EASY OSC Narrowband FULL GUIDE with PixInsight, featuring the Elephant Trunk Nebula!

In this video, we go from start to finish into how to stack and process an image of IC1396 with PixInsight, including NormalizeScaleGradient!
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00:00 Introduction
00:55 Weighted Batch Pre Processing
06:00 NormalizeScaleGradient
10:29 Image Integration
11:25 Dynamic Cropping
12:30 Channel Separation / HA and OIII generation
15:55 EZ Denoise
17:30 EZ Soft Stretch
18:45 SCNR
19:00 Removing stars and curves
21:10 Color Saturation
24:05 Local Histogram Equalization
24:55 Dark Structure Enhance
25:35 Putting back stars and star reduction
26:55 TopazDenoise AI
28:30 Conclusion & final image
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[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

What are your favorite PixInsight processes for processing your images?

[@licho52]

Masked stretch does wonders to some types of images, for me it's the star fields, dark nebula types of OSC luminance images. I test it and if it doesn't do well on a given image I skip it.

[@JamesPetruzzi_MyHawaiianImages]

Right now? The new debayer feature that allows you to keep R, G, and B channels separate...if you then register w/distortion correction to a single green frame, completely gets rid of color fringing due to atmospheric dispersion. Multiscale linear transform also very useful

[@lonoshamobservatory3556]

We use a variant of your basic workflow for our images - your quick tutorials are amazing! Thank you for making this hobby accessible to everyone and we hope your recovery is swift!

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Awesome, glad this is helpful! Thanks for the feedback and well wishes!

[@ericgilson9060]

Thanks Cuiv, just the right amount of details in all of the right areas of the process that I needed. Most videos end up using convoluted processes and configurations of tools that don't seem transferable from one target to another. What I learned from this video is what I needed to learn to get started all my projects and tweak accordingly. I followed along with a bunch of data I have of the Horsehead nebula and ended up with an image that is FAR superior than anything I have been able to produce before. Now I have a lot more hyperstar data to revisit. Thanks again - Eric

[@jonkjon]

I keep coming back to this video. This was extremely helpful to me when I started using OSC with the L_Extreme. The process is straight forward and quite enjoyable. I keep coming back because the clouds keep me away from imaging for too long and I forget the process. I need to write the steps down! Thank you for taking the time to devote your knowledge and experiences to the amateur astronomy community. It is truly appreciated!

[@richardpalfreyman9045]

Another awesome video! Thank you so much for making it! I learned a lot and it was instrumental in helping me process one of my Rosette Nebula sessions taken with a quad band narrow band filter.

[@marcelohernandezwalcher8811]

Thanks for your tutorials, now I have more details and colors in my images!

[@garyanderson6192]

A great tutorial Cuiv, I'll give this a go on my current project when I have all the data I want.... keep up the good work.

[@iansharp1171]

Marvellous! I've been out of it for a few months, so thanks for catching me up with the amazing new PixInsight features!

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

My pleasure, glad it is helpful!

[@bmorejazz1]

That's an epic tutorial. You really go straight to the point with so many concepts (OH, starnet, topaz, EZ) in just 30 minutes. I am going to reprocess my last August trunk nebula step by step

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Thank you!! I'm so glad this is helpful - these PixInsight tutorials always get much fewer views than other videos, but I think they're so useful to the right audience...

[@Klyress]

I hope I could watch this tutorial earlier. I'm also living in Tokyo and your tutorial really has tons of useful information for me. Thank you!!

[@billysteele970]

Thank you so much for taking the time and effort to make a great video. I got stuck with De noise as run denoise was grayed out. Google told me hit TGV settings and tick run denoise. I have now migrated from APP to pixinsite. Cheers mate!

[@francescot3684]

Wow!!! Fantastic tutorial!!! You coverd everything I was wondering about and you did that in such a perfect way! Merci beaucoup Cuiv!!!

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Awesome! Glad it helped!

[@larry5488]

A great tutorial! I've used techniques you showed here on narrowband images of the Heart Nebula and California Nebula with spectacular results. Thanks!!!

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Awesome! Glad this helped!

[@Caboose301]

Would love to see this guide updated for 2024!!

[@njcck]

I followed along with your video step by step and was able to produce a fairly nice HOO image of the Elephant's Trunk Nebula. Thanks for a great tutorial!

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Glad it helped!!

[@jameswoods1939]

Fantastic image! It's almost like you know what you're doing haha! Always enjoy your videos.

[@rudyamaya2532]

Dude, you keep hitting out of the park! Another great video and thanks for sharing your workflow.

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Glad it was useful Rudy!! And thank you for your support :)

[@AstroB7]

I don't know what I would do without your tutorials. Thank you so much !

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Glad this is helpful!

[@driftrazor]

Dude, thank you so much for the video. Very helpful for me to broaden some of the basic processing that I current do in PIS. Going to re-process a pic now.

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

My pleasure! Enjoy the reprocessing!

[@Neph-v5r]

Excellent video thanks. This has given me a good understanding of more tools to use in PI which i'm just starting to use on my images.

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Thanks for the feedback Steve! I'm glad this is useful, and good luck with PixInsight! It's quite a learning curve...

[@sermoly]

Hi, this video is amazing, I've just tried this method and the result is amazing !!! thank you for sharing, cheers from Italy

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Woohoo, so happy it worked out for you!!

[@OutlandishJourneys]

Great upload and an excellent and easy to follow walk through, Cuiv! Very helpful...thanks for answering my R200SS question in your other video too! Appreciate your time! ;)

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

My pleasure, glad this is all being helpful :)

[@naegeleh]

Thanks a lot Cuiv!!! With help of your video for the first time I was able to produce a nice picture with Pixinsight!! Before I am short befor deleting Pixinsight! CLS Herbert

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Excellent to hear, glad it helped!

[@stephen2615]

WBPP has updated again. It's never ending. Great vid.

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Always getting better :-)

[@peterkudzinowski1274]

Nice Video Cuiv, Keep it up

[@Caedo12]

“I want to be able to play with the curves 😉”….nearly spit out my coffee. LOL Fantastic tutorial, Cuiv!

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Hehehe glad I brought some joy in a processing video :-)

[@secretstill]

This is a fantastic tutorial, Cuiv. Good work and great results!

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Thank you Mark! Glad it's helpful!

[@secretstill]

@@CuivTheLazyGeek You manage to cut through the overwhelming options in PI and make it seem simple better than anyone. Really appreciate your efforts.

[@MikeTettenborn]

Great video! I also have the 533 and a small apo (80mm EDcf) and the L-Enhance filter. This process will bump up my game! Thanks Cuiv!

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

That's a great kit! Enjoy!

[@javiercuellolopez5610]

Wow. Stunning !!!

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Thank you! Glad you like it!

[@sebastiaansmit5751]

Great tutorial Cuiv, kudos!

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Thank you! I hope it helps!

[@tizocsuarez1563]

Hola, fantastic video for all of us that are still learning to better use pixinsight, THANK YOU Cuiv, must see a couple of times to take notes :) Greetings from Costa Rica

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

My pleasure tizoc, glad it is helping! Costa Rica... I hope to visit there one day!

[@tizocsuarez1563]

@@CuivTheLazyGeek more than welcome to visit costa rica, just plan it well, keep in mind that Costa Rica is RAINforest, they give you a hint in the name :) so the rainy season is long and cloudy. so just plan it well and you can have fantastic mix of nature and clear sky

[@jfn480427]

Thank you so much!!! Just what I needed! Greetings Cuiv

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Awesome! I'm glad it helps!

[@tommy8644]

You make Pix so easy to use, love your tutorials 🤩 I always use EZ scripts too!

[@peterkudzinowski1274]

Nice video Cuiv Keep it up

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Thank you!!

[@martrich1098]

Wonderful image and a very useful tutorial! Thanks! Your hard work (you are not very successful at being lazy) really helps me save time and reduces mistakes for me.

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Thank you! Glad my not being lazy helps! :D

[@JoeBob79569]

Interesting stuff. It's crazy how much the general workflow has changed in the last 2 years or so with with the XTerminator addons. You mentioned overcooking a few times here... that's my biggest issue at the moment, I just never know when to stop with stretching, sharpening and saturation; and after each one the image seems fine, but at the end it always seems like I overcooked it! I suppose it comes with experience at each stage..

[@MikeJohnson-zh9ue]

I love this video I just got an L-eXtreme filter and the really helped me process it

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Glad it helped check my back to astro video as well for an even easier method using Bill Blanshan 's free scripts!

[@MikeJohnson-zh9ue]

I have a question You used a script called dark structure enhance Where can I find that script? Thanks Mike

[@VisibledarkAstro]

Interesting approach and technique. There's a few different ways to do this. I'm back to shooting mono but will keep this in mind should I revisit OSC data. Cheers!

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Thanks Shawn! My techniques are always too simple compared to you - you really are a PI master!

[@MrPedalpaddle]

Thank you for this introduction to PixInsight, which has reinforced my decision to stick with Astropixel Processor!

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Hahaha my pleasure :p

[@TheFranqd]

ScreenTransferFunction….. the most exciting process !!! always my heart beats like a 🥁 hoping that the last night effort has a good result… Thank you !!!

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Absolutely! You finally learn how good of an image you get!

[@sirmeowcelot]

tanks for the educational video.

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

My pleasure!

[@AntonioPena1]

Cuiv, thanks for the great tutorial, I like the work flow, one question, when you Topaz why you saved image as png and no as tiff? Thanks for sharing

[@keithhanssen7413]

Thank you, Sir!

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

My pleasure, glad it helps!

[@keithhanssen7413]

@@CuivTheLazyGeek I usually use the arcsinhstretch for my initial stretch, then Histogram Transformation and curves.

[@domwonders]

Thanks!

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

No problem!

[@enriquebechet1]

Awesome, I just imaged the elephant trunk with my edge 800 hd, ZWO 533 mc, and my optolong extreme. :)

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Awesome! I wish you a fun and productive processing!

[@sneakerset]

"I don't think it is overcooked" Thank you. I bow to superior greatness.

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Haha, thank you!

[@deepd4393]

Thanks for the video. Do you have the raw data to practice this?

[@gansri4819]

Hi Cuiv, I wonder if you are able to do an exclusive video to discuss all the astrophotography filters and various applications for each type: a comprehensive guide if you like. It would be extremely useful as I can not find a good read/video to explain all in one place. G

[@astro_vins7]

Hello, amazing video.. I started my astrophotography 2/3 months ago, I found your video very useful, but I have a question.. May I know if you perform deconvolution? And if you use it at what point in the processing? Congratulations for your job 🤩💪🏽🫶🏽

[@peterlaubscher3989]

Many thanks, this helped me understand processing better - my processing 'skills' are horrendous...

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Thanks Peter! The processing part has always been my weak point as well - and that's why I resort to very standard, very simple workflows.... Good luck and clear skies!

[@pfhawxwell]

Great tutorial, have tried it today with M33 and HEY what do you know! ... It worked beautifully! Thanks, will try out the post-processing steps next to see how they work. Keep up the good work and keep being 'lazy'

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Wow, even on M33!! that's impressive!

[@bloodstone2000]

This was a GREAT Video ! Learned a few little things I haven't tried fully yet. Thanks man! Did you say there was Data in the description at the end of the Video? I must be blind I don't see the Link🤷‍♂️ haha

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Woops! And I can't find it on my computer! Let me stack it again and put a link, sorry about that...

[@bloodstone2000]

@@CuivTheLazyGeek haha No worries at all ! I just heard you say it at the end and thought? Hey! I'll watch again and follow along! This will be fun! Then thought I was as blind as my wife says I am.😂

[@astromatz]

Thank you, Cuiv! When do you use the NSG Script? Always or just in special situations?

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Aha, good question! The jury is still out on this one, but I've seen that when I have lots of clouds streaming through, I will avoid using NSG script, and will prefer number of stars with a very small pedestal, so that cloudy images are rejected (even in the blink tool it's sometimes not super obvious). But if I had a perfectly clear night, the NGS helps a lot with gradients - and I'm looking forward to testing this in broadband!

[@jeffdutton1910]

great tutorial Cuiv. If you're interested in looking a little deeper into Normalize Scale Gradient, Adam Block did a fairly deep dive into it on his KZbin channel. I image through a TeleVue NP101is with my DSLR. It gives me a pretty generous FOV, and an image scale of ~1.5 arcsec/px. I managed to create a superb set of flats, so I'm getting practically no vignette gradients but I find over the course of a session the gradient from lights on buildings changes as the camera rotates relative to the ground. NSG creates the same gradient in all the subs so dealing with it in the integrated image becomes much simpler. I have a similar workflow to yours except I generally do a multiscale linear noise reduction just before I stretch, and a TGV denoise once I'm in the non-linear state...and of course, "playing with curves".

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Exactly - great flats are on thing, but it's the gradients as the camera translates and rotates across the sky that really cause issues...

[@gary5051]

Cuiv…It’s like magic watching you maneuver an image around in SW - very nice. I’m currently an EAA observer and a novice photometrist for variable stars. I do feel that I’m also drifting a bit towards some lite AP, mainly in order to bring out more of the detail in the objects I observe and study. I have two, perhaps naive, questions: 1) I’d like to ‘see’ honest views of nebulae, galaxies, etc. - as I would see them if I could be placed close enough to them to experience the close-up view, say, like yours in this video of the Elephant. I’d have the added detail, a sense of depth, accurate colors, realistic contrast and relative brightnesses without unrealistic enhancements that effectively depart from the real appearance of the object. So, how do you, or other accomplished AP Gurus, balance what’s known to be realistic versus the tendency to create a beautiful and striking final image? Do we even really know how our eyes would actually ‘see’ these objects were they in close proximity as suggested by the FOV in captured images? 2) Is there a SW that’s basically a Pixinsight ‘lite’ that wouldn’t deluge a learner with 1000’s of subtle ‘features’ but would act as a first step in learning processing from which you could eventually ‘graduate’ to pixinsight? Thank you again for your valuable contributions to our community. Cheers - Gary

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Thanks for that feedback Gary! So to answer your questions, on 1) I honestly don't know what nebulae would look like if standing closer - but since it's mostly Ha emission, I would imagine the red would completely dominate, just like it does if imaging those nebulae in broadband. So SHO or HOO palettes are tools to bring out other emission components of the nebulae (OIII, SII), that are otherwise lost in the Ha. In a way it's a scientific normalization of different wavelengths. You could make an artificial eye that would perceive those nebulae exactly like that. It's a tough question that has no good answer. 2) A lot of people seem to love APP / Astro Pixel Processor, but I have no experience with it... Good luck and clear skies!

[@Kiauze]

About your SCNR step and star colors, I have had some success with doing StarNet to remove the stars, and then apply a PhotometricColorCalibration to the star field alone. This has given me some color back on the stars without affecting the overall image.

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Very interesting! That makes sense, thanks for suggesting this!

[@seanedwards4937]

I'm on the hunt for a good "all around" stacking tutorial for Pixinsight. Can you use this same stacking workflow on single channel narrowband images? I'm also new to mono and narrowband, big learning curve from OSC. Love the videos, keep up the good work...

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

It should be pretty much the same, plus WBPP will accept all filters at once and treat them separately (assuming filter metadata embedded in the subframes). Just make sure you uncheck CFA images checkbox!

[@seanedwards4937]

@@CuivTheLazyGeek great, I'll try it out, thanks a ton.

[@jesusbilbao]

Thanks for your useful and educational videos. I just started using PI and ran into a problem when adding the stars back into the image. I have followed your instructions with Pixel Math and used the formula with $T as well as that of the image name but it fails. What is $T?. I dont see it defined anywhere and neither does it work with file name. So, right now I am unable to add the stars back in. Also, I have a "Big" star in the image which remains in the starless version. How can I remove it?. Thanks again for all your help.

[@geert5811]

Hi Cuiv, nice tutorial; do you know if this could be useful for dslr images as well? Or are there other things to be taken into consideration compared to OSC astro-camera images? Thanks, g.

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

The workflow should work for DSLR cameras used with OSC Narrowband filters just as well. I also have an upcoming DSLR processing video where I combine DSLR Ha data with DSLR OSC data.

[@MG-Dub]

@@CuivTheLazyGeek Thanks for this - your videos are inspiring

[@Frantisek7403]

Great video.It helps me a lot.I just have a question if there is big difference to process L-eNhance filter as that is basically a tripple band one? I tried to use this process,but was not so successfull as I had the one layer of Hbeta as addition.Thanks a lot.

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

In theory the L-eNhance filter should be similar - you just may want to change the PixelMath combination of green and blue if you see that blue isn't too noisy. or even just keep them separate!

[@Frantisek7403]

@@CuivTheLazyGeek Thanks a lot.I will try to keep then separate and see what will happen.

[@QawiemJamil]

The result looks fantastic to me. I still don't get how you can obtain such an image from Tokyo. How much of it is because of the filter you use? Is it truly impossible to get this picture without it? Anyway, for someone who primarily uses DSS and Photoshop, what kind of ideas do you think we can stea-.. take inspiration from I mean, to use in my own pre and post-processing routine? You used weightings and NSG, is there something to take away from that to use in DSS? I am currently a "use recommended settings" kind of guy. Cloning either the G or B signal, depending on the noise, seems like a neat idea. You also denoised before stretching. Is that something I could try somehow?

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Thank you! It's really 95% thanks to the filter, really quite impressive. It would be impossible to take such a picture from Tokyo otherwise (or I'd need to spend something like 40 hours on the target)... My knowledge of Photoshop is unfortunately next to zero... I've never even opened that piece of software... As for DSS, I don't think it has weights available, but AstroPixelProcessor is supposed to be quite good and probably has weights.

[@francisgeorge5409]

Fabulous Cuiv. Really helpful 😃. Quick question- when you say an image has a "better signal to noise ratio" ( eg: 14 mins 22s in) what numbers on the PI screen are telling you that? I get it. You are right if course! Green has more etc with 2x pixels etc But is there a PI metric available?

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Oh I was eyeballing it! The blue image was noticeably noisier, with less defined features, than the green image! I don't trust mathematical SNR calculations :D

[@francisgeorge5409]

@@CuivTheLazyGeek That's fine. Thanks for responding! Maybe the K value at the bottom of the screen will provide an indication to get me started. I will try that.😎

[@bbllaakkeeee]

Why not scnr the Star mask rather than the entire image and you can save the green hues for the OIII?

[@Frantisek7403]

Good morning from Norway.I have a question for you as for professional I respect. I made a 3.5 hrs of data of 2 nebulas (due to bad weather and loooong light days here :)) ) I'm using the L-eNhance filter and ASI294MC Pro.The problem now is,that all the photos afterr stucking and processig (using your guidelines) have alwas blue spots(looks like a dust,but is not) after removal of the stars from photo.I tried differen gain,cooling temperature,but always same.Please,can you give me yur opinion what can be wrong?Thaks a lot.

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

I have to say, I'm not sure how to deal with that... you can try to rein them in with colormask on Magenta maybe?

[@mattreavis2932]

Will this workflow work for galaxies? I'm debating on using my 553 for galaxies this season instead of narrowband. My light pollution isnt as bad as yours, but its close.

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

No, this workflow is for narrowband - check kzbin.info/www/bejne/hZerimCJbMR-f6s and its followup kzbin.info/www/bejne/rIrGpKaHntmqarc for OSC galaxy processing!

[@tmrdarkstar85]

Cuiv for local histogram equalization shouldnt you have it set to 16 bit instead of 8 bit since the 533 is a 16 bit camera?

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Hello Steve! The LHE resolution has nothing to do with the camera bit depth, it's about the precision of the computation (resolution of the local histogram). 8 bits usually works fine for me, 16bits taking very long and not showing much of a difference...

[@tmrdarkstar85]

@@CuivTheLazyGeek I wasnt sure if it matter for the bit depth of the camera thus the question. Thanks for clearing that up

[@paulbarrett423]

being totally new to OSC when do you debayer? also your darks and flats etc are they all debayered first, I have a new camera and only taken darks , flats and flat darks (50 of each) should they be debayered before turning into masters

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

That's the beauty of weighted batch preprocessing - it will do the debayering when appropriate and we don't need to think about it :)

[@paulbarrett423]

@@CuivTheLazyGeek cheers cuiv,

[@quantum-geek]

Hi, Cuiv! Thanks for the video. I followed along (a couple times actually), but I never see a 'master' folder, instead I do see a 'debayered' folder (along with the other folders that you have) after the WBPP ends. Any pointers what I could be doing wrong? Thanks!

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Make sure you have the Integration checkbox checked!

[@quantum-geek]

@@CuivTheLazyGeek thanks! I thought in the video you kept them unchecked.. I will keep it checked.

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

@@quantum-geek oh right - you technically don't need it for Normalized Scale Gradient though!

[@quantum-geek]

@@CuivTheLazyGeek thanks man. Yes!! And I realized why I didn’t see any master folder. I was calibrating with master darks and flats. Oh by the way- your videos have been super helpful. You rock. Thanks again!!

[@CaptRescue2]

I'm not getting the altitude in the NSG scrip, does that meta data come from the mount?

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

I actually have no idea! But I noticed that in the frames captured by the ASIAIR I dont have that data either, so I need to look at the time the sub was taken, check to see if it is clean and then select it as my reference.

[@CaptRescue2]

@@CuivTheLazyGeek My came from ASIAIR as well:(

[@tommy8644]

Grazie.

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Thanks so much for your support!!

[@tommy8644]

@@CuivTheLazyGeek I'm actually forced at home with covid and I have all the time to Watch your videos 😁 and to take some shots! Thanks for all your videos

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

@@tommy8644 Take care!

[@SimjetAU]

I just tried this video and most of the settings have now changed with the new software release..Normalized gradient doesnt exist and a lot of the settings dont exist either. Will you do another like this using a 533 OSC camera and no filters?...This is exactly what I am using...PIX is so complicated I have no idea how you have learnt this

[@alexchong1979]

Have Color with Filter pixinsign processing?

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

I have one here! kzbin.info/www/bejne/fYOWm2R9jamFqJY

[@craigskinner8489]

What are the specs of your computer?

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

5800X, 32GB 3200MHz RAM in dual channel, 3080Ti

[@craigskinner8489]

@@CuivTheLazyGeek nice. I have a Ryzen 3800, 32 GB RAM and a 580 video card, also have a small M.2 drive just for swap

[@magicker8052]

err I dont have a Normalised Scale Gradient script?

[@magicker8052]

never mind.. have now installed.. doh

[@fabianmendez3410]

@@magicker8052 How did you installed it? I can't figure this out.

[@magicker8052]

sigh..exit = start the next bit.. only in PI.

[@riaandewinnaar5040]

Might be lazier than you. Can't wait for AI post processing to further evolve.

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Yes! I would love to have a "Push Here Dummy" processing suite, that just does lots of stuff for a few hours and then gives you several results to choose from! :D

[@rkinnett]

I think your calibration approach is wrong here. Use dark flats to calibrate flats only. Then use darks and calibrated flats to calibrate your lights. Can’t use dark flats in place of darks to calibrate your lights. I appreciate your video nonetheless!

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

I don't understand, that's exactly what the WBPP is doing - as is shown in the summary tab (at around 3:00). Flat darks to calibrate flats, then calibrated flats + darks to calibrate lights. Dark flats are not used to calibrate lights...

[@rkinnett]

@@CuivTheLazyGeek the summary screen says it’s going to calibrate your lights with darks and calibrated flats, but the “darks” it’s using are not darks at all, they’re dark flats because that’s what you selected instead of darks at 2:18.

[@rkinnett]

Instead, select your dark flats as bias frames and apply bias correction only to your flats. Then select actual darks as darks, and apply darks and calibrated flat frames to light frames.

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

@@rkinnett That's incorrect. In the darks tab I have both darks (60s) and flat darks (1.89s) entered. WBPP is smart enough to match the dark to flats or lights based on exposure time (there's even a tolerance setting). The flat darks (1.89s) are used only to calibrate flats and the darks (60s) are used only to calibrate lights. There is no mixup, the flat darks are not used to calibrate lights.

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

@@rkinnett That method of using flat darks as bias also works, at least for modern cameras (as I mention on the video) - but using flat darks as darks also works (having both darks and flat darks in the Darks tab), thanks to the Exposure Tolerance parameter (set to 1s in my case - the 1.89s flat darks are never going to be used to calibrate the 60s lights).

[@Zealor365]

I think you could have broken this process down into 5-6 separate tutorials. Way too much information to try and retain at one session. Thanks

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Understood - always difficult to find the right balance... thank you!

[@Zealor365]

@@CuivTheLazyGeek I now see where you have separated the video into chapters. This is great.