STEP BY STEP Howto with Data - Free Software - INCREDIBLE results from Tokyo & Data Provided!

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

My Patreon: www.patreon.com/cuivlazygeek My Merch Store: cuiv.myspreadshop.com/ Data: tinyurl.com/mna7vr2w (Note that I had forgotten to collimate my scope after messing with the primary, thus the poor star shapes) GraXpert: www.graxpert.com/ To note: it seems it's better to use AI v2.0.0 than v3.0.0 for most people! Siril: siril.org/ Note: if you have trouble with the plate solving during photometric calibration, just upload your image to nova.astrometry.net first! Gimp: www.gimp.org/ Equipment used for this picture: WarpAstron WD-20 Mount: bit.ly/3wxNbGI Apertura CarbonStar with coma corrector: bit.ly/3W7ZFiA SW Quattro 150P Budget Newt: bit.ly/3BABCxl TOUPTEK IMX571 APS-C Cooled camera: tinyurl.com/mr2yhvcw ZWO 2600MC Duo: bit.ly/3Jti7KQ (HPS) or bit.ly/3M8IkPS (Agena) or tinyurl.com/2227k637 (FLO) Amazon affiliate: amzn.to/49XTx01 Agena affiliate: bit.ly/3Om0hNG High Point Scientific affiliate: bit.ly/3lReu8R First Light Optics affiliate: tinyurl.com/yxd2jkr2 All-Star Telescope affiliate: bit.ly/3SCgVbV Astroshop.eu Affiliate: tinyurl.com/2vafkax8

[@fazergazer]

Pareto Principle: 20% effort for 80% result. Cuiv Principle: 10% effort for 95% result!❤

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Hey it doesn't hurt to be efficient haha

[@stewh8585]

Another brilliant video Cuiv. Being a pensioner I don't have the money to splash out on expensive paid software but this video has opened up great potential for processing my images. When we get some clear skies here in the UK. Thank you so much for putting out your knowledge and expertise on KZbin so that we lowly beginners can produce images of the amazing vista above our heads. BTW tonight's forecast - cloudy!😢

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

This is the kind of comment that keeps me going, thank you so much! Great I can help like that and I hope you do get some clear skies at some point in the UK! :)

[@woody5109]

I’m in the same boat but love the hobby. Spending over $2k every three weeks for my wife’s cancer drugs, no money for software so this is great, thank you sir 🙏

[@DeepSpaceAstro]

Hey Cuiv. Regarding the name, this is from the devs, "Siril is meant to be Iris for Linux (sirI-L)"

[@TheCleggers]

Good to know I’m as lazy as Cuiv, however as others have commented, I remove the stars before stretching. And it’s hats off to all those developers who bring us such brilliant software.

[@azzaqmb]

I found if you do starnet star removal before stretch and use pre_strectch linear image and upsample x2 you don't get the nastys. You do need to remove green noise before you do this or you have to open up the star mask and remove green noise on it as then save or your stars will still have it and the background won't

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Oh wow! Thanks for the tip, this makes a lot of sense!

[@Astroduck44]

For the halos when using starnett in Siril If you use starnett++ while in linear form and select the pre stretch option it will stretch it only for removing the stars then it will go back to linear after it’s done. For me it lowers the halos in the starless image, but If that still doesn’t work just ignore the halos, if there aren’t a lot it won’t affect the image at all unless you overstretched it.

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Thanks so much for this! Seems this is the way to go - I'm too used to SXT, which kind of doesn't care...!

[@claude5891]

I would really like to see your workflow for the Pixinsight version. Frankly, I wasn't expecting the result to be so much better than your Graxpert/Siril/GIMP version. Also, do you have an opinion on using Pixinsight with a Seestar S50? Is that software too good for the data produced by a Seestar, ie. garbage in, garbage out? I'm not knocking the Seestar, I own one and I love it, but I am interested in getting the best result possible from its data. It would be very interesting to me for you to compare Pixinsight with the Graxpert/Siril/GIMP trio using a Seestar. Thanks for your fantastic content!

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

I've used PI with Seestar data, and you can get quite good results!

[@luboinchina3013]

Gimp's most powerful tool is in Enhace - Wavelet decomposition. Chose the max - 7 layers and then work with each layer separately. What I like to do is to increase contrast and play with layers, which layer gives you the best results. It works like Registax layers do. So first layer is the smallest noise grain, second may be the detail you want to preserve and increase contrast and detail, with each next one working with bigger chunks of pixels. You can also make the layers invisible, so they don't combine to the final image after combining them back. Hope it helps

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Thanks for the tip! So exactly the same as Registax and MMT in PI! Good to know, I'll have to test this next time :)

[@luboinchina3013]

@@CuivTheLazyGeek Exactly, but you can do anything you want with each layer. Also, a rarely pointed out simple trick in Registax: Right click on each layer to save time when identifying layer features, and to know which layer is the best to adjust...

[@alexelmallorquin]

Saludos desde Mallorca, España. Muchas gracias por tus vídeos de procesado, sobretodo los de imágenes del Seestar. Me han ayudado muchísimo. Un gran saludo. (Si pudieras hacer alguno de procesado solar sería estupendo 😊 gracias)

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Thank you!

[@rajmudumbai7434]

I am unable to find a GraXpert version that works on Intel-Windows 10/11 and I don't have a Mac. Is there a way forward? Thanks.

[@aaronwilliams3949]

Great tutorial! Thanks for sharing your knowledge. Lazy is the way!

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

This is the way!

[@Astrogator1]

Cuiv whats up, youre not beening lazy ... its like a new video every day😯. not really complaining ... you and Dylan O'Donnell and a few others excellent videos help to keep me motivated and also better ways to do things.. keep it up

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Thanks mate! My goal is long term lazy - I'm hoping one day in the future I can quit my full time job to focus on KZbin, and now THAT would be lazy haha

[@michaeledmonds3027]

Wonderful, Cuiv! ..... So, what would you use to remove the stars, then work on the galaxy, then put the stars back in... if not Starnett++? Thanks for your thoughts, Michael

[@ricardoabh3242]

Very cool, Question❓maybe an idea for normal DSLR photographer going to start astro photo. 1) Have you tried “Dark Table” ? 2) Can you suggest one or a few of your video about narrow band filter for DSLR… 4 band? 3) For weird people like me, do you have videos about DSLR Nikon “Z”?

[@jonrobinson1026]

Hola, I'm using NINA for target setting,the coordinates are filled in but no meta data available. Any ideas? Gracias

[@davidaucoin4990]

I cannot get the plate solving to work, after inputting the correct focal length and pixel size and following your instructions. I always get "Plate Solving Failed, could not recognize alignment stars.

[@DanielPozziM]

Hello Cuiv! I use Starnet before stretching and it gives me good results. I added the stars as a Raster layer in Photoshop. I also use Topaz Denoise with Photoshop.

[@Alan-vk6bk]

Looks interesting but out of my budget sadly. Ill stick with a s/h eq6 r pro if i can find one...

[@dannylgriffin]

95% of the way for 10% of the effort, I like that! I'm the same way with keyboards! I like to find keyboards that get me 90% of the way there for less than half the price. Nice! Edit: also, I'm totally lost! 😂😪 But as for the end result? If you are an astronomy person then you have to spend the extra money because the last 10% makes the difference. In music, that last 10% does not. Just my uneducated opinion from a fan.

[@ghillan]

You could have done the starnet++ after the siril part and before gimp using its dedicated gui and then layer them back in gimp after the curves done in gimp.

[@elythomaslumber]

De Noising 3.0.1 - model is available after they did some training on mono-pictures; so far only available in the stand-alone version, not in Pixinsight

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Now that I look more into it, seems they recommend 2.0 still...

[@johnknight7293]

Good video, I never knew where to begin with Gimp as it has so many options. Also good to see that "Background reference" during Siril colour calibration - never noticed that before despite using it for years!

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Glad this was helpful! And yeah Gimp has so many features so I really kept it to the very basics :)

[@michaelkohl2250]

Just save the stretched pic of graxpert and you're done 😂

[@vitaliydoboni482]

Any freeware suggestions for stitching/mosaic software

[@MartyGerman]

I used your link to purchase my Seestar S50. It would be great to see a video on how to get the files needed to use all of this free software (on my Mac), like so many other of your N00B viewers use? Then we could use your method!

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

It's been on my list, but I need to capture some Seestar Subframes and the weather doesn't agree - maybe I should just ask the community to provide some... I'll think on it!

[@ttp_007]

Graxpert is phenomenal! It's hard to be lazy if you are doing AP....lol Merci and clear skies!

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Yeah GraXpert is incredible! We're so lucky it's now part of the arsenal!

[@ttp_007]

Lucky indeed! The AP community is small but full of incredible smart geeks including the lazy ones lol, sharing their precious time to benefit others. Thanks for another superb video!

[@AstroTeenager]

Hey Cuiv!! Love from India ❤ Thanks for tuto Btw I suggest you to use high pass filter technique to sharpen images when you are using gimp. Just duplicate the image and run high pass filter by going to filter>enhance>high pass and set the blending to overlay. It does better sharpening

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Thanks for the tip! I'll have to test that!

[@TheAsgard]

Perfect, now I have a work flow, thanks!

[@GilPaulbert]

Cuiv, which program did you use to stack your image ? Nice Tutorial btw, glad you used free programs, very helpful to novice APs ! Clear skies =)

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

For this particular one, as it was across two scopes and multiple nights, I kept the stacking in PI - but I plan on testing free software tools more!

[@whatmattersmost6725]

So cool Cuiv! What I would like to see is taking the free programs and sharpening the image like the Pixinsight image. I have been waiting for a video like this as I can't afford Pixinsight software. PLEASE.....

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Check the channel Deep Sky Detail! @deepskydetail

[@SteveNorseman]

Thanks for the video, Cuiv - very much appreciated. For what it's worth, Graxpert's AI De-Noise versions 3.0.0 and 3.0.1 do NOT work in Intel Apple/macOS devices. I had to use the v2.0.0 AI De-Noise library to get it working.

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Thanks for the precision!

[@philipfontaine8964]

Mentally, muscles in the brain are a result of activity, not laziness. Maybe a t-shirt that says “Cuiv the super geek”, would be in order.

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Hahaha maybe I need a t-shirt like that!

[@gregsuskin7366]

Really enjoyed this video. I use Siril and Gimp so I appreciate the comparison to PI. I haven't tried Graxpert. Does it do a better job with background extraction and denoising than the similar algorithms in Siril? Thanks

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

To answer your question: categorically yes

[@drdentin3215]

Thanks again for another great lesson. I am just getting into processing, it is great to watch different work flows and explanations. This is probably a rookie question; but if we are going to have our image printed to hang on a wall is there a preferred format? JPEG verses Tiff? what do the printers like? thanks again.

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Unfortunately I don't really have an answer for you on that - I don't really print my images...

[@AsKyOdA]

Thank you so much for the great video and help. Free software is always appreciated and great way to learn post processing as a beginner before spending money down the line. Your videos truly add value and help a lot of people in our common hobby!! I raise my tea cup ☕️ to you sir !

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Thanks so much! And I raise my cup of tea back to you! :)

[@kanellosdimitropoulos9759]

Pay to win comment cracked me up! 😂😂

[@timcorso6337]

"..if someone much brighter than me is [is watching] .." Einstein can't see you from his grave.😂😂😂

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Hahaha too much of a compliment mate, I'm blushing!

[@Nabby13]

I love everything about this video except the way he pronounces "Siril." :)

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Sorry about that...

[@Castropc]

What software did you use for stacking? Siril can do the stacking of the images, not just post-processing so I was curious as to what other software you are using.

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

For this particular one, as it was across two scopes and multiple nights, I kept the stacking in PI - but I plan on testing free software tools more!

[@MrMa1981]

M63 is a tought DSO target for me.

[@jPaulofe]

Wow. Great video!! exactly what I was looking for! Thank you for sharing this

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Glad it was helpful!

[@richardlighthill3228]

Cuiv, thank you for this tutorial with these three freeware programs. You follow much the same path that I have followed but with a few more good steps with great explainations!

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Great to hear, thank you!

[@dumpydalekobservatory]

Awesome Cuiv I don't use Pixinsight simply due to using really old hardware & I've been using SIRIL & Graxpert for a while now. Ok so the Pixinsight image was showing lots more detail but the free software didn't do a bad job in comparison. One thing I will mention though is when removing the stars leave the image as linear & starnett will do a better job although I haven't tried with an image using a Newtonian yet so that could all change. When I finally get round to upgrading my hardware then I'll go down the more expensive software route but that won't be for a while yet. Clear skies!!

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Clear skies and thanks for the tip with the stars!

[@PaoloContri]

Very good workflow, Cuiv, and great idea to try with free SFW: the result is excellent, but....I have to say that the comparison with PI is a little bit "unfair", as I got very similar results with PI (or even better...). Thanks again and please keep on providing great ideas!

[@joajoajoaquin]

Should not Starnet recommended to be used in Siril before stretching (with pre-stretch option on)?

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Didn't realize that! I'm too used to SXT which can be used anywhere anytime haha - thanks for the tip!

[@MarietaGuitar]

Great Video Guiv! Thanks for all that you do ! Btw is it recommended to run Graxpert on a linear image? I tried it also on a stretched image and it works pretty well too. Is there a drawback to that? Thanks!

[@johnblack9499]

Excellent video Cuiv ... as always! I've been planning to take a weekend and get the trial versions of the paid software to compare to the free but you have saved me the effort! Question ... your processing was very 'minimal' - do you think you would have improved the result of the free software image if you'd spent longer on it?

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Good question! The processing was minimal... but then so is my flow in PixInsight usually. I think we're 95% of the way, more steps run into diminishing returns imo

[@johnblack9499]

@@CuivTheLazyGeek Agreed there's a point I get to in post processing where I feel I'm just tweaking the image for the sake for tweaking it. For example if you showed someone (non-astro) the 95% image and the 100% image could they really tell which was which? Which had had the extra 5% of effort? Probably not. I'm going to try your post processing on some of my older images (pre-Graxpert) and see what I can get from it - I use Graxpert and Siril anyway, and I have GIMP. Cheers again for a great video 🙂

[@ashandsnow1873]

Love how your channel really tackles light pollution and imaging in and around large cities. This has certainly helped many astrophotographers that do not have the luxury of working under low-Bortle skies.

[@ivangeorgiev4664]

Great video just on time! I'm getting into astrophotography. Today I received my first dedicated astro camera (Touptek IMX571 color) and was checking what software I need

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Woohoo, congratulations!! Glad this will be helpful!

[@MG-qj2zh]

Great video, but you can import and process Fit/s files in GIMP and don't need to convert them to Tiff or any other format.

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

I know - but there can be some technicalities involved, so I saved in Tiff instead :)

[@MG-qj2zh]

@@CuivTheLazyGeek Yes, that’s true and applies to many formats in the RAW category 😁

[@andreguimaraes96]

Wow, another awesome video from LG. I’m starting to understand how to do this and with this video you have no idea how much you helped. Thank you very much 🖖🏼

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

I'm just SO glad I can make such a positive impact! Thanks for the feedback!

[@andreguimaraes96]

@@CuivTheLazyGeekI don’t want to abuse but your knowledge is huge and will be great if you use the other tools in the free apps. Like a deep processing. Thank you 🖖🏼

[@OVSoftLLC]

Thanks a lot! Very useful tutorial.

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Glad it was helpful!

[@AmarSinghHSS]

Excellent tutorial (as always) - much appreciated.

[@Chiclets1]

Cuiv the lazy stud. Great video! 👍

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Thank you!

[@EugeneRu777]

👍👍👍👍👍👍👍

[@martinpeffers1953]

I really struggle with post processing, you made that look really easy, thank you.. Keep them coming, 👍👍👍

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Happy to see this! Thank you!

[@barnaclewatcher4060]

Outstanding how-to video. Thank you.

[@bazpearce9993]

Thanks Cuiv. My friend in Canada (hi George), has an 80/20 rule. So 80% for 20% is good enough for that. I've used GIMP for a while for my Solar system stuff, and love the unsharp mask. I must have a try at some of this with my own stuff. Hopefully i can get an improvement.

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Your friend is absolutely right :)

[@marekgumienny5813]

pay 2 win... so accurate😂. not much to add after reading other comments. +1 on starnet before stretch, then (as you know) sharpening the galaxy is much easier without artefacts/ ringing. I stopped using wavelets a while ago and use unsharp mask twice or more with very specific settings to target the spatial frequencies I want. I find it more precise and selective. Thanks for tips on graxpert.

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Thanks for all the tips!!

[@dougiesmart1623]

A great video there 👌. That is pretty much the software I use, but I do things a bit differently in parts, so it will be fun trying to stretch an image your way. I stack my image on Deep Sky Stacker as I find the stacking process in Siril isn't as good. Keep the amazing content coming 😊

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

That's awesome, let us know how it stacks up! I'm always up for learning new stuff

[@ssbhide123]

It looked like blurx did most of the heavy lifting there.. would be interesting to see how astrosharp will perform..

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

A lot of the heavy lifting for sure, and Photometric Color Calibration and decent stretch and color saturation in Siril too :)

[@justklaas4703]

This is sooo nice for people like me just starting to do a bit of post processing. I will try to do post on my own M63 which I managed to completely mess up in Siril previously. 👌👍

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

That's great! I hope you enjoy with your M63!

[@dlep9221]

Thank you so much, Cuiv TLG. Once again, your video is very interesting. You demonstrate that is possible to do a beautiful image with free tools. You are the person who convince me to do astrophotography when i saw your videos and your works from Tokyo who not the first destination that we are thinking when we want to see the night sky

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Oh man thanks so much for your kind worse, and I'm happy I had such a good influence :)

[@Cleanentertainment469]

Awesome episode, I only use free software 😊, and the applications your showing.

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Awesome! And it's amazing what we can do with free software :)

[@KingLoopie1]

Definitely downloading and saving this video... Thanks! 👍👍

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Enjoy!

[@ianmcass]

The next Siril has SPCC which is a game changer for colour calibration

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Looking forward to it!

[@radioparisment628]

My lazy plan : pre-processing : Siril via scripts + Process : Pixinsight : Russel Croman Blurxterminator + NoiseXterminator. And you ?

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

PI is really incredible for post processing, that's for sure :)

[@chrislee8886]

For post processing use (low cost) Affinity Photo plus NoiseXterminator and StarXterminator (plugins) - plus Astrotoolset from James Ritson and saves a lot of pain vs learning PX

[@AstroIsland]

Another excellent video Cuiv. I think the free softwares are heavily underrated. But with a little bit of time and effort I believe you can get the same results as the paid ones.

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

To be fair, just a couple of years ago, free processing software were just... not very good yet. But now, it's getting very, very good, and better every day it seems!

[@jmoreno6094]

Thanks for the video

[@Chiclets1]

Woah, i was just about to purchase pixinsight.............

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

It's still worth it, but free software is coming along for sure!

[@clarencemumphrey]

Great Video as always. Question: When I try to denoise in Graxpert, I get a "Parameter Error". The notice tells me to check the .log file. That file may as well be written in Greek. I get nothing from it. I tried to uninstall and reinstall but with the same result. Can you give me any insight? Thanks for all of the great info you share.🤔

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Unfortunately I have no idea... This sounds like something to ask the GraXpert forums. Have you tried going with AI v2 to see what happens?

[@clarencemumphrey]

@@CuivTheLazyGeek Cuiv, I fixed the problem!! In the advanced section, I turned off "acceleration". Graxpert works perfectly - SLOW - but IT WORKS!!

[@Astro_Shed]

Second one here…😂😂 great video as usual, very interesting…👍🏻

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Thank you!

[@ravnica1]

Finally 🥳

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Glad this is helpful :)

[@nikaxstrophotography]

How long did the denoise take? on a mac it is a slug, it takes up to 30 minutes

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

About a minute for me, but looking into it, it seems denoise v3 has issues with Mac M1 M2 M3 chips and it's recommended to use v2 apparently! I should have just used v2 in the video, I just actually didn't know about v3 until I was actually shooting...

[@andrewweller5119]

how's the weather where you are Cuiv? UK has been solid cloud for months. not really managed any really astro for 5 months :(

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Oh Andrew, I hope you get clear skies soon... The weather here has been bad, and we haven't even entered the rainy season yet :(

[@andrewweller5119]

@@CuivTheLazyGeek i did read that the weather patterns have been disrupted due the 2022 Tonga volcano shooting millions of tons of water vapour into the atmosphere. This could take years to settle. The recent eruptions in Iceland can't be helping either. hope all is well over there in Tokyo.

[@luboinchina3013]

Seestar behind the chair. Have you receive their new version yet?😊

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

No, it's the regular good old Seestar v1 for now...

[@Tony-Elliott]

Nice tutorial, thanks for taking the time to make these video

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

My pleasure!

[@CDigata]

excellent subject that im asked all the time.. how is the stelamate coming along?

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Right now it's being used more as a power supply since it doesn't support the corner case of synchronized dithering on a dual scope mount... Bit of a waste, I'm thinking of using it elsewhere!

[@UngaMan]

Thank you for introducing X! I will definitely use it!

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Hope you like it!

[@joelewandowski8232]

Thanks, these are the exact programs I use.

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Awesome!

[@davidmorse1228]

Thank you for another great video.

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Thanks for watching!

[@marsman735]

Nicely done! Thanks!

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

My pleasure!!

[@ananiasmamel8282]

First one here :)!!!

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Legend!

[@AmatureAstronomer]

Neat.