PixInsight Beginner's Tutorial! - Part 5: Duo Narrowband Basics

Welcome to the fourth part of my new series to try and help people get off to a flying start in PixInsight! - Come process along with me during this tutorial and learn by doing.
If you found this useful please consider supporting me and the channel either via KZbin Membership or Patreon! :-)
/ @lukomatico
/ lukomatico
NEW! : Affiliate link for RC astro! - HUGE thanks to Russell Croman! :-)
If you choose to use any of these links you'll be helping me out at no additional cost to yourself!
BlurXTerminator -
www.rc-astro.com/resources/Bl...
StarXTerminator -
www.rc-astro.com/resources/St...
NoiseXTerminator -
www.rc-astro.com/resources/No...
Topaz Denoise, Gigapixel & Sharpen AI are some of my favorite software to aid in astro and terrestrial image processing! If you buy the software through this link I would receive a commission at zero extra cost to yourself!
Topaz Labs Affiliate Link! - topazlabs.com/ref/1133/
You will need the following -
1: PixInsight (installed & updated)
2: EZ-Processing suite - darkarchon.internet-box.ch:8443/
3: Either Starnet2 (free)
www.starnetastro.com/download/
or StarXterminator (paid software)
www.rc-astro.com/resources/St...
4: The data and Toolset - drive.google.com/drive/folder...
Huge thanks to my good friend Bill Blanshan for providing these great tools for us all! - find his channel here - / @anotherastrochannel2173
Thank you!!
AFFILIATE LINKS!!
Amazon Affiliate Links! - Anything you buy through one of these links will give me a small commission at no extra cost to yourself!
Amazon UK - amzn.to/3EOCgpV
Amazon US - amzn.to/3quGPlD
High Point Scientific Affiliate Links!
High Point Scientific Affiliate Link - www.highpointscientific.com/?...
Orion Telescopes & Binoculars Affiliate links!
www.pjatr.com/t/R0FHSUdKTEFGS...
www.pntrs.com/t/S0BMQ0pFQEVHR...
www.pntrs.com/t/R0JJSEVIS0ZCR...

[@josephluciani5531]

Luke, every person who posts tutorials on KZbin should be required to study your videos. You have a unique talent for articulating every nuisance of Pixinsight without ever leaving the viewer confused. I smugly thought I knew this “Beginner” stuff, but after watching this video I realized, “Wow! I didn’t know that!” Nobody does it as well as you Luke, congratulations on your many talents.

[@lukomatico]

You're too kind Joe! - I'm tremendously happy to hear you think so highly of my work mate, I'll have trouble getting out of my observatory door at this rate, my head will have swollen so much from the complements haha! :-) Seriously though, thank you for watching and giving such positive feedback - I do appreciate it!

[@stuparker776]

Luke the fog is starting to lift thanks to your teachings!!!! wow, you just make it sound so much easier than I have been finding.I processed my first image in Pixinsight using tutorial number 1.it worked well.Be really great if you were able to do one explaining the setup of the workspace and how to keep your icons instead of having to reset them every time also a tutorial in putting RGB stars back into Narrowband data.Keep up the fantastic work.I will be joining Patreon to support your work Cheers!!!

[@lukomatico]

Thank you so much for that Stu! - I'm really happy to hear you've found these tutorials useful mate, that's awesome! :-) I will be making more PixInsight tutorials for sure, but in the meantime I think I will pause this series for a little while and try to focus on other aspects of astronomy for a while! (Sorry if you saw this comment initially disappeared by the way! - it erroneously got filtered out automatically by youtube's comment system, so I manually found it instead!)

[@stuparker776]

@@lukomatico Thanks Luke.I hope your break goes well but will look forward to more vids in the meantime as you say just practice practice.Hopefully things will become second nature in the end Cheers

[@minkey1972]

These are amazing Luke. I've gone from being overwhelmed to producing images I'm really proud of. keep up the amazing work!

[@lukomatico]

Great to hear that Richard! - I'm so happy you've found use in them my friend! :-D Clear skies!!

[@obafgkm30108]

I actually quite enjoy and used to your “a fork in the road” phrase since I didn’t hear it in this video. I have watched all your beginner tutorials multiple times and saw improvements in my processed images, thank you Luke!

[@lukomatico]

Thank you for all your support my friend! I'm glad you've found use in my tutorials! :-D clear skies!

[@jonbasstro1413]

Hi Luke, another top tutorial. Again there’s always new tips and methods you covered in the tutorial. Thanks again for all the work you’ve put into this great series of Pixinsight tutorials.Clear skies.

[@lukomatico]

My pleasure mate, genuinely! :-) Really happy people have found these useful, it makes it all worthwhile for sure! Clear skies my friend, and thank you for your support - as always!

[@sajjadahmed46]

Enjoying these videos bud.. Keep them coming!!

[@lukomatico]

Thanks bud! :-D Clear skies!

[@stephencox3446]

Thank you, Luke, for another top-notch video tutorial. Your tutorials certainly help out people like me that are new to the hobby and have limited experience. Your presentations are always straight to the point and accurate. Hope that are keeping well and I look forward to your next video, after you have had a well-earned rest. Clear skies Luke.

[@lukomatico]

Thank you mate!! - I'm chuffed to hear you like these vids and found them useful, that's perfect! :-) I've been coming up with some ideas for future videos so we'll see how things pan out when I finally get some clear skies again, haha! Thanks for watching!

[@Oamaruastro]

You do such a good job at explaining these processes, it's a real pleasure to listen to you and learn with you. Thank you for these helpful videos!

[@lukomatico]

So nice of you to say that James, thank you very much indeed for watching and leaving such a positive comment! :-) Clear skies!

[@dumpydalekobservatory]

Another great tutorial mate funnily enough we were talking about you at our astro club tonight don't worry it were all good lol but they have been asking about SIRIL. Maybe at a future meet we'll put together an image process based on your tutorials about it sometime although I have posted links to your videos to. All the best & clear skies!!

[@lukomatico]

Ah mate that's awesome to hear haha, I did wonder why my ears were burning! :-D I'm thankful to hear you've still found my Siril tutorials useful mate, it's a great program and I'm definitely guilty of not giving it the attention it deserves! All the best to you and Nicky mate! - Clear skies!

[@sevenskiesastro]

Excellent as per Luke. Take it easy and clear skies bud.

[@lukomatico]

I appreciate it Rob! - Thank you for watching bud :-) Clear skies!

[@mupangamwanakatwe1300]

Hiya Luko, you have once again “aces” it with this one. Absolutely brilliant and I have certainly learnt a ton. As an aside, would you consider making a detailed tutorial on the Pixinsight “Generalized Hyperbolic Stretch” script, sometime in the future. It seems to be very powerful, but rather daunting for first-time users. Just a thought squire … Greetings from a warm but wet Zambia 🇿🇲, clear skies and keep well ….

[@lukomatico]

Thank you so much mate!! - Really happy you've found these useful :-D RE: GHS script, I'll be honest I've not tried it yet, so I'd have to learn it's use first myself! My apologies on that one! Hope your weather turns better soon my friend, it's been very poor here too :-( Ah well, it can't stay cloudy forever! - Thanks for watching!

[@SimonsAstro]

Hey Luke, I love watching your tutorials mate! I wish I could come across like you, so confident and with authority, as you obviously know what you’re talking about😀 You have inspired me (like many) so much so that I’m putting out my own little Pixinsight tutorial tonight on my recent Pac-Man video! Based on what you have taut me Luke! I’ve only done a quick edit, and it needs work, but watching your tutorials, I’ll be up to speed in no time😀 Thanks mate and keep up the Great work👍 Clear skies!

[@lukomatico]

Awesome to hear that Simon mate, my head will swell up at this rate haha!! - I've just watched your tutorial now actually, super work mate! you did a great job :-D Clear skies!

[@marcinb493]

Just a BIG thank You.

[@lukomatico]

You're welcome! So happy you like them mate :-)

[@Tony-Elliott]

Hi Luke brilliant tutorial mate thanks so much for taking the time to produce these videos,

[@lukomatico]

Thank YOU for watching and giving your support Anthony! I appreciate it mate :-)

[@chrisvig123]

Explained in a way that’s very basic and understandable Ty

[@lukomatico]

Thanks for watching Mr. Bob! :-)

[@seanmasten8187]

Love your tutorial videos, keep up the good work.

[@lukomatico]

Thank you Sean! :-)

[@mikei.6294]

Luke, excellent video. Do you have a video in which you discuss the "Rescreen" method of combining stars and starless images? Thanks.

[@lukomatico]

Hey Mike! - I'm afraid I don't have a video out on the 'rescreen' method, it's reasonably straightforward, but still a bit heavy handed to try and slot into the middle of the tutorial I thought. If you mouse over the "unscreen stars" tick box in StarXTerminator it'll show you the equation to use in PixelMath in order to rescreen your stars back in, I've made myself a small operation to save me manually doing it each time which I can likely explain in a future video too! Hope that helps!

[@mikei.6294]

@@lukomatico Thanks, Luke. Looking forward to that video!

[@craiglowery4427]

Luke you are amazing. I've been learning so much. Does the filter you used have the Ha and OIII bands?

[@lukomatico]

Thank you Craig mate!! :-D Glad my vids have been useful to you my friend! The filter used for this video data was indeed a HA & OIII filter - hope that helps! :-)

[@M31glow]

Another great tutorial! Question, why did you make a preview before you used Back Ground Nueutraization?

[@lukomatico]

Thanks mate! - I made the preview so that I could tell background neutralization to use that region as the background reference area :-) Hope that helps!

[@seanod42]

Hi Luke I've been enjoying looking at your series i am thinking about getting pixinsight as i am going to upgrade my equipment hopefully soon. I've noticed that EZ processing is not available anymore is there anything else that i could use instead thanks Sean

[@lukomatico]

Hey mate! It's still available but it's a bit of a workaround solution, more is posted on the pixinsight forums about it 👍 that said, these days I'd not worry much about ez-stretch and instead look towards other tools - GHS for example! All the best 👍

[@santos6109]

Hi, Luke, first I want to thank you for your availability for the tutorials, and I want to say that I'm using this specific one for quick processing, it's helping me a lot, I would like to know if I can use it for both the galaxy and the nebula? I have a William optics Z61 telescope, zwo 533mc pro camera with a dualband filter. What tutorial do you recommend for pixinsight stacking?

[@lukomatico]

Hey my friend! :-) Thank you so much for watching, I'm glad you've found this useful! I think you can use most of these techniques quite smoothly between many targets, but for galaxies I'd not use the filter of course :-) I have a few other tutorials in that series which may be somewhat useful when processing other targets, but I do intend to re-shoot my tutorials series soon and make them further up to date with the latest methods too :-)

[@santos6109]

@@lukomatico Of the many tutorials I watched this one gave me good results, I'm subscribed to your channel to keep up with the news.Hugs Luke

[@redabdab]

Another absolute cracker Luke! I use the L Extreme with the 2600MC pro too, so it’s great to see this workflow. One question though, I use Star Exterminator but have never clicked the de screen option (because I didn’t know what it was!). But your note says it’s best to use this, rather than simple star removal and re-adding with pixel math. So do you have any guidance on how to do that?

[@lukomatico]

Hey Stuart! I'm afraid I don't have a tutorial out for the process of rescreening, but if you hover your mouse over the 'unscreen' button in starxterminator then it'll display an instruction box giving you the correct pixelmath equation to rescreen 👍 Hope that helps mate!

[@redabdab]

@@lukomatico great! didn't spot the tooltip. Thanks

[@stuparker776]

Hi Luke could you explain the Unscreen for StarXterminator many thanks

[@lukomatico]

Hey Stu! - I'm sorry I didn't cover this within the video, it seemed a little heavy to fit into the scope of this one - the instructions for how to rescreen are shown when you mouse over the "unscreen stars" button in StarXTerminator, it's a little equation you can type into PixelMath and it'll re-screen stars into starless without additional brightness being added to brighter areas - it does work well, but it's a little extra complication/work. I hope that helps explain it a bit mate!

[@stuparker776]

Yes thanks I see the little help screen I will have a go with this pixelmath is too advanced for me at the moment...well the understanding any way but wow bill is amazing I wish I had his skills

[@stuparker776]

this works very well also combine(starless, stars, op_screen()) makes a massive difference on big stars this is really good

[@malcolqwe2]

hi, just curious, did you skip the debayer step? Or was it part of another tutorial?

[@lukomatico]

The stacked data in this one was already debayered before importing it 👍 cheers!

[@RumourHasitYT]

Another very helpful video, thanks Luke. Quick question you mention rescreening insteaj of pixel math. Do you show that in another video. To date I’ve only used pixel math

[@lukomatico]

Hey Tom! Hope you're well mate :-) RE: rescreening, I'm sorry I didn't cover it within the video, it just seemed a little too heavy to dive into for this one! - If you mouse over "unscreen stars" within StarXTerminator it shows the PixelMath equation you need to re-screen the stars back into the image when you're ready, it's a bit of a faff around but does work well! Hope that explains it a bit mate! Clear skies!

[@RumourHasitYT]

@@lukomatico many thanks Luke I’ll give that a try 👍🏻

[@RumourHasitYT]

Works a treat Luke, I saved the equation to a pixel math action and it’s drag and drop👍🏻

[@lukomatico]

@@RumourHasitYT Awesome to hear that mate, I've done the same thing! 😀Clear skies!

[@soupdragon2397]

Although usefulas a learning tool, I was disappointed in the lack of the dual filter aspect of the processing, in that there wasn't any at all.

[@lukomatico]

You may want to check out my other tutorials on dual narrowband processing if you're looking for a more 'hubble palette' approach :-) cheers!