Moon Image Processing in PixInsight...and a Comment on the JWST Launch

Well. The Moon is there and I can't do anything about it, so I just took some pictures of it in Red, Green, and Blue with my Explore Scientific ED102 and ZWO ASI1600MM camera. I registered the images using PixInsight's FFTRegistration script and did some color saturation and wavelet detail enhancement. At the end of the video, I discuss just how risky the JWST launch and deployment process is. JWST is scheduled to launch tomorrow (Dec 25, 2021)!

[@robb7342]

New to mono and looking to take on the moon, so this was a perfect guide for me James. Solid presentation as usual - THANKS!

[@Aero19612]

Great! Some great tools in PixInsight for this.not sure how good they work for planetary though. Imaging the Moon is great for learning, especially when it’s near full. Have fun!

[@astronomynotebook]

Merry Christmas….always appreciate your videos😊❤️

[@Aero19612]

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

[@MrBebopbob]

Thanks for alerting me to fftregistration script. Merry Christmas James.

[@Aero19612]

Merry Christmas, Bob! The FFT thing worked well for the Moon. I’ll have to give it a go on a smaller, less detailed image, like Mars or Jupiter.

[@malcolmdent241169]

Another great video James Merry Christmas..

[@Aero19612]

Thanks! Merry Christmas to you as well

[@DavesAstrophotography]

Brilliant demonstration of processing that moon, tools I had never looked at before! Thank you!

[@Aero19612]

Thanks Dave! Fist time for me to use FFTregistration. Worked like a charm, Give it a go.

[@sirmeowcelot]

Thanks, Mr. Lamb, for another contribution to education.

[@Aero19612]

Thanks for watching!

[@NeilCorke]

That’s really interesting James. I tried doing this in RGB a few days ago, and wish I’d seen this first! Wishing you and yours a wonderful Christmas and a healthy new New Year. Looking forward to seeing many more of your videos.

[@Aero19612]

Thanks Neil! Have a great Christmas and New Year as well. Thanks for watching in 2021!

[@gomanastro]

nice job, and I love the JWST stats at the end!, amazing

[@craiglowery4427]

Very interesting. I will try it James

[@Aero19612]

Something to do while you're shaking your fist at the full Moon under clear skies. Have fun!

[@Aerostar509]

I always learn something from you, thanks. Tim

[@Aero19612]

Thanks for watching, Tim!

[@qguitar1]

Thank you for all your video's Super helpful and informative.

[@Aero19612]

Thanks for watching!

[@chrini1]

Well done. Thanks for the explanations!

[@Aero19612]

Thanks for watching!

[@yosmith1]

I have some very recent data that I can try these tools on. Thanks for demonstrating these tools, I've never tried.

[@Aero19612]

Excellent, Neil! Give Pixinsight a go on your data. I've got to go back and try it on some planetary data myself.

[@ericsmiths]

Hi James, I am late to the party on this but thanks for bringing to our attention the cool surface tacking feature in PixInsight. I am playing with this now and by what I see, it is really cool. The pixelated subframes are really smoothed out and natural. I have used all the other programs you referred to but this is another option to try if you have PixInsight.

[@Aero19612]

Haha. No such thing as being late to a Moon Party. It’ll find you whenever. Yep, cool tools. I’m going to have to use them on more projects. Thanks for watching, Eric!

[@Glovali]

Amazing stuff!

[@Aero19612]

Thanks for watching!

[@Nottsboy24]

Nice results there 👌 you can really see the Lunar Geology 👓🎓🔭

[@Aero19612]

Thanks! I generally “ignore” the Moon. But, once in a while, it’s nice to give it a little respect. Haha. Thanks for watching!

[@WayneMills-pj4rr]

Hi James. I need to look at the rest of your videos. Your presentation skills are no nonsense and easy to follow. I did make one mistake though. I thought you would want a separate base image for each channel. Obviously, they didn't line up when I combined them. I am rerunning now using the blue sample as the baseline. Fingers crossed!

[@Aero19612]

Thanks for watching, Wayne! Yes. All images must be aligned to a common frame. Of course, you know that now. Hope things work out for you. I found the Pixinsight tools to be very robust. Good luck!

[@WayneMills-pj4rr]

Sadly, I ran into a new problem (as is always the case with this hobby), color saturation is not working. I know the images are in color. When I did the FFTRegistration using the separate baseline images, there were blue/red/green halos around the moon from the offset. I went through everything again (a couple of times), unsuccessfully. When I saved the FITS files as XISF at the end of the night, PI called them gray_07.... That was a clue to me that I likely didn't do something correctly when I did FFTRegistration. I never retried that step again as I thought it had worked correctly. Tonight, I am going to use my usual workflow to load the FITS into PI, then when I get to staralign, I will instead use fftregistration. Wish me luck and thank you for the nice reply!

[@Aero19612]

If you register each color stack separately, you'll have 3 grayscale images. You'll then need to register two of those to the third. Then use ChannelCombination to get the RGB image. Then go crazy with the ColorSaturation tool. You probably know all that stuff. Hope it turned out well, Wayne!

[@TheMje1963]

Nice, Gonna have to see how it does with an OSC camera.

[@Aero19612]

Give it a go, Mark!

[@Spaced_Out_Bill]

I really like your videos. How do you slew to the Moon with NINA?

[@Aero19612]

Thanks, Bill! I used Stellarium to find the RA/DEC at the time when I expected to slew to the Moon. Then, with the Moon selected, transferred those coords to the NINA sequencer and used the Adv Sequencer instruction "slew to RA, DEC". No slew and center since no stars are visible. Even so, that method is approximate. When I woke up and took control over the session, I clicked on the Moon in Stellarium and pressed Ctrl-1 in Stellarium to slew to those RA/DEC coords and then nudged it into place manually.

[@MrStacaz99]

Great video, as always! I took 1000s of individual images of the moon with R, G,and B filters, and then stacked with AutoStakkert. The resulting three images look great and sharp, but how do I get them aligned/registered all the same before I do the RGB combination? Thanks! I can't do anything with them without getting them aligned with each other.

[@Aero19612]

You could load the three RGB images into AutoStakkert and align them after selecting one as the reference frame. Or do it in Pixinsight (if you have it) like I show in the video. Good luck!

[@MrStacaz99]

@@Aero19612 I think that my data may be spread out over an hour or more, and I get some out of place pixels when using FFT Registration, and the images are a pixel or two off in some places. When I crank the the saturation up, it looks awful, and I get splotches of color all around. It may be advantageous to make sure you get ALL of your R, G, and B images over a shorter time period so that the moon is lit exactly the same in all sequences. I will have to get new data on the next fullish moon...

[@Aero19612]

Yeah, maybe cut way down on the number of images (observation time). Good luck!

[@craiglowery4427]

Very nice James. Was your starting point video files

[@Aero19612]

Hi Craig. No. I took 50 stills in Red, Green, and Blue (check the video to see how many exposures per filter I actually shot). Then used Pixinsight to align and process the image. Thanks for watching!

[@kozmosi]

Hi James - very nice result. Any chance we can get the raw images so that we can try this out for ourselves?

[@Aero19612]

I might post a subset of the images as the total size for all of the images is VERY large. If I load them up on Google Drive, I’ll send you a note.

[@Erniej270]

How did you slew your the Moon with NINA? Thanks for the informative videos.

[@Aero19612]

Hey Ernie. I used Stellarium to find the RA/DEC when I planned to slew to the moon. Then transferred those coords to the NINA sequencer and used "slew to RA, DEC". It's not going to be precise-just gets you in the neighborhood. When I took control over the session, I clicked on the Moon in Stellarium and pressed Ctrl-1 in Stellarium to slew to those coords and then nudged it into place manually.

[@Erniej270]

@@Aero19612 thank you.

[@ericsmiths]

@@Aero19612 The moon is a slippery beast to get centered on. ;-)

[@jean-marclemoine9636]

Nice image but you don’t register the 3 different masters one to each other? Merry Christmas. JM

[@Aero19612]

Thanks. Yes, they are all registered to the same reference image (which may have been a blue image).

[@jean-marclemoine9636]

@@Aero19612 👍OK. Sorry about that…

[@Aero19612]

Haha. No problem! Merry Christmas, Jean-Marc!

[@gomanastro]

that's why they call them rocket scientists!, no mistakes!

[@Aero19612]

Ha. That’s why they call them “nervous.” I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed. Thanks for watching, Greg!

[@lphilpot01]

That's why even if I was smart enough to be a rocket surgeon 🙂I couldn't have done it. I"m too risk averse (at that level, at least!). Great video.

[@astrodad656]

Very, very nervous about the launch. Argh...

[@Aero19612]

Launch went OK. Now for the risky stuff!

[@astrodad656]

@@Aero19612 PTSD here from Challenger. Feel better but yes, now the real tough part starts.

[@srikanthmeg]

This is one of those moments where scientists believe in luck factor

[@srikanthmeg]

Right after I commented before the video ended you mentioned luck as well...lol

[@Aero19612]

some of them are breathing a little easier now that the launch went off without a hitch. Long road ahead.