in Bortle 2) but got pink instead of red. Any suggestions? Thank you.

[@juangonzalezsanz3840]

Thanks again Shawn for a nice tutorial. I must be doing something wrong because following the steps the final image is sooo red... I have reduced the factor even to less than 1.0 and still the same. On the other hand, if I have O3 image as well may I do the same thing to integrate the O3 signal? I suppose in this case it is G and B what change and leave R untouched...

[@VisibledarkAstro]

Sometimes it requires more masking to strategically place the Ha. Hard for me to know though without seeing the data and situation. There is different pixelmath used that will add Ha and O3 to RGB. I can send you the icon to use but you would need to contact me by email. Cheers.

[@AstroPixUK]

Great video. Just a question, when you crop it how did you ensure each channel was aligned for pixel math to correctly align the pic when you added Ha. Sorry if this is obvious, I’m new to PI.

[@paulwilson8367]

I used Star Alignment, it was very fast and easy.

[@paulwilson8367]

I have 2 nights of OSC and 1 night of Ha. My understanding is, if I don't run them all together in WBBP, they won't come out the same size later and will be "incompatible" images and will not combine. So after the stacking together comes NSG. Is that where I want to split off the OSC from the Ha? I need 1 OSC and 1 Ha image to put together in PixInsight. I know I don't want to tell WBBP to integrate the images. Just register.

[@andynowlen]

Hi, When I try to use the pixelmath included I get this message: *** Error: Illegal metasymbol identifier: iif($T[0]

[@dpalms24]

You left the T out in the true option after the first comma. Should be $T[2] + 0.06*Ha, to add some Ha to blue data. You typed $[2] + 0.06*Ha,

[@wanderingquestions7501]

I’ve also added H-beta

[@paulwilson8367]

The question I asked below is what has happened to me. When I try to put the Ha over my OSC image as a mask, it says "incompatible mask". What makes it incompatible? Did you originally put all the subs including the Ha subs into WBPP together?

[@VisibledarkAstro]

All my images were aligned. Did you align your Ha to the OSC master? If not you will need to. The other thing to consider is cropping. If you cropped the OSC different than the Ha that could cause a problem as well.

[@paulwilson8367]

@@VisibledarkAstro Yes, thank you. It required Star Alignment because my Ha image was a different night and the camera was rotated just slightly off the original light frames. I tried to use StarNet V1 to remove the stars of my Ha (their color is skewed) but it took light out of my center galaxy. Trying today with V2, which apparently got removed with new PI update. Thanks for your superior videos.

[@shaunozs1ra92]

🙏

[@expatca4444]

This guy is capable of converting 2 minutes explanation to a 10 minutos video.

[@standfest_party]

Thanks!

[@bdavis123321]

Shawn - awesome video. This worked perfectly on M33 but I am having issues with M31, primarily due to the core of the galaxy. I’ve also noticed that my background still has a hint of red to it even with the mask in place. Am I doing something wrong? Thanks so much for your incredible and easy to follow tutorials!

[@VisibledarkAstro]

Hmmm requires more input than I can do on here. Can you email me?

[@bdavis123321]

@@VisibledarkAstro sure thing. Thanks Shawn!