Hi folks hopefully you can help me out with this one. Processed comet A3. Abbreviated workflow - WBPP, Comet align on registered subs, StarX (large overlap) on aligned subs, image integration on starless aligned subs. Square/block shaped artifacts appear randomly across the integrated image. Acquisition info. ZWO2600mcp, Antlia Triband filter, Askar 140 APO, 31 x 60 sec subs. Darks, flats and dark flats. I would appreciate any suggestions as to how to correct this issue, if not before integration, but if that is not possible how I could improve them post integration? 
Comet A3If you look at the image you can see the artifacts most pronounced in the Comet tail. Thanks in advance....
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Don't use SXT. Also, don't drizzle beyond 1x.
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andrea tasselli:
Don't use SXT. Also, don't drizzle beyond 1x. SXT does appear to be the problem, I have the same issue and found other's online reporting the same thing. Starnet++ works but it's much more tedious since it has no bulk operations. Also how do you get just the stars out? Create a star mask and invert?
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Thanks for the reply, but how can you use comet align on images with stars, when you do that the stars streak out as the comet becomes aligned. As I understand it you can only comet align starless images? Please can you expand on your suggestion?
Also, the comet aligned subs are 'registered' individual subs, they are not the drizzled master light? I don't understand this point, I wonder if you can explain a bit further maybe?
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I also know these blocks/squares coming from SXT. Usually, they are gone by using the large overlap option. Did you use the batch mode in SXT? Actually, I do not know… is it applied also in batch mode when it is marked?
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Tim BUCKLEY:
Thanks for the reply, but how can you use comet align on images with stars, when you do that the stars streak out as the comet becomes aligned. As I understand it you can only comet align starless images? Please can you expand on your suggestion?
Also, the comet aligned subs are 'registered' individual subs, they are not the drizzled master light? I don't understand this point, I wonder if you can explain a bit further maybe? You can use comet alignment also with stars. Actually, I myselt just did today. However, as you mentioned, you get steaked stars. I tried and could remove the streaked stars with SXT (and also had no blocks by applying the large overlap). Still, there were a few streaked stars left over, but I could remove them by hand.
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Jonathan Hankey:
andrea tasselli:
Don't use SXT. Also, don't drizzle beyond 1x.
SXT does appear to be the problem, I have the same issue and found other's online reporting the same thing.
Starnet++ works but it's much more tedious since it has no bulk operations.
Also how do you get just the stars out? Create a star mask and invert? *** Hi Jonathan, I have tried Starnet++ yet so that's an option. On your second point I take the stars only form the masterlight produced out of WBPP and discard the starless image. I then combine the stars (pixelmath) with the comet aligned starless image ***
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Klaus Haaken:
Tim BUCKLEY:
Thanks for the reply, but how can you use comet align on images with stars, when you do that the stars streak out as the comet becomes aligned. As I understand it you can only comet align starless images? Please can you expand on your suggestion?
Also, the comet aligned subs are 'registered' individual subs, they are not the drizzled master light? I don't understand this point, I wonder if you can explain a bit further maybe?
You can use comet alignment also with stars. Actually, I myselt just did today. However, as you mentioned, you get steaked stars. I tried and could remove the streaked stars with SXT (and also had no blocks by applying the large overlap). Still, there were a few streaked stars left over, but I could remove them by hand. *** Thanks, I will try this ***
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Klaus Haaken:
I also know these blocks/squares coming from SXT. Usually, they are gone by using the large overlap option. Did you use the batch mode in SXT? Actually, I do not know... is it applied also in batch mode when it is marked? *** Yes I used batch mode SXT and selected large overlap that did not work, but I will try your other suggestion of using the subs with stars and try removing them after ***
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What's the problem with streaked stars? It's the way all long exposure comet images used to look. I know it's not pretty but it's an accurate portrayal of the object.
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Tony Gondola:
I know it's not pretty but it's an accurate portrayal of the object. I shan't think so. I'm pretty sure the stars weren't streaking last time I watched the comet, a couple of evenings ago.
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Jonathan Hankey:
SXT does appear to be the problem, I have the same issue and found other's online reporting the same thing.
Starnet++ works but it's much more tedious since it has no bulk operations.
Also how do you get just the stars out? Create a star mask and invert? Create the stacked-up comet-registered image with a strong rejection filter to obtain a comet-only image (you might have to remove by hand the stars leftover,s if needs be). Then use that in CometAlignment in the "Operand" argument. It is all explained (for once!) in the contextual help. You'll get the stacked up star only image. Add the two together.
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Klaus Haaken:
Tim BUCKLEY:
Thanks for the reply, but how can you use comet align on images with stars, when you do that the stars streak out as the comet becomes aligned. As I understand it you can only comet align starless images? Please can you expand on your suggestion?
Also, the comet aligned subs are 'registered' individual subs, they are not the drizzled master light? I don't understand this point, I wonder if you can explain a bit further maybe?
You can use comet alignment also with stars. Actually, I myselt just did today. However, as you mentioned, you get steaked stars. I tried and could remove the streaked stars with SXT (and also had no blocks by applying the large overlap). Still, there were a few streaked stars left over, but I could remove them by hand. Tim, I had the same experience and solved it in the same way as Klaus Haaken. In my case, I think my problem was that I took 15 second sub exposures which gave me a lot of noise and low SNR which StarXterminator doesn’t seem to handle very well. I tried again yesterday with 60s subs, and in this case StarXterminator worked just fine without leaving a pattern of squares. But Klaus’s method worked well for me too with the 15s sub version  |
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I've had this when drizzling once. Used the non drizzle file and all was perfect.
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Hi Tim, I had the same problem as you - square tiling artifacts on using StarXTerminator. On individual subs with large overlap checked, they came out just fine but it seems whatever works individually doesn't work in the batch process option.
The way I got around it was going through doing StarXTerminator one-by-one on each sub with large overlap checked and saving these separately before integrating.
Probably not of much help but that's what worked for me, took ages though!
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Make sure you are using the most efficient StarX model, that it is updated, and that you have large overlap enabled. Make sure negative values aren’t being created when calibrating the images (adequate pedestals), as the comparatively shorter exposures many take for comets can lead to relatively dark exposures.
The tiling comes from the regions in the image StarX is sampling and can *usually* be fully mitigated with those ducks in a row.
If that doesn’t do the trick, you will probably want to use an older comet workflow which relies on outlier rejection in stacking rather than star removal from individual subs. This tends to leave a little more artifacting in stars, but might just need to be what is done. Or if Starnet works and StarX won’t cooperate, that may be the way to go. Just as long as you can take measures to protect the core of the comet.
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I just processed the comet with non drizzled data with fixed background tracked and let the comet travel within the frame. Other than my green comet coloring that I will eventually make proper less green for this comet, I made a video on how to process with SXT batch process and a mask to protect the comet core. I need to redo mine with cropping earlier in the workflow plus the native color. This assumes PixInsight usage. Hope this helps: https://youtu.be/LKLLb5Xw58M |
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Just curious…once the frames are properly aligned, have you tried removing the stars from each of the aligned images, then integrate? I actually don't have a lot of experience here, but was playing around with ways to align some frames I acquired recently on Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, and this was one of the ideas I had. I suspect its probably tedious, but, I also suspect that star removal would work better?
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Jon Rista:
Just curious...once the frames are properly aligned, have you tried removing the stars from each of the aligned images, then integrate? I actually don't have a lot of experience here, but was playing around with ways to align some frames I acquired recently on Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, and this was one of the ideas I had. I suspect it’s probably tedious, but, I also suspect that star removal would work better? Jon, yes, that’s what I am doing and I assume others in this post thread are doing the same. I use StarXterminator in batch mode with a mask to protect the comet nucleus on all my CometAligned subs. Once that’s done ImageIntegration to stack the starless comet subs. CometAlignment can also be used to subtract the comet from the registered subs by using the integrated starless comet as an operand. Stack the stars, then blend the comet back in, and everything starts to come together nicely…..
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Chris Ashford:
Jon Rista:
Just curious...once the frames are properly aligned, have you tried removing the stars from each of the aligned images, then integrate? I actually don't have a lot of experience here, but was playing around with ways to align some frames I acquired recently on Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, and this was one of the ideas I had. I suspect it’s probably tedious, but, I also suspect that star removal would work better?
Jon, yes, that’s what I am doing and I assume others in this post thread are doing the same. I use StarXterminator in batch mode with a mask to protect the comet nucleus on all my CometAligned subs. Once that’s done ImageIntegration to stack the starless comet subs.
CometAlignment can also be used to subtract the comet from the registered subs by using the integrated starless comet as an operand.
Stack the stars, then blend the comet back in, and everything starts to come together nicely….. Ok...interesting...
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Jon Rista:
Just curious...once the frames are properly aligned, have you tried removing the stars from each of the aligned images, then integrate? I actually don't have a lot of experience here, but was playing around with ways to align some frames I acquired recently on Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, and this was one of the ideas I had. I suspect its probably tedious, but, I also suspect that star removal would work better? *** Hi Jon, I've been using the StarX by batch option and apparently the 'large overlap' does not work with batches extraction of the stars. Looking at the responses I have above there appear to been a couple of workarounds which I'll now attempt.
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Comet A3Following the advice/link from @Tony Jerig I integrated the comet aligned subs but WITH STARS, I then cranked up the high rejection on the Integration drop downs - rejection 2. I did apply a pass of SXT large overlap on the integrated image but not convinced this was entirely necessary.
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The squares are caused by a bug in the batch version of StarX. This has been known for quite a while (there are posts on CN from 2023 on the same artifacts). I wrote Russell and he is aware of the bug, and suggested the following fix: " run SXT with the full version on an image, then quit PixInsight, SXT batch mode should then use that version. Make sure that AI file selection isn't overwritten by a process icon or saved project." I tried other work arounds in StarX but I still ended up with squares in the final integrated image - even though they were not 'visible' 'in the individual frames. It's a shame because StarX and all the other X software works great in stacked master images. It just does not seem to work well for images that you intend to stack - I ended up using Starnet2 with Pixinsight Process Containers to remove stars from 42 frames. Worked a treat - and did not leave the blotches I sometimes see with stacked masters. It took a total of 42 minutes for the 42 frames with Starnet2. - Here's the final image - https://www.astrobin.com/fizwnw/ |
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Mike Dobres:
The squares are caused by a bug in the batch version of StarX. This has been known for quite a while (there are posts on CN from 2023 on the same artifacts). I wrote Russell and he is aware of the bug, and suggested the following fix:
"run SXT with the full version on an image, then quit PixInsight, SXT batch mode should then use that version. Make sure that AI file selection isn't overwritten by a process icon or saved project."
I tried other work arounds in StarX but I still ended up with squares in the final integrated image - even though they were not 'visible' 'in the individual frames. It's a shame because StarX and all the other X software works great in stacked master images. It just does not seem to work well for images that you intend to stack - I ended up using Starnet2 with Pixinsight Process Containers to remove stars from 42 frames. Worked a treat - and did not leave the blotches I sometimes see with stacked masters. It took a total of 42 minutes for the 42 frames with Starnet2. - Here's the final image - https://www.astrobin.com/fizwnw/ Thanks for this, I have other data on Comet A3 and will run through this process again with Starnet. Thanks again for getting back to me.
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