BlurXterminator for PixInsight - what you didn't know?

In this video I interview Russell Croman the developer of BlurXterminator (and NoiseXterminator as well as StarXterminator). We take a deep dive into what BlurXterminator is, how it works, is it fake and how best to incorporate it into your PixInsight workflow.
You can purchase BlurXterminator here bit.ly/3FXxCtz
NoiseXterminator bit.ly/3IudEIs
StarXterminator bit.ly/3Cg4YBz
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Thanks for watching! Clear skies!

[@VisibledarkAstro]

Did you find this video helpful? Feel free to show your appreciation with a tip! paypal.me/visibledark

[@LLA2008]

Hey Russ Here's a suggestion.... How about CloudXterminator!

[@dadwhitsett]

Haha. I will pay for that (cheaper than a road trip I hope).

[@lukomatico]

Superb interview Shawn, respect to both you and Russell! Clear skies buddy :-)

[@jimwaters304]

Thanks Shawn for arranging the interview with Russ. I was very helpful, addressed some key concerns and explained how to best use the tool.

[@mikeschi9551]

Great interview Shaun. Incredible application and great information Russ - I learned a ton!

[@AstroSoundscape]

Thanks for this Shawn great conversation to listen to.

[@tompeter5001]

Hey Shawn! Great informative interview with Russ I especially liked his differentiation of deconvolution vs sharpening.

[@billblanshan3021]

Great job Shawn and Russ! I can't wait to see what Russ has in store for us next 😎

[@VisibledarkAstro]

Indeed! 😉

[@carolsantulis1990]

Thanks Shawn. Russel is such a great concise speaker. Very informative to hear these things directly from him.

[@thewarhenk]

Great interview, Shawn, and great responses by Russ!

[@davidf9494]

Another excellent video Shawn! I've asked myself the same question regarding the order of BlurXterminator, NoiseXterminator, StarXterminator, etc. and that was answered, in detailed very well. The explanation of PSF and differences to sharpening was excellent and I will try your idea of a preview before doing PSF Imager to obtain a FWHM. Clear skies!

[@alandyer910]

Great interview! Very informative and well done.

[@patrickbisaillon307]

Very interesting that you two went through the options of the user interface, thank you for that.

[@astrotimetraveller4622]

Great insights Shawn, thanks for doing, clear skies Ian

[@johnshu5331]

Aloha Shawn and Russ, great interview and info on BXT. Yes, I took notes :) Fingers crossed that it will run on my pc! thanks

[@gregerianne3880]

This was incredibly enlightening! Thanks so much, Shawn.

[@krisn7819]

Thanks a lot Shawn, great as always! 👍

[@TyroTim2000]

Awesome. Thank you. This answers most of my questions about BlurXterminator. Well done.

[@TheMje1963]

Thanks Shawn, I'm always learning something new with your vid's

[@elithic]

Fabulous job, Shawn! I learned a lot!

[@gregmckay666]

Awesome interview Shawn. Lots of BXT questions answered there. Thanks!

[@aaronden]

Thank you - quite valuable discussion around manually finding the optimal PSF 👍

[@tomhoskins4913]

Thanks! Outstanding video. I am at this just over a year using PS exclusively. Thanks to your videos and blur exterminator I am going to move over to Pixinsight. I have all of RC s products on PS.

[@VisibledarkAstro]

Thanks for the support Tom. Much appreciated.

[@escepg]

Excellent video! Nice work in this. I learned a ton.

[@alexbeck6414]

Shawn, this is awesome. Russ is crazy smart and your ability to take his detailed explanations and apply them to users like myself is wonderful. Keep doing what you’re doing, it is so appreciated. Clear skies.

[@robb7342]

Thanks for putting this together Shawn.

[@SkyShedPODTeam]

Great stuff Shawn and Russ, thx!

[@AstroQuest1]

Good discussion, I had no idea what the difference was between Deconvolution and Sharpening was until now. Also to get the PSF value I am currently using a method described by Cuiv where you use the image analysis function. Cheers Kurt

[@ioan_astro]

Russell is amazing:) his suite of tools is pretty incredible:). Great video Shaun :)

[@Katieyhughes]

Really enjoyed this video Shawn. I love and use all RC’s tools.

[@omghamdiable]

Thanks a lot Shawn, great interview, seems I’m gonna reprocess some of my images using this great tool.👍🏼

[@DSOImager]

Good interview. Thanks for this. :)

[@patrickbisaillon307]

@VisibleDark, following instructions provided in this video, once I have selected say 7 stars to calculate the PSF diameter and got the average of the 7 stars FWHMx (2.24px) and FWHMy (2.18px), should I set the PSF diameter to the average of 2.24 and 2.18, i.e.: 2.21 ? Thanks in advance.

[@mohammadnowroozi7940]

Russ is my very first inspiration when I was start astrophotography about 15 years ago.after a long time of no activity I am glad he started shooting deepsky again.

[@shaunozs1ra92]

Awesome thanks

[@greglight5808]

Im not a pixinsight user but this was very interesting and informative thanks shawn

[@andyhook1673]

Wow…. Just hats off to Russ

[@DaveAstro]

Hello Shawn, good discussion with Russel to better understand BlurXTerminator. During testing, I have measured a reduction of the star FWHM also when sharpen stellar is set to zero (2.05 in original image going to 1.78). Do you also have seen that effect on your images?

[@VisibledarkAstro]

Haven't seen this but will keep an eye out for it. Cheers.

[@waynearnoldCanada]

when you add your HA data to your RGB will this reverse any of the impact of BlurXT to the non stellar parts of the image that were just improved with BlurXT? If so, should you also run BlurXT to the non stellar parts of your HA data? I always remove the stars from HA and I don't use them when combining so stellar parts of image are not impacted. Great video and great questions Shawn, made if very easy to understand.

[@VisibledarkAstro]

Hey Wayne. You'll want apply BXT to both the RGB and Ha and then combine them. That will provide the best results.

[@travelanddrones]

Hi and thks for the video. I feel a bit frustrated after applying NXT on different linear astrophotos, I always get lots of extra noise and weird artifacts. I've tried using the default parameters and I've also tried different parameters, but the result is always the same. I mean, I see the stars on my images get pinpoint ones, and in some cases, some areas of my nebula photos get a bit better (more details and structure), but the noise is more than the original photo. I have only applied ABE or DBE to my images, with even no color correction, but I cannot get ridículo of that noise. Could you help me please? Any suggestions/ideas? Parameters to try? Thks in advance

[@MarcelBlattner]

Very nice. Regarding the neural network training. Is there any information about the training data? It is one thing to talk about how you train the model but more importantly is how your training and test dataset is composed. Is there any infos about that?

[@VisibledarkAstro]

I can't answer this. Russ sometimes pops into the comments here maybe he can answer this if he sees it.

[@LLA2008]

Hey Shawn When Russell stated that he used DynamicPSF for his FWHM values it got a little shall we say, convoluted... Could you possibly do a short video on how exactly DynamicPSF is used in conjunction with BXT? Thanks

[@VisibledarkAstro]

The easiest way to do it is make a preview center of image. Use PSFimage script and it will give you x and y FWHM values. Just take the average of two values and use that as your starting PSF. Will get you in the zone.

[@LLA2008]

That's what I thought. Thanks for confirming...

[@rodrigogutierrez2882]

I do not get good star reduction, halo management or even small trailing correction using a RASA. It seems the process only makes a HDR MST. With a refractor works well.

[@jackbernstein3029]

Most important: order of operation!!!

[@DamianVines]

Great topic thank you. I have to say though, production wise, you really should turn off the autofocus feature on you camera... that constant focus hunting (focus breathing) of your image is really distracting. Great stuff though thank you :)

[@VisibledarkAstro]

Thanks. Ya I can't disable the autofocus unfortunately on the cam. I am looking at other options though.