How To Stack Astro Images in PixInsight - WBPP Script in 5 minutes

[@ChucksAstrophotography]

Thanks! This is what I needed. A quick explanation on WBPP. I don't have time to watch longer videos.

[@lukomatico]

Whoa! Thank you so much Chuck! That's ever so kind of you my friend :-) Clear skies!

[@peterraymond3653]

I've just bit the bullet and bought pixInsight. I know there's a learning curve with it but vids like this make things so much easier. Thanks for taking the time to help others, it's very much appreciated.

[@lukomatico]

Thanks so much Peter!! I hope that you enjoy getting to know PixInsight, it's a really rewarding program when you get comfortable with it! :-)

[@derekgonzales3282]

Thanks for making this as painless as possible. Some of the other videos were very confusing.

[@Pletharoe]

Exactly as you said. Hundreds of videos on youtube but not ONE takes a total noob through the process of simple script stacking. This is a fantastic video! great job.

[@lukomatico]

Hey there Steve! - I'm only too happy to have helped mate, Clear skies! :-)

[@bloodstone2000]

You know what Luke? I have watched quite a few of your videos over the last few days. And I have learned more from you in the last few days then I have in the last few months jumping from channel to channel taking bits and pieces here and there. Your pixinsight data that you shared the other day allowed me to process some of my older Data in a way I never imagined possible! And I just wanted to say thank you Man! YOU have given me new found inspiration...

[@lukomatico]

Hey mate! - That's absolutely incredible to hear!! I'm humbled beyond words :) Thank you so much for your kind comment, it really is appreciated!

[@davidrousseau8066]

Same here! :)

[@revenger681]

Thanks for the no fluff and straight to the point tutorial.

[@EricBarger]

I wish more people would get to the point and keep the time down. Thank you for this five minute tutorial with no extra fluff or rabbit holes to explore (it is easy to get off track). Eventually, once we get these processes down, we will explore on our own.

[@gerardbrull]

I'm new with PI and this is the first video I'm watching but it was clear and to the point. Thanks for taking the time!

[@lukomatico]

I appreciate that Gerard, thank you so much mate! All the very best, Luke

[@CosmuzzAstro]

Hi Luke, Hope you are all well. Thanks for this video, I have finally got PixInsight and this has helped alot to get me started. All the best mate.

[@sammymedina3996]

Thanks for the straightforward tutorial! You've got a knack for taking the complex understandable.

[@lukomatico]

Thank you so much Sammy, that's really kind of you to say! 👍 Clear skies!

[@PumpkinHallowHaunts]

This was exactly what I've been searching for! Thank you Luke appreciate this a year on. I've just started the hobby and got pixinsight watched a few long bloated out vids and found yours! Thanks again and Hi from Devon!

[@lukomatico]

That's just awesome to hear mate, thank you very much for watching and commenting! - I'm so glad it helped :-) Clear skies and good luck on your PixInsight journey my friend!

[@davidrousseau8066]

I was looking for a clear and concise video on stacking in PI. When your video popped up I instinctively said "YES!!!" I knew it would be IT! You're Da Man! ;-)

[@lukomatico]

Hey David! - Thanks mate!! - I'm very glad to have helped with the video :-) Clear skies my friend!

[@rockdv75]

Thank you for simplifying this into an easy 5 min video.

[@lukomatico]

Glad it was helpful my friend! Thanks very much for watching and taking the time to comment 👍👍

[@markwright748]

This is a brilliant video Luke. My days of using DSS are no more from now on 😊

[@lukomatico]

Fantastic to hear it was useful Mark!! Clear skies to you mate 👍👍

[@PatJones82]

This is EXTREMELY helpful as I start my Pixinsight journey! THANK YOU SO MUCH! :)

[@lukomatico]

You are so welcome Pat!! :-) Enjoy!

[@tallaganda83]

Exactly the video I needed. I need to get learning so I can decide whether to buy the program as a primarily DSLR user.

[@lukomatico]

Thank you so much! - I've just recently uploaded the first two parts of a processing series to help get people new to PixInsight off to a good start too, just thought I'd mention as they may be useful to you! :-) Good luck mate!

[@britainthroughmylens]

As a Mac user I’ve been using Siril which does much of what PI does and now incorporates Starnet actions, but try as I might I can’t get StarNet to work within it (terminal code scares me and goes over my head). I'm a simple country lad lol. So I’ve downloaded the 45 day trial of PI. This was a very helpful video to start me off. Thanks a lot Luke.

[@lukomatico]

Thanks ever so much for the kind comment mate! Glad this was useful to get started :-) I'll eventually have to re-do this to catch up with the changes to WBPP recently though!

[@georgedicker9789]

Hi, amazing video. How did you get the batch processing window to be a decent size? Mine over takes the whole screen and some of it is clipped at the bottom

[@lukomatico]

Hey mate! I think it's down to screen resolution partially, but I believe the new version of WBPP has a 'compact GUI' tickbox you can use to help! :-)

[@KevinMurphy0403]

Great tutorial Luke, thank you. One question, how does the stacking quality in Pixinsight compare to Deep Sky Stacker?

[@lukomatico]

Hey there Kevin! :-) From my own testing I'd say it depends on the data both programs are being fed to stack, - if you've got fundamentally sound data and plenty of it, then pixinsight will give clearly better results. That said, these days I don't stack in pixinsight anymore! I've switched over to AstroPixelProcessor as I find it does a superior job to everything else 👍 Thanks for watching!

[@fernandoapausa4931]

I needed this quick tutorial to move on PixIn for stacking and stop using DSS. It's obviously a beautiful free app but no need to use both if you can do all with PixIn. Thanks!

[@lukomatico]

That's great to hear Fernando! You're totally right mate, no real need for DSS after you start using WBPP in PixInsight! (unless you need a really fast look at some data, dss does stack quite quickly!)

[@redabdab]

Another cracking video! Thanks so much for taking the time to help us all out! I'm interested that you say your camera doesn't need darks. I thought all cameras needed darks? What kind of camera do you have? I have the ASI2600MC Pro and I have always used darks with it.

[@lukomatico]

Hey Stuart! - I'm glad you've found the video useful mate!! :-) Regarding darks, some cameras do need them, but the 2600 (same camera as I use) doesn't need darks, as long as you are dithering your captures you'll be absolutely fine without them 👍👍 Hope that helps mate!

[@redabdab]

@@lukomatico really? Wow! I never knew that. I do dither 👍

[@longhunter1951]

Thanks done the stacking,my OSC stacked frames arrives at the end in Grey scale ?

[@lukomatico]

Hey there mate! - that sounds like the 'cfa images' tick box isn't selected, so there's no debayering happening - that should be the fix you need :-) Clear skies and thanks for watching!

[@longhunter1951]

@@lukomatico Thanks, for your kind reply, it looks like I am using the lastest WBPP 2.3.1 ,so will have to try to get some info on that version. Cheers Steve

[@HogarthsAstrophotography]

Nice little tutorial mate... Well explained..

[@lukomatico]

Thank you mate! - I could have done with it myself a few months back in truth haha!

[@ruben619448]

Thanks for the video. Can pixinsight take multiple stacked tiff images and stack those? I use a Vaonis Vespera and it’s easier to output a tiff that the Vaonis internally stacked. But I want to take multiple nights of exposures. Is that possible?

[@lukomatico]

Hey there! - I believe it can do that, yes! sorry about the late reply :-)

[@AstroPixUK]

Another great tutorial mate. Nice one 👍

[@lukomatico]

That's awesome to hear, glad you enjoyed it! thank you mate! :)

[@AstroPixUK]

Can’t wait to ditch my darks.... how you shooting bias frames? Are these just flat darks

[@lukomatico]

Hey mate, getting rid of darks is so nice haha! Regarding bias, I think my bias are about 0.2s long but the camera has stable bias so you can use whatever short exp you'd like, no need for dark flats with this sensor 😀👍 hope that helps!

[@dr.joeluciani1482]

Luke, it's easy to get overwhelmed when starting out with PixInsight. Thanks for flattening the 'learning curve' a bit. In one of the comments, someone asked you about stacking multiple nights data. Since you do this all the time...how exactly do you do this with WBPP?

[@lukomatico]

Hey Joe! Thank you so much mate, ti quickly try and answer your question - basically I just bung all the data into the script at once and hit go! No special technique to it really :-)

[@michaelclem3339]

Luke, can you use lights from multiple nights with this process?

[@lukomatico]

Hey Michael! As long as they share the same flats etc, you should have no trouble, if you are stacking totally separate sessions with differing calibration then you'll probably need to run multiple times, then stack the masters from each session I imagine. Thanks for watching!

[@SimonsAstro]

Hi Luke Very helpful video mate! Thanks for your info, it was an easy fix! All I had to do was check the box, and like you said, my master lights appeared as they should! Working on a 9.5hr image now!, might even be a vid!! Watch this space! Cheers Luke Simon

[@lukomatico]

That's brilliant mate, so glad it's working as intended now! :-D good luck on that image!!

[@mikestrieber]

Very helpful. Thanks!

[@lukomatico]

You're welcome! Thanks for watching :-)

[@astrojourneyuk]

Nice, quick and simple! Perfect.

[@lukomatico]

Thank you mate! - it's great to hear it's digestible 👍👍

[@BlackravenarmouryUk]

Hey Luke, a quick question: I notice as I pressed run to stack my images, it said “no filter” used, which wasn’t the case… but I couldn’t see if this is changeable option or makes a difference ?? I was using ANTLIA ALP-T "gold" Dual Band 5nm Filter- 2"

[@lukomatico]

Hey there mate! It's mainly just a mono centric tagging system that uses the .Fits file metadata, no need to worry about it for duo-band etc generally speaking :-) hope that helps!

[@BlackravenarmouryUk]

@@lukomatico thanks Luke. Again, just wanted to say great videos & replies appreciated.

[@lukomatico]

No worries at all bud! :-) thank you for your interest!

[@canonxsi79]

Luke for some reason under script the weighted pressing is not there anymore what do you think happened

[@lukomatico]

It's now under scripts>batch processing>weightedbatchpreprocessing :-) Hope that helps mate!

[@Astrobloke]

Nice job Luke

[@lukomatico]

Thank you Glenn! - (just realised I've not added you to my recommended channels yet, argh there's so much to keep up with haha!- i'll do it now!! )

[@OlliesSpace]

Hey Luke so am I correct in thinking you only ever use Lights, Flats and Bias frames? Good to one as I can drop the darks I am currently taking. Nice video mate hope you're travelling well.👍

[@lukomatico]

Hey Ollie! - that's totally right mate, I don't ever use darks with this camera - they wont do any harm I guess, but I just see no point really as I'm dithering out hot pixels anyway :) I'm great by the way, thank you! - hope you are doing super too matey :)

[@OlliesSpace]

@@lukomatico Goodbye darks !! Cheers mate I'm pretty good.

[@mikemills7206]

Nice simple video for us beginner's, but can I ask if you still have debayer lights and star align or does this method do it all? I'm bringing files from APT. Thanks Mike

[@lukomatico]

Hey Mike! It'll do everything for you :-) just stick your files into the script and wait for the output pretty much! Hope that helps mate! 👍👍

[@mikemills7206]

@@lukomatico much appreciated 🙏 thanks again

[@vinoner1]

Luke, could you do a video on stacking multiple nights of data. Thanks

[@lukomatico]

I'll have a look into it mate cheers!

[@JoesAstrophoto]

Nice tutorial Luke!

[@lukomatico]

Thank you Joe!! I appreciate it mate 👍

[@taurus7228]

Hello. Thanks for the step by step guide. Im a complete beginner to Pixinsight. I followed all along. I ended up with some master files. The main one ended up grayscale, no colour. I’ve been searching for quite a while now, but cannot find the solution. I am using all images from a DSLR. Thank you Ashvn 🙏

[@lukomatico]

Sorry to hear you had issues my friend, it sounds like you need to tick the checkbox that says "CFA Images?" This will make your stacking routine also perform a debayer giving you colour images :-) Hope that helps!

[@taurus7228]

@@lukomatico thank you very much. I’ll make sure to look for it and tick that one. So eager to try that. I’ll continue watching your pixinsight series too. Thank you 🙏

[@glennschiffer1742]

great video,how about multiple nights with different time's

[@lukomatico]

Thanks for the suggestion!

[@gloomiehoodie]

Thanks a million, got a sub here.

[@area51xi]

So just confirming that you do this for each filter separately? Assuming you can use the same darks and bias for all filters.

[@lukomatico]

I must admit I haven't used PixInsight for stacking in a good while now as I switched to APP for that, but as far as I remember you can batch load them all in mate, it should sort out the correct flats etc for you via the info stored in the .fits header :-) Hope that helps!

[@area51xi]

@@lukomatico Thank you. Yes I just noticed that is the case.

[@simonpepper5053]

Perfect thanks Like just what I needed!

[@lukomatico]

That's brilliant to hear, I'm glad to have helped 👌

[@avt_astro206]

Nice Tutorial!! Very well Explained!! 👍👍

[@lukomatico]

Thank you very much! - I appreciate it mate :)

[@MrGp3po]

Curious why PI takes so long to stack? I am stacking 62 lights and one each of master D,F,DF now and so far, it has taken over an hour to do what DSS does in 15 minutes or less. What is the advantage? Finally done at almost three hours. I have three files- LN_Reference_Light.., masterlight...., and masterlight...autocrop. Not sure how to proceed. Some of these open with multiple windows.

[@lukomatico]

It takes a long time because it's doing local normalisation which needs quite a bit of per-sub analysis IIRC :-) generally the output file you'll want to process would be master light autocrop 👍

[@robko6863]

Thanks for this tutorial. However, after the stacking proces my final image came out as gray image. I am working with Nikon .NEF files btw. What went wrong?

[@robko6863]

Found it......change the CFA setting under the Calibration tab......😉🤭

[@lukomatico]

Ahh you got it mate!! :-D sorry about the late reply, glad to hear everything is working ok now though! 👍 Clear skies!

[@astrojourneyuk]

I have a question. If you have data from separate nights, how do you stack each night because the flats from each night will need to be processed with the lights from that night. Do you have to run each night as a separate WBPP and then merge with ImageIntegration?

[@lukomatico]

Hey mate! - that's a toughie, to be honest with you I do not know the answer! 😅 If it were me, I'd probably do as you suggested and integrate the data sets individually, then finally integrate the masters together after the fact 👍👍 Interesting question mate!

[@kantoskan4314]

Thank you for a quick, concise, and informative intro, Luke. Very easy to understand, etc. Now: Why do I not see a master Light file in my output folder? I see the bias and dark masters (didn't use flats) and I made sure to use clean FITS files (used the Blink process to check them out). Where do I start to diagnose? I didn't recognize anything obvious in the run report (nothing in uppercase screaming "FAILURE!!", haha). I've used these files before to generate good output in DSS+PS, trying PI now. Thanks!

[@lukomatico]

Hey Michael! That's a tough one, my first guess though, from having done this myself a few times by accident, - have you made absolutely sure if the output folder is the correct one? Hope it's a simple solution like that mate! All the best, Luke

[@kantoskan4314]

@@lukomatico Hey, Luke. Finally got a chance to try this again. Tried it several times, still getting only master Bias, Dark, and Flat files. No master Lights. I must be missing something simple and embarrassing (and I checked your output folder thought). Any ideas?

[@michaelreed8807]

@@kantoskan4314 Same problem - any luck?

[@lukomatico]

Hey mate! - I've had an idea, and I hope it's this - double check that 'integrate' is ticked in WBPP, otherwise it will just generate calibrated files but no master light integration, that would be my guess!

[@ppi57]

where does the "Debayer" process fit in?

[@lukomatico]

Hey Rich! - It should automatically know when you feed it images from a colour camera, but if you'd like to make sure then load a few light frames into WBPP, go to the "Post Process" tab, and it should have the debayer options there if you'd like to check/change them :-)

[@rookieastro3108]

Legend.. thank you!

[@lukomatico]

You're welcome! Cheers for watching bud :-)

[@michaelharrington7797]

Hi Luke currently following this video and have stacked all my images but after stretch they are still dark my original fits files all look ok when viewed individually not sure what I’m doing wrong? Also about an hour fifteen of integration time Ha RGB

[@michaelharrington7797]

Also after stacking the master files all open up with 3 windows low med and high rejection that’s the three images that come up when opened master file in pixinsight

[@michaelharrington7797]

Also I didn’t take calibration frames so only stacked Ha RGB lights

[@michaelharrington7797]

I know they have stacked the images because the only thing I can see when applying stretch is the satellite line in my blue and ha masters

[@lukomatico]

Hey Michael! - this is a bit of a tough one to diagnose. It might be worth double checking that 'calibrate only' is unticked, and that 'image integration' is ticked, it could be something simple like that! Sorry I can't be more help with this mate Good luck!

[@michaelharrington7797]

Hi Luke it was a silly mistake I was deleting the master and stretching the high rejection image thanks for replying

[@dominickzaucha]

Would love to see you compare stacks from pixinsight vs DSS from the same data, so far what I've seen is rather subjective but leaning towards DSS producing better results. Massive files from that 2600mc, I have the little brother (533) and am really enjoying it. Great channel!

[@lukomatico]

Hey Dominick! - that's a good idea mate, I'll take a look into that - thank you for the suggestion! 👍 I used to have a 533 and I loved it! Such brilliant sensor tech on this family of cameras! :) Thank you for watching

[@dominickzaucha]

@@lukomatico I may be on the same upgrade path as you, that extra sensor space is juicy.

[@lukomatico]

Hey Dominick! -I think it's a good plan, I definitely don't regret doing it! the extra sensor size is really nice to have :) Good luck mate!

[@EricBarger]

I would love to see the comparison, but from my experience, PI gets the nod.

[@dominickzaucha]

​@EricBarger I managed to try both, image quality wise it was pretty much the same, with DSS being much faster. However PI does a much better job preparing the files for processing.

[@crm114.]

Thanks for the info. A bit off topic, but is there a reason why you chose the Pixinsight route over DSS\Photoshop?

[@lukomatico]

Hey Cliff! - I wanted to have 'the best' (subjective) dedicated astro processing program available, so I'd ideally never be held back by the software, and I can genuinely say that now I'm used to it, pixinsight was 100% worth the money, the cheapest yet best astro upgrade I've ever done really! :) Photoshop is great, but not dedicated to astrophotography, so i thought if I was going to spend time learning a new program it might as well be one that aligns with my goals! Hope that helps 👍👍

[@crm114.]

Many thanks for the quick reply. I’m at the point where I have limited Photoshop experience (no Pixinsight) so have to cloose a path. You’re reply is tempting me to give Pixinsight a very careful look. 👍

[@lukomatico]

@@crm114. Hey Cliff! - No problem at all, I'd say if you have a reasonable bit of data backlogged then you can safely give the PixInsight trial a go and see how you get on with it over the following 45 days! - afterwards you could also try AstroPixelProcessor out too, lots of people like that one! :) Clear skies!

[@svtskys62]

what do you do when pixinsight doesnt reject any frames but you know it should have?

[@arshadwm]

Thank You.

[@lukomatico]

No problem my friend! :-)

[@craigfowler7953]

Hi Luke I'm new to PI and followed this video with great results. I have just installed PI version 1.8.8-9 and it no longer works. Now when stacked in WBPP its in Mono :( Trying to sort it out but its a pain. Keep up the great work mate.

[@lukomatico]

Hey there Craig! :-) I'm glad the tutorial was useful, but sorry to hear it's not working right now! - after the update to 1.8.8-9 has it maybe deselected "CFA images" tickbox for you? that would make it produce mono images :-) Hope that helps mate!

[@craigfowler7953]

@@lukomatico Hi Luke, yes , that was it, it now produces a masterLight CFA file as well but I have my RGB. I actually did find it but thank you very much for the reply :) I'm here in Western Australia outback so plenty of clear sky's, almost too many lol, feel guilty sometimes not shooting but always looking up.

[@lukomatico]

That's great to hear mate! - re: outback skies, ahh I can only imagine how that must be, though I do understand the toll it takes trying to do many nights of astro back to back! 👍👍 Take it easy mate, thanks for letting me know you got it working again 😊

[@acdega263]

After this tutorial my final picture is grey. Why?

[@lukomatico]

If stacking colour camera data you need to enable debayering first in the WBPP tool before stacking 👍 Good luck!

[@acdega263]

@@lukomatico thank you very much .

[@Mistr_A]

I notice it doesnt do dark flats

[@lukomatico]

Hey Nick, you can just put your dark flats in the bias slot - that's what i used to do on my old camera which needed darkflats (294mc pro) - it worked fine :)

[@Mistr_A]

@@lukomatico good to know as i have the 294

[@BlackravenarmouryUk]

Have to say… Total noob here and you just made this first step painless. Have not had a look properly yet, but really wish if you’ve not done one, you’d consider a good workflow step by step, just to get someone through a single processing attempt, even if in a few parts 😊

[@lukomatico]

That's simply fantastic to hear! :-D So happy you found this one useful mate, RE: a step by step for beginners, thou ask and thou shalt receive! kzbin.info/www/bejne/i3zHYaOLd7iNbNE Just started a new series for that kind of thing bud, I hope that's helpful to you :-) Good luck!

[@BlackravenarmouryUk]

@@lukomatico thank you so much Luke, I found it, really hope people support you.

[@anujitmaity0722]

Thanks

[@lukomatico]

You are welcome mate! :)

[@Joshua-of2dp]

Nice Vid! Thank you! I'd probably want to punch my PC if it took 15min to do that. Luckily it's under 3.

[@lukomatico]

Haha! I hear you Joshua, A lot of the stacking speed is down the CPU speed vs the camera file size, I'm using a reasonably fast Ryzen 5 3600x, 6 cores 12 threads, but something faster would really help when stacking these big files from my 2600 camera! Clear skies!

[@Joshua-of2dp]

@@lukomatico Sounds like you have a pretty fast set up! I have the 2400MC Pro so my file sizes are large but still a couple M pixels short of yours. My last new PC was a laptop...I bought from Circuit City, lol. So last year I treated myself to a new one! Luckily I have a 11th Gen Intel i9-11900F @ 2.50GHz-5.2Ghz 8 Cores 16 threads and 32GB Dual Channel DDR4@3200Mhz. I'm not sure how much of my GPU is utilized but I have a NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 10GB GDDR6X which pretty much rips through anything I throw at it. I've been using ASI Deep Sky Stacker but am coming back to this video to use PI now that I have a license. Once again Thank you for the Video!!

[@lukomatico]

@@Joshua-of2dp That's a monster PC Joshua!! Nice one man, you should be set for years! 😀 And no problem RE: the vid, my pleasure mate! Clear skies :-)

[@DavesAstrophotography]

Should have clicked the autostretch just to see what was there!

[@lukomatico]

Hey Dave! - just a big block of green until I background neutralize+colour calibrate hehe - Thank you for watching matey :) I appreciate it!

[@ttnownow1292]

Produced a B and W image with no colour.. hmmm..

[@lukomatico]

Heya mate, which part are you stuck on? It's the final recombine that should give you a colour image again :) Cheers for watching!

[@gerardbrull]

Check that you have activated “CFA images” otherwise the stacked image will be monochrome. I had this problem too

[@darrenwilliams414]

terrible result from doing that

[@lukomatico]

Sorry to hear it Darren! Is anything else giving good results at the moment by contrast?