My 2020 PixInsight Workflow For Deep Sky Astrophotography - Rosette Nebula Shot With A OSC Camera

This is my current process for processing a deep sky image in Pixinsight. My understanding of Pixinsight continually changes, but this is what I do in 2020. I welcome any advise that you could offer that would better my images!
EQUIPMENT:
Telescope: Celestron RASA 8"
Mount: Sky-Watcher EQ6-R Pro - optcorp.com/products/sky-watc...
Filter: Celestron LPS filter for 8" RASA
Camera: ZWO ASI294MC Pro: www.amazon.com/ZWO-ASI294MC-P...
Mini PC: Beelink AP34 pro Mini PC - amzn.to/2GreXZ1
To see my photos in high resolution: www.astrobin.com/users/Shawnh...
Follow me on:
Twitter: / celestialvlog
Instagram: / celestialastrophotography
Astrobin: www.astrobin.com/users/Shawnh...
0:00 - In the backyard
3:20 - Pixinsight tutorial begins
4:03 - Color calibration
6:52 - Dynamic background extraction
10:34 - Crop
11:06 - Background neutralization
12:33 - SCNR
13:00 - Noise reduction
19:13 - Intermission/Cat stretch
19:31 - Stretching
20:33 - Detail and sharpening
23:41 - Star reduction
28:35 - Contrast and Saturation
30:23 - Closing remarks
31:40 - The Rosette Nebula reveal
#PixInsight #Astrophotography #RosetteNebula

[@paulmacias6802]

This was wonderful! Very quick, to the point. Waiting for the clouds to go away and Rosette is next on my list!

[@elithic]

Great stuff! This really demystified a lot for me and helped me understand a lot more about how to use PI. Thank you so much for taking the time to do this!

[@chridignan9178]

Brilliant. So succinct and full of information. Thanks and clear skies!

[@baszonneveld7740]

This is what i need in the bush of tutorials! Thx for sharing.

[@adampickering5477]

What a great tutorial!! Many thanks for your insight, a completely different way of processing but even better than what I was doing in some respects and less time consuming. Well done!

[@ClearAmbientSkies]

Thank you for a great tutorial here. I'll be picking up a copy of the book too. My knowledge has surely increased.

[@ing.riccoskombar]

One of the best tutorials i have ever seen.

[@zardozfromoz]

I don't think I could have chosen better than this video for a first introduction to PixInsight. Good work!

[@RussellsAstrophotography]

Absolutely brilliant video thank you so much. As someone new to PicInsight myself, this unbelievably useful, I learnt so much. Thanks again, Russell

[@3xistenc3]

Thank you for going through all of that it really helped me processing my first osc image. I'm subbed and will check out your other videos!

[@skatsikas]

This is an outstanding tutorial. I can't believe how much better my results are following your workflow. Thanks for putting it out there.

[@shawnharvPhotography]

Great to hear!

[@TylerSchlittPhotography]

I really don't do much commenting on channels, but Ill say this you have one of the better tutorial when it comes to pixinsight. I've been using this software for about two years and some stuff I can do on my own but you break it done well! Thank you keep you the great work and clear skies!

[@linwoodferguson6441]

Thank you. Just getting started, and yours is one of the few that just gets to the point, not a lot of talking just to talk. Very nicely done.

[@shawnharvPhotography]

Awesome, thank you! Im glad it helped.

[@dariopet]

Great tutorial! Huge improvement in my processing skills. Thank you!

[@04Stefan07]

After watching over a dozen tutorials this one has brought out the most detail in my images. Others have very good ways of doing it but yours deals with noise and contrast better. Thank you very much!

[@shawnharvPhotography]

Thanks! Im glad it helped :D

[@mickweall]

Totally saved me dude. This has made a massive difference to my learning curve. 1 week into my PI trial and this just made all the difference. Respect.

[@shawnharvPhotography]

Glad I can help! PixInsight can be intimidating at first, but it becomes addicting soon after.

[@eliasgalanis5275]

Thank you so much! Excellent tutorial and walkthrough!

[@tullyfisher]

Very well done. Your tutorial helps me a lot. Thanks!

[@Paulus449]

Absolutely beautiful photo, thanks for sharing how you got there.

[@darrenross8939]

Thanks very much for this. Have been using PI for years and learnt several new things.

[@shawnharvPhotography]

Thats awesome to hear! Glad you found some new things to add to your workflow :)

[@astronomynotebook]

I have that book too. Your process is great and I will follow it the next time I do work on my images. Thank you.🤗

[@shawnharvPhotography]

Its a great book that I need to read more of haha. I hope this processing works well for you :D Enjoy!

[@cucubits]

Awesome and very effective way to show your process. I'm starting to love PI more and more. You've earned a new sub here!

[@shawnharvPhotography]

Thank you! PI can be intimidating at first (and still is in some sense), but I've grown to love it more as well.

[@radod6147]

so far this was the best tutorial I find here, thanks a lot

[@shawnharvPhotography]

Glad it helped!

[@TheIronbark]

This is the only pixinsight tutorial that I have been able to follow and actually get a presentable photo on the tail end. Thank you! Thumbs up and Sub from me.

[@apiaristicone9585]

a great video! Many thanks! you have helped me tremendously.

[@LanFeusT23]

Thank you! You start after stacking though, I'd love to see a video with the registration and stacking part. Especially with the latest version of PI there seems to be new features.

[@billysteele970]

Just got PI found this easy to follow and I got some great results following your work flow. Thank you for taking the time to share.

[@shawnharvPhotography]

Thats great! I'm happy the workflow worked for you. What target did you process?

[@billysteele970]

@@shawnharvPhotography The bat nebula and eastern veil.....

[@billysteele970]

The thing I liked the best was not following your settings per say but experimenting and understanding what was going on.....

[@chhupparustom]

Very informative tutorial - thanks!

[@Nottsboy24]

Nice upload and nice to see how you process your images 👌 nice capture btw 🔭

[@shawnharvPhotography]

Thanks a lot 😊

[@mattcarter2902]

Amazing tutorial! Will be referencing this video a lot coming from Photoshop.

[@timsullivan3497]

Shawn, great video and process. I will definitely incorporate some of your process into my own. What I liked most was your data looked more like mine than others like Chuck, Dylan or Trevor. Their data always looks so pristine in their videos.

[@richardneel6953]

My problem as well shooting from a light polluted city and using a dslr. Sitting and following along trying to process my Pacman nebula data from the last 2 nights. Struggling with getting the background nice and neutral.

[@jameswebb8162]

I have a celestron 8” Newtonian with a AVX mount. Seeing that you can generate a beautiful Rosetta Nebula like that with an 8” telescope gives me hope that I can do that as well!! Awesome job man! James

[@astrumimitari7467]

He used an 8” RASA. Totally different than what you have. Its like comparing a Newtonian to a Refractor...its apples and oranges.

[@liviulazar9387]

Really helpful, thank you so much!

[@richardneel6953]

Don't know how you only have 2K subscribers! Really excellent video. Amazing results from such a light polluted setting. You've inspired me to continue trying as I'm in a similar light pollution situation.

[@shawnharvPhotography]

Thanks for thr kinds words! I find the best thing for light polluted areas (outside of filters) is exposures of a minute or under.

[@richardneel6953]

@@shawnharvPhotography I get it but I don't seem to collect enough light from my targets with only 60 seconds. Actually imaging NGC7000 as we speak at 2 minutes. I can barely make out the nebula after stretching. I'm using a Optolong L-Pro to hopefully help with the LP.

[@jameswebb8162]

Great video. I wish you would explain on some of the functions as to why you would use that function and it’s purpose before jumping in. Other than that loved it! Easy to follow, and can’t wait to apply it to my own data. Just started Astrophotography and looking forward to trying out my CCD. Thanks for the info on Pixinsight, it can be daunting, once again thanks for the help! James

[@MrSpike2450]

Brilliant, thanks very much.

[@Scrottobaggns]

Thanks for this video. I just purchased PixInsight yesterday. I ran through some other basic tutorials, but your one seemed to make much more difference to my image. Especially making the luminance mask and the stretching etc. My one problem is having some patchy areas that are the same color as the nebulosity, so I don't know how to remove that from isolated areas.

[@danielboisvert-couture5429]

This tutorial is EXTREMELY helpful. I had a hard time keeping the faint nebulosity and having clear and crisp stars when I was trying to follow Lightvortex's examples, but this here makes it quick and the end result looks amazing ! Thanks from Montréal !

[@shawnharvPhotography]

Glad it helped! What object were you processing?

[@danielboisvert-couture5429]

@@shawnharvPhotography The Bubble Nebula on my Orion ED80Triplet CF. Here's a link to the picture, I based my workflow around yours, skipping a step or two and adding in 2 or 3 adjustments at the end. www.astrobin.com/ua7qyp/?nc=user

[@shawnharvPhotography]

@@danielboisvert-couture5429 Awesome results! You got a new astrobin follower ☺️

[@danielboisvert-couture5429]

@@shawnharvPhotography Cool, thanks for the support !

[@wolwenastro]

Greatly done, Thank U

[@anzo.p]

The intermission was great

[@PafMedic]

Thats Beautiful Shawn❤️❤️❤️Weve Had The Same Skies In Pittsburgh..I Want to Get My Scope Out and Get Out Of The House Some,This Virus Is Unreal..Great Video..Thank You For Sharing It With Us,Stay Safe,Happy Days,Clear Skies..and God Bless Us All.

[@shawnharvPhotography]

Thanks for the kinds words. I wish you clear skies and good health as well :D

[@PafMedic]

Celestial Photography ,Thank You Very Much,Staying As Safe As Possible.

[@astronomynotebook]

This is a very good video to follow while doing my own images step by step in Pixinsight....please do more on specific sky objects for the specific processing that may be required to reduce blow out of enteral cores of clusters, nebula....thank you.

[@shawnharvPhotography]

Thanks! Im glad I liked it! I think I'll start doing more Pixinsight videos. People seem to like this one.

[@buzzsawddog]

Thank you for your time. I learned something new :-)

[@fabrizziofalconi]

Very very easy tutorial, thanks for your work. Hi from Chile.

[@shawnharvPhotography]

Thanks and welcome

[@DenBuzz15]

Great video, hard to believe you're "new to this"!

[@shawnharvPhotography]

Thank you! Glad you liked it. Probably about a year using PixInsight. So new-ish haha.

[@ryanmartin8880]

Level up in PixInsight after this video. Thanks!

[@shawnharvPhotography]

Haha Glad I can help. Were all getting better, day by day.

[@MrRosentrotter]

Great video, thanks.

[@TheUrbanAstronomer]

Great work!

[@AF29007]

That Linear Fit trick is a neat one, thanks for showing me something new!

[@shawnharvPhotography]

You bet!

[@Makrem]

@@shawnharvPhotography Hello, Thank you for this video, Can you explain me why do you use the linear fit plz ?

[@shawnharvPhotography]

@@Makrem its to balance the color channels (RGB). Its just another way of doing color calibration.

[@Makrem]

@@shawnharvPhotography Ok big thanks

[@miedu74]

thanks very much! really helpful

[@AstroDad]

Great video

[@isoufo]

Thanks for the easy to follow step by step guide!! Helped me out a ton, but I'm curious if you have an updated process now? Regardless my Eagle Nebula picture went from a giant red blob from DSS to something that resembles a nebula using your guide in PI :)

[@Spaced_Out_Bill]

Thank you!

[@jtepsr]

very advanced tutorial

[@ecovish]

Fantastic video. Can’t wait to get started in post. I have a c6 w/ hyperstar. See that you’re in Toronto. I am as well. Are there any meetups or star party type stuff that you go to?

[@critterstocosmos]

What a fantastic video. Thank you so much! I'm considering a purchase of PixInsight as well (currently using the trial). Hope you can post more tutorials!! Cheers

[@shawnharvPhotography]

Thanks!! There's another one in the works :D

[@critterstocosmos]

@@shawnharvPhotography Fantastic!

[@critterstocosmos]

@@shawnharvPhotography I wish there was a way to post a picture here! I'd love to show you my edit of the Andromeda Galaxy. I followed your steps in this video to get there and I was blown away. PixInsight should totally give you commission. Lol

[@shawnharvPhotography]

@@critterstocosmos Post it on astrobin and put the link here :D I would love to see it!

[@critterstocosmos]

@@shawnharvPhotography I just sent you a quick message on Instagram. Thanks for the tip about Astrobin! I just need more time to look into it further but I will for sure! Thanks again and keep up the amazing work!

[@timmoody7600]

Just started my trial period on PI so very much a beginner, but this tutorial will help me catch up. Rosette is a really nice target for the FOV of your equipment. I tried it a year ago with an 8SE, no filters, and A6300 without much success. Now I have the same camera as you, but still the 8SE + focal reducer. Waiting for it to come up again. Do you like your RASA better than a refractor?

[@astrodad656]

Nice vlog. Did you stack your calibration frames in PI or DSS? Thanks.

[@victorbeer8209]

when utilizing Dynamic background extraction, try changing the default sample radius to 50-150 depending on your image. It will give a better representation of the background

[@ttnownow1292]

Thanks for the tutorial! The background neutralization does not seem to work for me.. it seems to make the background almost black for some reason..(regardless of which preview area I select in the image.. Not sure if I'm doing something wrong..

[@MikeTettenborn]

Great tutorial. A bit fast for us who are new to Pixinsight. Now that I have the very basics down I go to this video often to refresh on the workflow. Thanks! You may want to add Starnet into your workflow. it does an even better job at star reduction/elimination. An awesome add on!

[@shawnharvPhotography]

Thanks! Im glad I can help. Funny you say that, I JUST tried starnet out on my last DSO and it worked great! ill definitely be highlighting it in my next processing video. :)

[@MikeTettenborn]

@@shawnharvPhotography I can't believe how well it worked win Andromeda. Have you imaged/processed Andromeda? Processing video perhaps?

[@shawnharvPhotography]

@@MikeTettenborn Are you from the future? lol My next processing video was literally going to be Andromeda haha. I just captured the data over the weekend :p

[@MikeTettenborn]

@@shawnharvPhotography Looking forward to it. I had a great session a few nights ago. Live in a Bortal Class 4 area on the Bruce Peninsula and just need to drive 10 minutes north to class 3 or 45 minutes to class 2. Very lucky up here. Just need to learn how to better process my images so your new tutorial will be a great help!

[@jameswebb8162]

I just wanted to say that I feel bad dropping a complaint right of the bat!! This by no means says ur video garbage!! If anything I saved it and is my go to for processing data!! Thanks for the help! James

[@matthilton8959]

Great video. Considering purchasing pixinsite myself. Did you stack your image in it or use a different software to do so firstly?

[@shawnharvPhotography]

I used DeepSkyStacker for stacking this image. I have yet to use Pixinsight to register and stack images. One day haha

[@messier7849]

Just jumping into PI pool. I use DSS for stacking and I have found PI stacking to be a bit tedious. Have you compared the 2, and is it worth it to stack in PI? Great vid. Learning tons.

[@isoufo]

I was using DSS to stack my Eagle Nebula photos and it was basically just a red ball, tried various settings and editing in Light Room with no luck. PI made it look 1000% better. I'm using the trial version, but I will be buying it and playing with it more. Astrophotography isn't any fun when your pictures look like complete crap hah. That's just my limited experience though.

[@yangyunbo1]

very clear thoughts，and why the background looks like that?the flat doesn't work?

[@shawnharvPhotography]

I think its my bortle 9 light pollution. :( Ill be out of this city one day haha.

[@Broccoli_32]

My images look worse when I use the dynamic background extraction, any idea why?

[@xe1zlgg]

Nice workflow.... for your backyard you may need a tighter Nebula filter.... may be a L enhance CS.

[@shawnharvPhotography]

Thanks! I'll try that 😁

[@patrickstevenson8305]

I get the impression that a lot of what you do is compensation for your light pollution. I am located in the desert outside Tucson, Arizona in the shadow of the Large Binocular Telescope so, except for a bit of sky glow to the west from Tucson, I have pretty much little or no light pollution. I followed another KZbin for a relatively dark sky area doing M17. With about a half of the functions you do I got an M17 that was roundly accepted by my normal bevy of evaluators. I used to use Nebulosity 4 for stacking and aligning and pre-processing with calibration frames until recently when I tried DSS. I went from DSS right into Pixinsight with the Autosave frame. Again, the final image was, without too much self-bias, beautiful. Given all that (whew) can I avoid much of your workflow if I have a dark sky with excellent seeing? If so, which ones do you think I could avoid. I am truly amazed at what some of you guys/gals are able to do with Bortle 7 skies. This is a wonderful image fully worthy of praise of those taken under black desert skies.

[@shawnharvPhotography]

I would say that is the case. I've been to a few dark sites to take some images, and I've noticed that little to no light pollution makes processing an image that much easier. Gotta work with with you got I guess haha. Thank you for your comment!

[@maciekos]

You don't have to do star aligment. APT has a plate solve witch is fantastic tool.

[@92mrkite]

Hi, great tuto, I just discover your channel! A question: why don’t you crop your original stacked image prior to all other processes? This may remove side effects from… side pixels, if only in statistics.

[@shawnharvPhotography]

Im not really sure why haha. I thought I had no reason to crop till closer to the end. Are there any other benefits to cropping earlier?

[@92mrkite]

Yes: all processes regarding gradient removals don’t need those side pixels. Plus, they should be more efficient.

[@osamadessouky802]

That was EXCELLENT. Most PI tutorials are for galaxies. This one helped a lot!! Well done! Only issue is the pace! Man, slow down... 😂 I could not keep up!! Any chance of a write up? This tutorial is seriously good, but I missed many of the on screen setting. Would be immense to actually see what settings you use in each process. Many thanks! 👍

[@shawnharvPhotography]

You're absolutely right. Ill need to do a more in depth, slower video. I wanted to keep this around 30 minutes, but thats not practical for Pixinsight tutorials haha.

[@billysteele970]

@@shawnharvPhotography The pace was good when you use the space bar to pause it :-)

[@bogdanbacila9024]

Strange way to do deconvolution.. I usually create a PSF, from my stars, then create a star mask, but only for thw big stars, and then do the deconv... but that implies tunning allot the two derringing params.. and most important, always do it in the linear stage, so before stretching.. Also, give mure denoise a chance..it is quite nice ;)

[@jtepsr]

what mount is that

[@christophwinkler7000]

Hi Shawn. Nice work, your tutorial on the rosette nebula. Actually before I learned about your tutorial, I followed the OSC workflow in chapter 21 of Warren Keller's book using my Rosette nebula data from 2018. The OSC workflow in ch. 21 is similar to what you showed, although some steps are different, i.e. color calibration. Anyhow, I repeated your tutorial with my own data and learned a lot about PixInsight. Thanks. One question remains: after background extraction (ABE or DBE) your processed data show a significant improvement compared with the stacked raw data. For my data the result was less significant after ABE/DBE. I think, the reason must be my data which only have about 50% of your total exposure and I used a 110 mm (~ 4.3") APO refractor, rather than an 8" telescope like you did. So I have clearly less photons, poorer S/N ratio. But was puzzled me is that your unprocessed data look very similar compared to my data. So I had some hope that I was not aware of some processing steps to really improve my results. I think your raw data are basically polluted by Toronto city lights, while my raw data have an ok sky background. So, the ABE/DBE should therefore produce a bigger "wow" effect than my data. Would you agree ? Cheers, Chris.

[@shawnharvPhotography]

Thank you! And I would agree with you. Strange how you didnt get similar or better results. Did you notice this mostly after doing the background extractions? If im not mistaken, there is a tolerance slider that might help. Since I have a lot of light pollution to fight in this image, I had a higher tolerance. Try playing with that and let me know how it goes.

[@christophwinkler7000]

@@shawnharvPhotography Yes, the tolerance slider needs to be a bit higher, otherwise only few sample points for DBE will be created. Otherwise I can't see a problem with DBE compared with its application to my other data. What is strange indeed is that my pre-processed image (dark sub, calibrated, star aligned, integrated) looks visually almost identical if I compare "before" DBE with "after" DBE. Ok, you have (8"/4")*(8"/4")*2 = 8 times more photons but I am puzzled about the lack of contrast after DBE.

[@richardneel6953]

@@christophwinkler7000 Had similar thoughts. However, he is using a VERY fast telescope (f2 I believe). I'm similar to you in that I'm using a 81mm f6 telescope. In my experience here, I don't collect enough signal with only 60 second subs. I don't think the data "looking the same" matters as much as the quality of the data inside that little thin histogram.

[@mostafametwally1]

Nice video thanks. However having read Warrens book and watched his tutorials, deconvolution should be done very early in the linear stage

[@shawnharvPhotography]

Yes, you are right! I've been doing this in recent processing sessions, but havent done another tutorial including it yet :P Coming soon though!

[@johndoty3279]

Whenever I try and save, the image comes back out super dark like it came in... proper way to export or save?

[@shawnharvPhotography]

I save it as a 16 bit Tiff file. Try that and let me know how it goes. Its possible you forgot to apply stretching to the image as well.

[@johndoty3279]

Celestial Photography can you reference in the video how i apply it to the image

[@johndoty3279]

i think i hit the nuke button, is that supposed to apply?

[@shawnharvPhotography]

@@johndoty3279 The nuke button shows you what a stretch looks like, but you will need to drag that over to your histagram transformation tool, and then drag that over to your image. Then its applied. In the video, check out 19:30. kzbin.info/www/bejne/jp2TZGmEj5h4pcU

[@divye.ruhela]

Dude used all the functions in the buffet.

[@catpool]

Deconvoluton should be done in linear stage.

[@shawnharvPhotography]

Ok I'll try that next time around! Thanks 👍

[@christopherdeaver5372]

Can you start posting some of your videos on Rumble. Many of us are moving to that platform because of censorship on KZbin.

[@shawnharvPhotography]

I was actually looking for an alternative. Thought about BitChute, but ill look into Rumble!

[@Diaminooxidase]

the cosmos is vast. cant get my head around it

[@ResearchersOfTheTruth]

I appreciate the video but Slow down and talk to the icon/buttons you are pushing. thx

[@sergeyt.7564]

Why it s too long process.? Pixinsigt looks like a old school computer, not evolutioned for past 20 years.

[@mohammedalshethry4862]

you desperately need flats

[@refetastro]

I’m struggling to understand the price for the value Pixinsight itself coast $350 How can I use if can’t afford another $400 on plugins How much pixinsight by itself with no plugins can do better than me using dss,siril,Ps ? Thanks For your video