OSC Narrowband with PixInsight - Complete Workflow

There are many tutorials on KZbin that show you how to take your OSC dual narrowband data and create a faux Hubble palette image, in this video I give you a complete workflow to produce a Foraxx palette image, which I believe is far richer and more eye catching than a simple "Hubble" style image.
To make it easier to follow along, I have provided a PixInsight project file which you can find a link to below. I have also provided links to the data I used, which is some fantastic data from Trevor Jones of Astro Backyard. In the video I use the GHS script as well as StarXTerminator and NoiseXTerminator, there are links to those below.
I hope you enjoy the workflow and get something out of it. If you would like a condensed version of the workflow which is less than 15 minutes long than you can watch my previous video .
Trevor' Data ‪@AstroBackyard‬ : astrobackyard.com/your-astrop...
GHS Script: ghsastro.co.uk/
StarX/NoiseX: www.rc-astro.com/resources/in...
Astro Imaging Channel GHS Video: • GeneralizedHyperbolicS...
Galactic Hunter Starnet 2: • StarNet Version 2 is h...
My PixInsight Project File:drive.google.com/drive/folder...
00:00 - Intro
1:34 - How to get the data
3:08 - How to get the GHS Script
4:18 - How to get StarXTerminator and NoiseXTerminator
5:20 - First look at the data
6:27 - Dynamic Crop
7:15 - ABE
8:28 - Splitting the RGB channels and combining the G and B channels.
10:57 - Removing the stars with StarXTerminator
12:15 - Using GHS to stretch the images
29:53 - Creating a synthetic 3rd channel
33:55 - The Foraxx palette
37:51 - Curves adjustments to saturation and hue
39:35 - Noise reduction with NoiseXTerminator
40:27 - Working on the stars and adding them back
43:25 - The final image
43:40 - Outro
If you enjoyed this content and would love to see more then please consider buying me a coffee via PayPal. paypal.me/paulhancock1981
If you would like to provide ongoing financial support for the channel, I now have a Patreon account: / paulymanastro

[@AstroBackyard]

Paul, this is fantastic. Your PixInsight tutorials are so helpful thanks to your casual, easy-to-follow style. Thanks for the shoutout at the beginning, too. Keep it up!

[@PaulymanAstro]

Thanks Trevor! Your videos have always been amazing, I’ve been watching for years.

[@scottelmquist7301]

Thank goodness for speed control in KZbin.

[@PaulymanAstro]

Too fast or too slow?

[@ct8618]

Thanks for the explanation and time spent on GHS/Histogram.

[@deonster1]

This is one of the best if not the best explained Pixinsight tutorials I've seen. Well done Paulyman!

[@PaulymanAstro]

Thanks mate.

[@Artsmitica]

Masterful. Thank you Paul.

[@Zealor365]

Wow, so much information in 44 minutes. I'm going to need to watch it a few more times to get it all. Bravo!

[@PaulymanAstro]

Thanks Mark!

[@RolandWinde]

Yes, excellent Tutorial. Finally I understand GHS 🙂

[@johnlewis4073]

Hi Paul, just wanted to say how helpful i hace found this video - thank you so mucj for putting it together. The comprehensive explanations, particularly in what you are trying to achieve in GHS and what the manipulations actually do to the historgram. So much more valuable than the usual "do this to get the coluurs how you like them" approach of so many online tutorials. Brilliant work, i am looking forward to diving into more of your work.

[@PaulymanAstro]

Thanks mate. Glad you liked it. Clear skies.

[@IanGillingham]

Paul, I've learned so, so much from your video and it has helped me jump a hurdle I've been struggling with. It has also helped me decide between buying a OSC or mono camera (and filters, EAF, filter wheel etc...) - something I've been swinging back and forth on, seems I will be able to produce the results I want with OSC now (good enough for me anyway). I'm very grateful to you for presenting this.

[@PaulymanAstro]

Thanks Ian. Glad I could help with your processing journey.

[@georgedicker9789]

This is an amazing video, they way you explain things is so calm and easy to follow. I really appreciate the time you have put into creating this video

[@PaulymanAstro]

Thanks so much George. Clear skies.

[@8888888060580]

I don't normally comment, but this has been the single biggest help to me! My workflow can be simplified so much with the new tools and techniques you show here. I really appreciate this. I really look forward to using the content you produce as a foundation for me to learn.

[@PaulymanAstro]

Thanks. Glad it helped.

[@andynowlen]

Now the 4th time through I’m getting some sense of the GHS strategy! Thanks much!

[@PaulymanAstro]

I’m still learning how to use it to maximum effectiveness. Every time I see something by Dave and Mike my mind is blown.

[@HogarthsAstrophotography]

Thanks Paulyman, some great stuff in here, I need to re go back over your GHS videos as that looks game changing.

[@PaulymanAstro]

Thanks. Check out the Astro Imaging Channel as well to see Dave Payne and Mike Cranfield talk about GHS. kzbin.info

[@mohicanspap]

Great video! Easy to follow and you put more thought into explaining what is happening rather than just "do what I do because this is my video". Also this is becoming one of my more favorites way to process and color OSC data. Thank you!

[@PaulymanAstro]

Thanks a lot.

[@DamianVines]

You are a great teacher, I really enjoy your videos. Thank you for taking the time to help us, cheers mate! :)

[@PaulymanAstro]

Thanks Damian!

[@mr.d.8121]

Excellent Pauly, excellent. Thanks 👏👏👏👏👏

[@PaulymanAstro]

Thanks mate.

[@gabrielnicolaechiru5050]

This tutorial is amazing and also very easy to follow even for a beginner like me 👍🏼 Thank you very much Paul for sharing this and also thanks to @astrobackyard for showing this to us. 🙏🏼

[@PaulymanAstro]

Thanks Gabriel.

[@jimwoods3575]

Simply amazing! Thank you for sharing!

[@timsullivan3497]

Great tutorial and another way to create beautiful images. Thanks for taking the time to show us your process.

[@PaulymanAstro]

Thanks Tim!

[@desmcmorrow2978]

Fab video. Keep ‘em coming, please. Cheers, Des

[@PaulymanAstro]

Thanks Des.

[@giohelp]

Great work Paul. thankyou

[@jonathanpearceff]

What a brilliant video, full of tips and tricks. Thanks for sharing you knowledge, and please keep them coming (I have already watched your other videos). As to your weather, it is just the same here in the UK. But at least we have dark nights coming so if there are no clouds will give longer imaging time.

[@PaulymanAstro]

Thanks Jonathan. Glad it was informative. Hope the weather clears for you.

[@adventuresofanamateurastro804]

You are tha man Paul! Thank you, Drew

[@sathyavenkataraman4061]

Great Video. Thanks

[@PaulymanAstro]

Thanks for watching.

[@jose.astiles]

Very nice and helpful video !!

[@BelaBanhidi]

Great presentation, easy to follow. Thank you!

[@PaulymanAstro]

Thanks a lot, glad you liked it.

[@FPVA71]

What a fantastic video, thanks for taking the time putting this together and explaining the steps so well. Thanks again mate

[@PaulymanAstro]

Thanks. Glad you enjoyed it.

[@RigoFromSpain]

I love it !!! well done Paul

[@PaulymanAstro]

Thanks.

[@jimwoods3575]

Thank you so much for sharing this! I ran an old session of the Rosette Nebula (ZWO183MC Pro) through this, and it came out so nice.

[@PaulymanAstro]

That’s great to hear Jim. Clear skies.

[@peterlaubscher3989]

Wow - stunning image!

[@PaulymanAstro]

It is nice data, Trevor did a great job capturing all those photons.

[@ciarancopas3433]

Brilliant tutorial video and very clearly explained on all stages as are all your videos. Thank you for all your hard work on putting this together. Fantastic options for past and future data. I hope you get a good run of Clear Skies soon.

[@PaulymanAstro]

Thanks Ciaran.

[@Bart_noplease]

Thank you, that was game changing for me and brought me back to hobby!

[@PaulymanAstro]

Cheers. Welcome back, hopefully you get some clear skies to get more data to play with.

[@McTavish11T7]

Such a great vid. Can't wait to have a play. Thank you for doing this. I've learnt a lot just from the GHS part alone.

[@PaulymanAstro]

Thanks Jono. Glad you enjoyed it. Clear skies.

[@nightskyimaging]

Great work! ...and I really appreciate the attention to detail. I look forward to reprocessing some of my data! I sure hope you guys get a break from the rain!

[@PaulymanAstro]

Thanks. Glad you liked the video. Clear skies.

[@TheRhike]

Fantastic, thanks Pauly

[@PaulymanAstro]

Thanks for watching Mike.

[@gregerianne3880]

This is great, Paul! I created my first Foraxx image from some old (and not so great) Crescent Nebula data the other day using your terrific script. I could see a lot more detail than I could with just my narrowband (red/blue) image. As you said, though, seeing this video provided a lot of good-to-know theory and technique. Thanks so much again for being very generous and creating the Foraxx script and sharing your project data! It's all much appreciated.

[@PaulymanAstro]

Thanks a lot for the kind words Greg. Glad the script has helped. Clear skies!

[@julianmatthews3262]

Thanks Paul excellent tutorial, well explained and executed. I am mew to PI but found this easy to follow with my own data of the Heart Nebula which I have posted to my FB channel as I am well chuffed! I am to reprocess my previous images which were done in APP and PS as I find PI to produce much improved images. Thanks for taking your time to produce these informative tutorials, they are a great help to us novices.

[@PaulymanAstro]

Thanks Julian. I’m glad it helped. Clear skies!

[@calimark7448]

Thanks!

[@PaulymanAstro]

Glad you liked it. Hope it helps, clear skies.

[@ericwilkes1840]

Great video, thanks so much

[@PaulymanAstro]

Thanks Eric.

[@objetivouniverso]

Great video. Very clear and well explained. And awesome channel too! . I’m subscribed not to loose anything 🤗. Daniel.

[@PaulymanAstro]

Thank you!

[@stefanbalzer611]

Very great video! Thank you very much for this. Learned some tricks again, especially about GHS. I really like the color palette. One does not see often. I will test this also with me times. For inserting the stars I also use Pixelmath, but with the following formula: combine(starless_image, unscreened_stars, op_screen()) This replicates the screen function. I find it easier to remember this formula than the one shown in the video.

[@PaulymanAstro]

Thanks for watching. Thanks for the alternative PixelMath, always nice to have a variety of methods to solve a problem. I’ll have to look into what that expression is doing.

[@Brazerker]

Excellent tutorial, thank you for taking the time to share your knowledge and insights - it has helped me to greatly improve my images. One thing I'm still struggling with is getting the blue's to pop out a bit more - do you have any recommend formula adjustments which could help the pull out the blue and the reds without going purple and over saturated?

[@cosmicbackyard_denmarkrene3273]

Great - thanks

[@PaulymanAstro]

Thanks for watching.

[@Plorimor]

First off, awesome tutorial. I’m following along using my data on the flaming star + tadpoles nebula. I have one question; if I am using blurxterminator, where would be the best place to insert it in the workflow? Thanks!

[@rickwilliamsphotography]

Great video! One question though, are you starting with a color corrected file? I don't recall seeing mention of using a process like Spectrophotometric Color Calibration.

[@PaulymanAstro]

In this tutorial, no. I didn’t use SPCC. However, you could clone the image and run SPCC for the stars then remove them for later.

[@helgenordal3506]

Paulyman!! Your videos are very good to follow. I enjoy the workflow. Thanks for making them :) But, Please? - may I ask you what I'm doing wrong when adjusting with curves? get completely crazy colors when I use Hue and Sat?

[@PaulymanAstro]

Thanks Helge. Hue is a tough one, sometimes even a tiny adjustment can make big changes. Placing control points is usually helpful for me, that way only the regions I want to adjust are altered. I sometimes do all my adjustments at once but often I will work on one region and use control points then once I’ve made those changes adjust another region.

[@timburgess1528]

thanks you so much for this, your channel is excellent and very much appreciated. PLease can I ask what I imagine is a very basic question: I am still not sure how the data from the L-extreme filter maps to the RGGB matrix of the 294MCPro. After splitting the data into separate RGB, what is the logic for recombining 50% each of green and blue? I presume its the way the filter Ha and OIII data maps to the RGGB but I don't quite understand it? Many thanks and sorry if its a basic question..... thank you

[@PaulymanAstro]

Sorry about the delayed response. There isn’t a real reason for the 50%, I just chose that value for simplicity. The L Extreme allows Oiii to be received by both the Blue and Green pixels of the camera. I tend to look at the two channels and decide if one is better than the other, maybe sharper than the other, then combine. If they are both good I’ll combine 50:50 to improve SNR, if one is noticeably better I’ll weight for that channel.

[@pntballg35]

Great video! Cant wait ti try this! Do you know if this method will work well with the radian ultra quadband narrowband filter?

[@PaulymanAstro]

Thanks Neal. The method will work fine with the Radian Ultra. What you may see perhaps is the G and B channels are actually slightly different and warrant some sort of combination, the L Extreme G and B channels were identical but I combined them anyway.

[@pntballg35]

@@PaulymanAstro Just used this on my IC63 data...Absolutely amazing! I'll be sure to tag you when I post it, thank you for this!

[@hxnduke]

Great video! Just a quick question - when you combine the star images using PixelMeth, I've noticed that you re-used the "ho" channel from the starless version for the Green channel. Shouldn't you create a synthetic "ho" frame for the starts instead?

[@PaulymanAstro]

Good question. I’m going for nicely coloured stars to complement the image and I’ve found that just using the same Foraxx expression for both starless and star images works well, where things differ is in the hue adjustments I make. For the stars I move the reds slightly towards the oranges and the cyans slightly towards the blues. This gives me generally yellow/orange and blue/white stars throughout the frame. It means I can be a bit lazy and not produce two more Foraxx expressions. Ultimately, if I had the option I’d also have an RGB image run through SPCC and switch out the stars for true colour RGB stars.

[@edlitoborski5061]

Great video but I have a quick question as I go through your steps, where would you incorporate the new Blur tool in your work flow?

[@PaulymanAstro]

Deconvolution needs to be done on linear data and before any processing that could affect the shapes of the stars. So if I was going to use BlurX I’d apply it right after applying either ABE or DBE. I have heard anecdotally that BlurX and/or Noise X (on linear data) can affect colour balance so I would apply BlurX before running PCC or SPCC, if you are running them.

[@allen4564]

Would it be possible to use this technique where you had an OSC image from a color camera and narrow band images from a black&white camera (but same sensor)? I'm referring to the ASI294MC and the ASI294MM.

[@PaulymanAstro]

You could, it depends exactly what data you have I suppose and exactly what you’d like to achieve with the blending. If it is narrowband OSC data using a multiband filter then you could register to one of your mono channels, extract the Ha and Oiii from the OSC image and then combine that with your mono narrowband data. I have a script in early testing that will extract a more accurate Ha and Oiii from OSC data. If it is broadband data, you could perhaps just use the stars from the OSC to provide the Foraxx image with RGB stars. Or if you wanted to move more into the artistic interpretation world, you could follow my masking ideas from my Masks video to subtly paint in the Foraxx data into the OSC image where you’d like to produce some colour contrast. The short answer though is, I think you could yes haha.

[@bradybell7081]

So I followed you along and it was going great until I tried to create my actual forax image and it turned out a very bright almost neon green when combined. Any thoughts?

[@PaulymanAstro]

Hi Brady. My first thought if it’s come out super green would be to check the green Foraxx expression. Perhaps the tilde got lost? Missing that would definitely do what you are experiencing. The expression would be ho*ha+~ho*oiii

[@adventuresofanamateurastro804]

Will it work using a Tri-Band filter with a OSC camera?

[@PaulymanAstro]

Absolutely. For the purposes of the script a triband filter can be treated just like a dual and filter, the red channel would be added to the script under Ha and either the blue or the green (or a combination of both) as Oiii.

[@Chorge1972]

Great! Wouldn’t it be better to do StarXTerminator earlier? So you’d have OSC Stars….. and then stretch this single file, before combine it later back in?

[@PaulymanAstro]

Yes. If I was doing this these days with the latest versions of the XTerminator suite, I’d use BlurX on the colour image then remove the stars with StarX before continuing.

[@Sbach342Guy]

Should this process also work with L-Enhance data? Or is it really just L-Extreme?

[@PaulymanAstro]

The process will also work for L-Enhance. I only had access to L-Extreme data to demonstrate, I have since used it on some of Sascha’s data from View into Space, he used the Askar D1 and D2 filters for his data.

[@Sbach342Guy]

@@PaulymanAstro thank you!

[@mupangamwanakatwe1300]

Hi Paullyman. Trust that you’re well and enjoying some clear skies. Thanks for the super tutorial and you workflow is now my go-to for my L-Extreme narrowband images! One question Sir. Would you recommend the use of Linear Fit, on the ha and oiii images, post GHS, in order to match the backgrounds, or is better to use histogram transformation, as is the case in your video? Thanks once again for sharing you knowledge and skill …

[@PaulymanAstro]

I’m getting a little better at working with GHS each time I use it. At this point I’m pretty confident getting the channels to match pretty well purely using GHS and don’t really need to touch them with HT at all. If I were going to use linear fit, I’d use it while the channels are still linear, before GHS.

[@kekkoukedarake110]

Good presentation but if you show each PixMath formulations in large fonts in separate box, it will be even better and friendlier to your audience.

[@PaulymanAstro]

That’s a great idea. Thanks for suggesting.

[@magicker8052]

my GHS looks nothing like that?

[@Santero68]

Nice Video, but you are talking to fast and move the curser so fast and click anyware tha i cant see where. Do it a little bit slower. Thanks

[@sergeyt.7564]

Hi, this process is too long and complicated. You looks like a NASA professional. I trying to make astrophoto just a hobby, but is not easy . Every one want be better then a Hubble!)

[@PaulymanAstro]

Hi Sergey, that’s the joy of astrophotography, there is always something out there for everyone. I do have a script now that automates much of this for you though. Do take a look at Bill Blanshans pixelmath tools as they are quite straight forward to use.

[@sergeyt.7564]

@@PaulymanAstro i'll try, thank you!