OSC Narrowband Processing Guide - As Quick As Possible! - PixInsight

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In my last video where I shot the Pelican Nebula, a lot of people asked how I turned the colours to look like a hubble palette image, and asked for a tutorial for this process, so, here it is!
I hope this helps you get started :)
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[@kurtbauch5491]

Excellent! I just started using your method from you video of about 1 year ago (23 minutes, I think), but will use this since I now have a decent understanding of how this works. I appreciate the quick and to the point video. Good “stuff”!

[@lukomatico]

Thank you Kurt! - I actually have a newer version of this available for you if you'd like to check it out mate, it's got my latest processing steps inside! :-) I really appreciate your support, thanks for taking the time to leave a comment for me! Clear skies!

[@kurtbauch5491]

@@lukomatico is it this one? ago Pixincide OSC NARROWBANI 35:01 OSC Hubble Palette Guide! Easy Pixlnsight Tutorial lukomatico • 7.2K views • 4 months

[@lukomatico]

That's the one mate!! 👍 A bit longer but a better overall approach I think

[@HeavenlyBackyardAstronomy]

PI has Soooo much functionality ... I am still learning it. This tutorial helps a bit more.

[@lukomatico]

Hey there Pat! - I'm very glad to hear it's helped a bit, I completely know what you mean regarding PixInsight by the way, I feel like in the 8 months I've been using it I am only just touching the tip of the iceberg! Thank you for checking out the video Pat! :-) Have a great weekend my friend, Luke

[@ChrisTurchin]

This was an exceptionally helpful tutorial and a lovely result! Thank you.

[@lukomatico]

Thank you so much Chris! - I'm really happy you found it useful! :-) All the very best, Luke

[@theinterstellarfeller]

Awesome tutorial! Can’t wait to try it out!

[@lukomatico]

Hey there Don! - I have a slightly newer version of this tutorial with some of my own data provided if you wanted to try it out sometime :-) If you are interested then -kzbin.info/www/bejne/h4eZgJWCi7ephM0 - that should link you right to the video, and the data is in the description for download! I hope you have loads of fun with it mate :-) All the best, Luke

[@srn4couk]

Thanks for taking the time to do this Luke. I am very much on the "Nursery slopes" with PI and I find it very useful to see a practical use of some (of the many!) processes

[@lukomatico]

No problem at all! I'm very glad it was helpful to you :) PixInsight can be very daunting, it certainly was to me at first (and still is at times) but the power it offers is incredible! Thanks for watching :)

[@hyak107]

I'm still watching the video but had to pause and comment. I was previously using a tutorial from another channel, it was good but way too long and tedious. In this video you're moving quickly and it's straightforward and awesome. Thank you!!!!!

[@lukomatico]

That's awesome Steven!! Thank you so much for your lovely feedback mate :-) I worried about the pacing for sure so to hear it's good is a weight off my shoulders! Thank you for watching! 👍👍

[@sebastiaansmit5751]

Love the tutorial Luke. I will definitely try this technique on my next nebula target!

[@lukomatico]

Hey Sebastiaan! I'm glad you like the tutorial and I hope you find it useful when applying to your own images 😊👍 Thank you for watching mate!

[@markbergendahl2651]

Thanks! Haven't used this program but great to see this !

[@lukomatico]

Hey Mark! - glad it was good to see see still mate, it's a great program but can be very confusing to begin with! :) Thank you for watching!

[@Pierre-ve7tv]

That's a great starting point, thanks Luke! Lots of useful tips I need to try out. Hopefully it turns out as good as yours!

[@lukomatico]

Thank you Pierre! - that's very kind of you :) I'm really glad it was useful! 🙏

[@RussellsAstrophotography]

Great tutorial Luke. I need to get a dual narrowband filter!

[@lukomatico]

Hey thanks Russell! - they are pretty nifty to be honest, a lot of fun can be had :) Thank you for watching!

[@clive1539]

Thanks for that, a well explained tutorial... will have a try with this at some stage

[@lukomatico]

Thanks Clive! - I hope you find it useful when you have a go 👍👍

[@stillontheedge]

Quite incredible. I didn't know this was possible, there's so much learn. Thanks Luke.

[@lukomatico]

Thank you so much mate!! Really glad it was helpful for you 👍 I do have newer versions of this idea on my channel page if you'd like to do any further research on it, hope that helps! :-) Clear skies!

[@ChucksAstrophotography]

Great tutorial. I'll save this if I ever go down the OSC narrowband path.

[@lukomatico]

Hey Chuck! Glad to hear you liked it :) congrats on 40k by the way! I'm so happy for you 👍👍

[@ChucksAstrophotography]

@@lukomatico Thanks!

[@DSOImager]

Very cool. Always nice to see how folks process their data.

[@lukomatico]

Thank you mate! I'm glad it offered some entertainment! :) 👍 Clear skies

[@avt_astro206]

Great Tutorial!! Love the Final Image, Great Blending Of Colors!!

[@lukomatico]

Hey bro! Thank you for that :) Have a good one! 👍

[@avt_astro206]

@@lukomatico Your Welcome!! Your image is APOD worthy : D. I can see Your Progression in your images, each Time They get Better

[@tullyfisher]

Very cool and helpful tutorial Luke. I learned a lot. Thanks :)

[@lukomatico]

THank you so much for watching Tully! Clear skies my friend :-)

[@JoesAstrophoto]

Great tutorial Luke! I'll remember it if I decide to ever go the OSC route.

[@lukomatico]

Hey Joe! - thanks for taking a look mate :) 👍👍

[@crm114.]

Excellent. Thank you for taking the time to do this. Very much appreciated.

[@lukomatico]

Not a problem at all Cliff! I'm really happy that it might be of use 👍👍

[@crm114.]

Got my EQ6-R last Friday and my Esprit 100ED arrives tomorrow. So, expect a long period of blanket cloud coverage. 😊 It will be a while before narrowband is on the agenda so this tutorial will be saved for later. Thanks again.

[@lukomatico]

@@crm114. That's tremendous! I hope you love the gear, that's some high quality stuff :) Enjoy!

[@AstroSoundscape]

Hey enjoyed the tutorial mate, I know where to come if I make that Pixinsight move one day. Enjoyed how concise and clear this was. Cheers Ollie. 👍👍

[@lukomatico]

Thank you Ollie! Pix is one hell of a program, took me some serious getting used to though 😅 Thanks for watching mate!

[@focalworldphotography5322]

This is an awesome tutorial! I really appreciate. I had just downloaded Pixinsight after 2 years of only using Photoshop on my Astro images. While I know it can get way more complicated, your steps make Pixinsight feel so much less daunting to use.

[@lukomatico]

Great to hear that my friend! If you feel ready to learn more I have just finished a series of tutorials aimed at beginners to PixInsight also, you can find them on my channel as my most recent videos, they may be of use to you! :-) Clear skies!

[@focalworldphotography5322]

@@lukomatico Thanks so much! I will be perusing them!

[@astrotimetraveller4622]

Thanks Luke a great tutorial and has opened up a whole new dimension of how to get more out of my OSC images through PixInsight for here in the UK. First time I’ve seen this method of channel rebalancing. Really good final image. Reds Ian

[@lukomatico]

Hello Ian! - I'm very glad to hear that you enjoyed the tutorial, I hope you are able to get some use from it 😊👍 Thank you for watching Clear skies! Luke

[@paulholdsworth2502]

Great tutorial and fabulous final image. I certainly think osc cameras with UK weather is the way to go. Its incredible how PI and APP can split out the channels from a dual narrowband filter to create a hubble palette. Great video 👍

[@lukomatico]

Hey Paul and thank you! I also think that OSC suits our sporadic clear skies well here, and with the current crop of super clean and sensitive cameras it's never been more appealing to have a OSC cam for most astro duties! :) As you mention, the software is where the magic happens with these now, it's came on so well and I can only imagine how much better things will be in a couple more years at this rate of advancement 👍 Thank you for commenting!

[@heizenbergone]

thank you very much, this is really helpfull. I am gonna try the demo of pixinsight

[@lukomatico]

That's great news! I hope you get off to a good start with it, it can be daunting but try to stick with it! I really struggled at first to be honest 😅

[@janelubenskyi1177]

Great…will try this on the Crescent Nebula 😊

[@lukomatico]

Awesome to hear that Jane! - Good luck!! :-D

[@HogarthsAstrophotography]

Great tutorial Luke..

[@lukomatico]

Thank you very much mate! I'm glad you liked it :)

[@davidleejenkins]

Fantastic! I can’t wait to try this with my Esprit 100ED and my 2600MC Pro. I just need to wait for the skies to clear from all of the wild fire smoke that has been blanketing our skies for weeks.

[@lukomatico]

Hey David! - That must be awful to deal with, I hope it clears soon for you - I'm sure you'll have a ton of fun with the tutorial mate, good luck!! (if you wanted to try it out with some of my data, then there's a link in the video description on my newer version of the tutorial that you might enjoy - kzbin.info/www/bejne/h4eZgJWCi7ephM0 )

[@davidleejenkins]

@@lukomatico great idea! I’ll do that while I wait for the skies to clear. :)

[@kevinsuhr7707]

Great tutorial. I will try it 😀👍

[@lukomatico]

Good luck with it Kevin! :) thanks for watching 👍

[@Sidecontrol1234]

This is awesome, I have a OSC with a dual band filter and I couldn't find concrete information on how to edit it.

[@lukomatico]

Thank you Mark! - I hope the video gave you what you needed my friend 👍👍

[@savtheastroguy]

Great Tutorial! Keep it up

[@lukomatico]

Thank you Savjol! :)

[@siegfriednoet]

Great video Luke, love those kind of tutorials, very well explained 👍👍 For now I'm still using Photoshop but planing on buying PixInsight, but first get more familiar with the gear But still waiting for the Esprit120, .... but for now I still have my Esprit80 Today the Polemaster arrived, also the asi290 and the asi2600mc, so almost there 👍

[@lukomatico]

That's fantastic Siegfried! - I think you'll enjoy PixInsight when you get around to it, it's an at first confusing program, at least it was to me - but quickly things begin to click into place in your mind and it starts to make sense! fingers crossed for some clear skies and you can test out all your lovely new gear :)

[@martrich1098]

Another thanks for making this one - great to see your PixInsight workflow. Don't underestimate your ability by the way, you've just made creating a beautiful image look really really easy ;). I'm just coming to the end of my PixInsight trial, but I am going to buy the full program. One thing that comes out of your videos is the benefit of getting the high quality data - those 15 hours or so really paid off.

[@lukomatico]

Hey Mart! - that's really kind of you to say, I'm so glad it looked easy to follow along with! I'd love for anyone wanting to try it out to not be put off by thinking its too complex - so what you just said in particular is really reassuring to hear! Thank you :) Fully agree regarding good quality data being a huge boon, it makes everything else so much easier! Thank you for watching and for taking the time to write out a lovely comment mate, I appreciate it 👍👍

[@martrich1098]

@@lukomatico You are welcome. Tell you what - I'd be interested to hear about the steps you went through in developing your astro skills, and what you think has been most important for you along the way.

[@lukomatico]

Hey there mate! Sorry about the late reply - that's an interesting question! I'd say the most important factors in my astro development have been reading as much relevant information as possible(forums etc), learning by trial and error, especially early on! - also being critical of my own work and trying to improve all the time, both through analysing successes as well as failures :) I'm sorry if that's not very precise, it's not something I've ever really thought about! Thank you for the interesting question :)

[@garyanderson6192]

Awesome! I have a altair triband filter but have never liked the image colour. I will definately be trying this out next season. Thanks for the clear step by step tutorial. I also have a skytech l pro max, have you tried mixing data from 2 filters using a osc camera?

[@lukomatico]

Hey again Gary! :) I've not actually tried mixing data from two before, an interesting idea! Let me know how it goes if you end up giving it a try mate! :) Clear skies

[@beatsntoons]

ahh you legend, thanks for making this :)

[@lukomatico]

Not a problem at all mate! I hope it was some use 🍻🍻👍

[@desmcmorrow2978]

Great video. Used your method to reanalyse some old Heart nebula data. It completely transformed the image. Would appreciate more PI mini tutorials when you have some time. What is your normal workflow, for example, with dual band data? I too have the 2600mc and an L extreme. Feel I am not yet exploiting it to the max although it is a fab pairing. Cheers, Des

[@lukomatico]

Hey Des! I'm glad the tutorial was useful to you, there's so many routes to success in that program that it's out of this world! - I'll look into making more mini tutorials/workflows for sure 👍👍 Thank you mate!

[@combatwombat71]

Nicely done tutorial Luke! I followed along with some L-eXtreme data from near Sadr last night. All works well, apart from getting some circular artefact blobs left in the nebulosity after Starnet star removal. I wonder if it's just a case of playing with the number parameter on the Starnet tool? There doesn't seem to be much else to tweak!

[@lukomatico]

Hey mate! You can try altering the stride on Starnet perhaps yeah 👍😊 I think perhaps it'll just be a case of some trial and error to find what settings are working for your particular setup :) I hope it was still some use! Clear skies

[@emuhead]

Not sure if you've tried it already, but instead of throwing away your blue channel, you could use the pixelmath formula MAX(green,blue) to keep the combined image as your green and carry on as you did. Great channel & tutorial. Keep up the great work.

[@lukomatico]

Hey Andrew! I've not actually tried that yet! I usually discard the blue because of the noise disparity between it and the green, it's definitely worth a look though thank you! :) I really appreciate the suggestion mate, cheers! 👍👍

[@AstroLaVista]

You're like the Gatling gun of KZbin videos Luke! Just firing then out! The quality is there too :) A really methodical tutorial with audio on point. Pixinsight right? So different to my single layer processing in GIMP :D but I guess it's easy when you know how, and you've definitely learnt how mate. Keep up the great work! but slow down if you feel like your burning out. That can definitely be a thing with you tube.

[@lukomatico]

Thank you Chris! - I really appreciate that mate - I'm glad you liked the process!, I wanted to get this one out quickly so people could try for themselves as a good few people requested it in the comments! :) I hear you regarding burnout! - Fortunately I feel fine currently but I can only imagine how hectic things could get for someone running a larger channel! - I should hopefully have a bit of a more chilled out week now, and with any luck get a video out this saturday :) Thank you for the advice Chris! I really do appreciate it mate!

[@cucubits]

Such a clean image. Whenever I do ABE, even with function of 1, I end up with so much noise made visible. Wondering if it's not enough integration time or some other issue...

[@lukomatico]

Hey cucu! - thats a tough one mate, I guess you've also tried doing DBE instead of ABE? It could definitely be lack of integration time, if it is, then at least that problem is (kind of) easily remedied, Unless your skies are like mine at the moment! 😅 Thank you for watching, and if you need any help let me know! I hope you get to the bottom of it mate, good luck! :-) 👍👍

[@CarlosLabastida]

Thank you for this, have subscribed and will be following your channel closely. Would it be possible to post a link to your source image files so we can follow along with pixinsight? Thanks!

[@lukomatico]

Hey Carlos! Thank you for that, I really appreciate the support! I'll have a think about how to maybe share my files for certain future projects, it's a good idea! - I'm just not sure about how to go about hosting/funding the hosting for such things :) Thank you 👍

[@markwood1660]

Thanks for this, i followed the workflow on my HO data of the Pelican, not as "popping" as your image but i think it worked reasonably ok. Quick question, i just bought a Sesto for Autofocus and noticed you seem to use the same, would you be able to share your NINA settings ? Cheers Mark

[@lukomatico]

Hey there Mark! I'm glad you managed a first result with the tutorial, that's great to hear! I do use the sesto senso 2, but I use APT for my sessions - these are some transferable settings though, I use 15 measurement points, with a step size of 150 and a v curve fitting model of 's rejection' I hope that helps!!

[@markwood1660]

@@lukomatico Thanks, i will check the step size in NINA as that is one of the key areas. OH i stretched the life out of the data (only 20 subs each of HA and Oiii so no where near the smoothnes or clarity you had. :)

[@Frantisek7403]

I have just a small question.What camera and filter have you used to capture this nebula?

[@lukomatico]

Hey Frank! - It was an optolong L-eXtreme filter and a ZWO ASI2600MC Pro camera :-) Hope that helps!

[@danjensen9425]

love your videos . I did the heart nebula and came out nice but when I reprocessed other stacks starnet didn't remove all stars completely so those faint but still there stars receive the color changes in curves . do you know what might be causing this and how to remove all stars with starnet . could be stacking issues

[@lukomatico]

Hey Dan! - I've had that issue myself from time to time, usually changing the amount you stretch before applying starnet can really help even things out :-) I hope that helps somewhat matey! Thank you for watching and getting in touch, All the best, Luke

[@Kyle_Hubbard]

I'm having the exact same issue with the same nebula, haha. I have so many stars and a lot of them are faint. I can't get starnet to remove them. I've been told it works really well for things the person wrote it for but a lot of nebulas it won't work with well. I've tried using a starmask method but that wouldn't work either.

[@danjensen9425]

There is a star removal process plug in for photoshop but not sure if it can be part of pixinsight. I’ve been reprocessing old stacks and processing new ones . I noticed that my spacecat has no issues but the C8 does. The one that came out the best is the wizard nebula. I think it was done with the C8 . So it comes down to spending the 2,000 for camera and filters. ++ filter wheel . I’m thinking about it this way . Astrobackyard just posted his Feelings on burnout. There are only so many things in the night sky we can capture. His 10 years at it got a lot for us to see. I figured that I will make better and better images as time goes by. Last night I got up at 1:30 to get some of Orion and the running man.

[@SimonsAstro]

Great tutorial Luke, how long did it take you to learn PixInsight? You look like you know your way around it pretty well! I don’t have it, but am considering getting it, what does it cost and is it monthly like PS? Love the final result, I would be happy with a quick edit myself! I know some people take hours! It’s not my strong point unfortunately, but it’s fun learning! Cheers Luke

[@lukomatico]

Hey there Simon! Thanks for watching mate 👍😊 Regarding learning, it took me weeks to get used to in all honesty, and it was a bumpy ride at that! As to the price, it turned out to be about £200 (advertised at 230euros)which felt like an awful lot of money for a program, but now I'm more proficient in its use I'd say its been my biggest astro upgrade while being one of the cheapest! I hope that helps mate :)

[@SimonsAstro]

@@lukomatico Thanks for the reply Luke, might just be my next purchase!😀

[@lukomatico]

It's a big step! But a rewarding one when you get used to it's operation :) Clear skies mate

[@andre-dx4yw]

how did you know what all these options do. did you do a coarse? i watched loads of videos but it just dont stick theres so much to take in

[@lukomatico]

Hey there Andre! - I'm self-taught with PixInsight just through trial and error haha, it took a while! Thanks for watching mate, and good luck with the tutorials - It's a complex subject I reckon so it's normal that it won't make sense immediately, try not to be put off too much and stick with it matey, you'll get there no problem! :-)

[@kasravvv]

Greta tutorial Luke, thank you very much. When you split your channels, you just deleted your BLUE channel. Meaning that you essentially threw away a third of you data. Wouldn't it be more efficient to incorporate that BLUE channel in some way when creating the new BLUE and GREEN channels?

[@lukomatico]

Hey there Kasra! Thanks so much for leaving your thoughts :-) I have a newer version of this tutorial but it has the same step in question, yet better illustrated at that point perhaps - I see your reasoning for sure! I've tried a few times to incorporate the blue channel, however in my own experience using the blue rather than simply tossing it away invariably adds noise to the end image - I'll try to elaborate as best I can: - Due to the nature of a colour camera's bayer matrix (generally RGGB) when used with a dual-narrowband filter, the bandpass of OIII data falls in between the response of both green and blue pixels, but there's twice as many green pixels than blue pixels of course - the end result of which means with both g+b pixels having collected practically the same data over the night, the blue has a far lower total SNR across the channel due to collecting half the total photons of the green pixels. It's a bit like stacking data for processing and including bad frames, it just ends up degrading the end result (in my experience anyway!) I hope that helps explain my reasoning for removing the blue rather than trying to include it! :-) Thanks again for watching mate, I do appreciate it! Clear skies, Luke

[@padraigfarrell7150]

Just wondering, can this or similar done in affinity photo ?

[@lukomatico]

Hey Padraig! - I'm afraid I do not know about Affinity Photo my friend, I've no experience with the program currently - You can do something similar using Siril which I have shown on another tutorial though the effect isn't quite as powerful due to the lack of good noise reduction in Siril. Still well worth a look though for a free program!

[@padraigfarrell7150]

@@lukomatico Thanks for the quick reply, just got an l extreme, and haven’t moved up to pixinsight. Maybe I should. Great videos, I enjoy them a lot

[@duke227]

is this a Sho color palette?

[@lukomatico]

It's an approximation of one my friend :-) I have newer videos on this subject if you're interested too!

[@simonpepper5053]

Nice! Going to have to bite the bullet on PI I think 🤔

[@lukomatico]

It's brilliant, but daunting to start with - definitely try the trial if you haven't already!

[@simonpepper5053]

@@lukomatico Im on the trial a couple things I am struggling with is colour calibration seems to ruin the image so I have skipped that part. Noise is also really bad but I could put that down to limited data captures. Last issue Starnet asking for a RGM and Grayscale weights file I see that a folder needs adding but not sure what I am missing?

[@lukomatico]

Hey there Simon! How much data do you have stacked? If noise is increased vs stacking in other programs then something must be set wrong Regarding colour calibrating, I'd always do a background extraction then colour calibration afterwards, followed by SCNR to remove excess green, it always seems to work spot on for me 👍 The Starnet setup is a different thing, you should already have the files you need in PixInsight/library/ You'll just need to point Starnet to them once to set it up 👍 I hope that helps!

[@simonpepper5053]

@@lukomatico Hi Luke its old data from the rosette about 140 mins. I can see though I only took darks and flats no dark flats (I use those as I have the 294MC Pro which I have heard bias dont work well with) so I reckon without those and limited exposure time its hurting me. Also I am using the lextreme which does give some odd gradients which are being exaggerated in PI I think its just going to be a lot of pressing buttons and playing around with it. I do like the look of it and the interface though! I have a clear night tonight ill go set up now and see if I can get 3/4 hours once Cygnus is high enough ensure I bosh out proper calibration and give it another go tomorrow! Thanks

[@lukomatico]

Hey mate! I had a 294 and found the same thing, it needed dark flats and long exposure flats to match, and dual narrowband filters could cast strange shapes into my image frames when stretched, like a big x pattern for example - all that aside though, it did still work very well! Just had its quirks was all 👍 I wish you good luck for tonight!

[@garyanderson6192]

I have now found that my laptop can't run starnet for unkown reasons, poor gpu probably. So now I have to buy another laptop. Can you suggest minimum requirements for cpu, gpu, ram etc please...... even the specs for your own machine to help with choosing another, cheers.

[@lukomatico]

Hey Gary, I'm sorry to hear that! Before changing laptops etc you could try resampling your image to 50% for example as a bit of a workaround to lessen the amount of processing power +ram needed to run the process I know it's not ideal but it should allow you to continue and check things out with no additional costs :) Re: my own specs, I'm processing on a ryzen 5 3600 cpu, 16gb ram and an RTX2060 graphics card, but unless you are using gpu acceleration for starnet, it's not important :) I hope that helps!

[@garyanderson6192]

@@lukomatico hi Luke, thanks for the response. However, although the starnet files are in the bin folder in Pix, it does not show in the drop down menu. There is something in my laptop stopping starnet being available unfortunately. I think a better laptop is my only option. Google searches seem to confirm this. Thanks again and keep the processing videos coming....👍👍

[@lukomatico]

@@garyanderson6192 No problem Gary, I hope it's sorted for you with the new computer mate! - it might be worth a reinstall of pixinsight just to be sure if you are otherwise happy with your laptop, but I certainly understand either way! :) All the best mate, Luke

[@DawgcityClev]

Extracting the color channels tends to make them much more noisier... even using Starnet for some reason. Could be not enough data, but almost 3 hours with a Hyperstar should be plenty to eliminate much of the noise. Not sure why it does this.

[@lukomatico]

Hey there Paa! = I'm sorry to hear you are encountering an issue with noise after splitting the channels, how do they end up looking when recombined? Regarding 3hrs with Hyperstar, that should be plenty of data! - one final thing though you may already be aware of this - if you are using an L-extreme with an F2 system you'll be experiencing reduced sensitivity due to bandpass shift blocking some of the light you wanted to capture, could be part of the problem anyhow! All the best, and thank you so much for watching :-)

[@DawgcityClev]

@@lukomatico I do use an L-enhance but the red channel is always the cleanest of course. Blue being the worst. Green gets noisier the more you try to stretch it so I back off of it while using your technique. Doesn't turn out as clean as yours but after 4 hours of fiddling I got a decent result.

[@AstroPixUK]

I’ve been scared off by Pixinsight, seems really difficult to use. It was more the fact I could waste a lot of money on it. I did try the demo of it, but didn’t know where to start. Think you have just changed my mind and I should give it a go. Any tutorials on stacking? I’m on Instagram as well, I’ll give you a follow. Astropix74.

[@lukomatico]

Hey mate! - I'll see what I can sort out for you regarding stacking in PixInsight :) In truth I struggled in PixInsight for weeks and weeks during the trial, and then things started to click into place a little more :) All the best, and clear skies!

[@Outlander1963UK]

Excuse the silly equation, and I think I know the reason but why get rid of the blue channel. Sorry but have never done any post processing as yet. Oh nice tutorial.

[@Outlander1963UK]

Ok just found the answer by reading down.

[@lukomatico]

Hey Paul! - I got rid of the blue because it is generally far noisier than the green when used with a duo-narrowband filter like the L-extreme, while containing all the same data basically :) - if I'd kept blue I would likely degrade the overall image by including the noisy channel, so better to make a cleaner synthetic channel with the red+green, I hope that helps!

[@Outlander1963UK]

@@lukomatico Wow that was quick getting back, don't now how you find the time to put out the videos and reply to everyone. And yes makes sense now, thanks.

[@lukomatico]

No problem! Happy to have helped :D 👍

[@RJ-cu4cj]

Tried this a few time on the Heart Nebula and when I combine the LRGB (RRBG) I get a 'purple' image. Been driving me nuts!!!!

[@lukomatico]

Sorry to hear that mate! - It might sound odd but you could try and run the "correct magenta stars" script on the image, and it'll also sort out all the purple colour cast everywhere else in the image too :-) Hope that helps!