Using PixInsight to process a Galaxy in 14 minutes

In this quick tutorial I will run through my process start to finish with an image of the Whirlpool Galaxy that I took in Galaxy Season this year.
The process takes about 14 minutes end to end. I will be providing a video that goes into more detail soon.
You can download the initial image file from here to follow along.
drive.google.com/file/d/15kOH...
Blog: www.astrojourneyuk.com/
Instagram: / astrojourneyuk
Facebook: / astrojourneyuk
Music from: www.epidemicsound.com/referra...
For a more detail tutorial that goes into loads of detail take a look at Mitch's channel • Pixinsight Part 1 of 1... this is where I learnt all I know about PixInsight!

[@josephluciani5531]

Thank you so much for your encouraging video. I look forward to more of these straightforward tutorials.

[@astrojourneyuk]

I’m glad to hear that you found it helpful and encouraging. Also, thank you for taking the time to feedback, it’s really helpful for me to know what works and what doesn’t. Thank you.

[@ryanf2029]

Thank you so much for this video. I gathered some Cygnus gamma data last night, downloaded the trial of pixinsight, and because of your video, I have a siiiiick image I'm super proud of. Thanks again!

[@astrojourneyuk]

Excellent, glad to have helped. I’m going to do another video soon on further tips.

[@AstronomyForChange]

Brief but very informative video! Thank you!

[@astrojourneyuk]

No problem, I’m glad you found it useful.

[@craiglowery4427]

Thank you. Love your channel

[@astrojourneyuk]

Thank you Craig, that’s really kind of you to say so and a great encouragement.

[@MayfieldCreekObservatory]

This helped me so much! Thanks! I am processing some great data I got on M51 a couple weeks ago. 😀

[@astrojourneyuk]

I can’t remember if it was this video or not but I need to correct it and make sure you only use either Dynamic Background Extraction or Automatic Background Extraction rather than both in the same imaging processing session. See the comments earlier on this video.

[@Wolfie6020]

Thanks that was helpful. I am in the free trial period and the program is certainly daunting for a newcomer. I would like to give it a fair chance and will probably buy a copy anyway. Videos like this are extremely useful when first starting.

[@astrojourneyuk]

PixInsight is a must in my opinion. It looks daunting to begin with however, once you understand a few of the key tools and what they do it’s a massive timesaver compared to Photoshop.

[@wanderingbrummie]

Nice result, but it looks like you had some vignetting that should have been taken out at the calibration stage. Did you use flats?

[@astrojourneyuk]

Yes, I always do my calibration frames however, they don’t always seem to work for some reason.

[@ToddChevrier]

What equipment did you use? How many frames and how long? Telescope focal length?

[@astrojourneyuk]

There is a little more info on my blog on the imaging, however, the scope was a SkyWatcher 200P. The total integration time 5 hours 45 minutes using a ZWO ASI533MC Pro. I hope this helps.

[@madbadger1327]

For the automatic background extractor don't you have to define a preview of the background (as you do with the colour correction)? I didn't see you do that. Cheers.

[@astrojourneyuk]

You don’t need to do this for the Automatic Background Extractor (ABR) because it does everything for you which is nice. If you want more control you should use Dynamic Background Extractor (DBE) and you can place the sample points on just the background because you need to avoid stars and nebula areas.

[@madbadger1327]

@@astrojourneyuk Good Heavens! I'm a chump! I meant the background neutralisation process. You selected a view but I didn't see you define the view but as my knees are weak and my eyes are dim, I might have missed that bit. Nice picture by the way, better than anything I've achieved so far. Cheers.

[@astrojourneyuk]

@@madbadger1327 For background neutralisation I select the whole image rather than just a preview area. This is just the way that I've seen it done before, so that's what I do. :)

[@davepastern]

@@astrojourneyuk best to select a background area of the sky for background neutralisation. The effect is pretty subtle from my experience anyway. I run it cos it's quick, easy, and doesn't usually screw the image up. No harm done ;-)

[@robertmyers4964]

You are not on a Windows machine so its impossible to see how you draw the preview windows in Color Calibration. Hard to follow. I'm just beginning and it is very confusing. I am trying to follow along with my own images of M51 but got stymied with the Color Calibration.

[@astrojourneyuk]

Sorry, I normally think about Windows at the time because I’ve had issues with windows only tutorials. Whenever anyone say the Command or Cmd key, swap that to Control / Ctrl on Windows. For the Option key switch this to Alt on Windows. That should work 99% of the time.

[@davem42ns18]

Your video would be much better if you would ditch the background music. The only thing it adds is an annoying distraction.

[@astrojourneyuk]

Yeah a few have said that. This hobby is full of things to learn. Sadly there’s nothing I can do about this one though. Thanks for dropping by and commenting.

[@midnightlightning1]

ABE - DBE - ABE ??? If you are learning Pixinsight suggest you look elsewhere for help. This guy is a novice.

[@astrojourneyuk]

Fair point, back then I thought this was ok, but I agree I wouldn’t do this now as it doesn’t make sense. Typically you should pick either ABE or DBE one isn’t always better than another.

[@stevenharper6394]

Regardless if it's right or not, it did improve the image drastically 🤷🏼‍♂️

[@davepastern]

Be nice Jon. Everyone starts out as a newbie.

[@midnightlightning1]

​@@davepastern PI is difficult enough to learn without "newbies" making instructional videos. Yes the above may result in an acceptable image but its almost certainly wiping out good data. It may work on a bright target like M51 but try that approach with some dark, dusty nebula and anyone who uses this approach is going to be disappointed. I am all for people helping others but unless the information is accurate they are just propagating poor process and wasting a lot of peoples time.

[@midnightlightning1]

@@astrojourneyuk There are occasions where a second application may be beneficial but its always a balance of trying to remove gradient without removing signal. Generally, if you build a good background model a single application will be fine. Adam Block has some good videos and the Mastering PI (Rogelio) book has an excellent section on building and refining models to accurately remove gradients whilst minimising damage to good data.

[@richparsons7320]

astro.uk here.. Great video mate 👍 I have been thinking about getting Pixinsight recently. As i just use Photoshop. How was the learnong curve for you?

[@astrojourneyuk]

The biggest thing with PixInsight from my point of view was the shift in mindset. I was used to using low level controls like layers, masks, curves etc but Pix insight seems to be built based on tasks and it does that really well. Just it’s capability to deal with background gradients beats photoshop for speed. I probably spent about 2-3 hours watching videos on what to do. Take a look at the videos I linked in the description. These are a great start.

[@davepastern]

Took me around 6 months of daily (4-5) hours per day processing to develop a workflow that I liked and the confidence to use the software comfortably. This time also included troubleshooting common issues that you'll experience as a PI newbie. YMMV of course. Some are quicker than others.

[@jasonburns9293]

Good primer video - you can short circuit the workflow a bit using the Photometric Colour Calibration which will do the colour and background normalisation for you based on looking up the actual star colours to set the white balance etc. pixinsight.com/tutorials/PCC/

[@astrojourneyuk]

Thank you, I’ll take a look. 👍👍👍

[@davepastern]

PCC is notoriously bad tempered and quite often will fail. Best to run the ImageSolver script first, entering the pixel details, object, date/time etc so that it plate solves and adds the image location data to the tags and then PCC can read it. There's also the very popular "autocolour" script (Google it), but the dev does NOT recommend it for SHO/HOO images etc, just plain RGB.

[@astrojourneyuk]

Excellent. Thank you for sharing this.

[@davepastern]

@@astrojourneyuk a lot of people use EZ script now, which I discourage. I've always found that using automation without understanding the background tools is dangerous. I prefer PCC to colorcalibration or autocolor script, simply because the colour calibration is based on empirical data (Gaia database). Anything else is an attempt to be accurate, but isn't necessarily so.