Astro Pixel Processor Quick Reference Guide: Drs. E.M.W.P. Haverkamp
Astro Pixel Processor Quick Reference Guide: Drs. E.M.W.P. Haverkamp
version 0.4
Astro Pixel Processor Quick Reference Guide 1
Contents
1 Introduction 3
4 User Interface 11
4.1 information panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
4.1.1 INFO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
4.1.2 CFG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
4.2 control panel, tabs 0) to 9) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
4.3 image viewer panel with options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
4.3.1 zoom in/out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
4.3.2 orientation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
4.3.3 details . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
4.3.4 scale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
4.3.5 image viewer modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
4.3.6 image viewer projection modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
4.4 file list panel with meta data and analytical results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
4.5 histogram panel with preview filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
5 Workflow principle 19
CONTENTS 1
2 Astro Pixel Processor Quick Reference Guide
7 Work Directory 19
8 0) RAW/FITS 20
9 1) LOAD 22
10 2) CALIBRATE 23
11 3) ANALYSE STARS 24
12 4) REGISTER 25
13 5) NORMALIZE 26
14 6) INTEGRATE 27
15 9) TOOLS 28
2 CONTENTS
Astro Pixel Processor Quick Reference Guide 3
1 Introduction
Astro Pixel Processor is a complete Deep Sky Image Processing application developed by drs. E.M.W.P. Haverkamp (Mabula). This is the quick reference
guide, which will give a practical overview of all the options that Astro Pixel Processor (APP) offers for processing your data. Furthermore, depending on
the situation, this guide will give recommendations on when to use which menu option. APP features among others:
• image calibration with bias, dark, flat frames and bad pixel maps
• very advanced image normalisation using only the data areas that exactly overlap between the reference frame and the frame that needs to be
normalised
• a new innovative technique called Local Normalization Correction or LNC. This will greatly improve data normalization in the complete stack before
actual data integration.
• a special and unique demosaic algorithm called: Adaptive Airy Disc that will reduce green cast in your RGB data, will improve sharpness and will
make your stars rounder when compared to the well-known AHD and VNG algorithms.
• demosaic algorithms for direct processing of monochrome narrow-band data (H-alpha, SII, OIII,...) acquired with One Shot Color (color CCD/CMOS,
DSLR) cameras.
• the ability to create huge mosaics automatically by solving the registration problem of all mosaic panels as one complete problem
• the ability to project your data differently than the regular rectilinear projection for huge field of views after camera calibration (focal length,
principal point)
• very advanced integration/stack engine including outlier rejection filters and the ability to output rejection, weight and normalization maps.
• Multi-Band Blending to help remove stack artefacts in regular stacks or seams in a mosaic integration.
• full drizzle support including bayer drizzle. The drizzle droplet and grid enlargement can be configured. And different drizzle kernels can be used,
like point, square, tophat and gauss.
• chromatic aberration correction as part of RGB data calibration using a special registration model that will correct all forms of chromatic aberration
to a very high degree.
1 INTRODUCTION 3
4 Astro Pixel Processor Quick Reference Guide
• data interpolation algorithms for all different kinds of image transformations like Lanczos and Mitchell-Netravali algorithms
• choose different compositions for you stack before data integration. You can choose to integrate the entire field of view of all frames, or only the field
of view of the reference frame, or even a crop of the reference frame.
• directly integrate using another scale, so you can directly upscale or downscale the integration result.
• a tool to correct vignetting in your lights/stacks using Kang-Weiss models with or without a geometric factor. The geometric factor is needed for
optics consisting of several optical elements.
• batch tools to rotate, resize, crop, uncrop, and even undebayer(!) your frames
• can split your RGB data into separate channels for combination with monochrome channel data.
• the possibility to multiply or divide your data with a certain factor or to add/remove a pedestal to/from your data
• preview filter which different automatic stretch settings, background & highlights protected saturation adjustments, contrast increase, sharpening
while protecting your stars and the option to reduce the stretch in the highlights, giving tighter stars and less saturated star cores.
• using the preview filter, you can directly save all your results to FITS, TIFF or JPG formats including ICC color profiles for correct color management.
• a RGB composite tool with Luminance implementation for the creation of all kinds of composites, like LRGB, LHaRGB, or a Hubble Palette using
your narrowband data (SHO).
• a selective color tool with the ability to selectively adjust the colors in your images or/and selectively boost saturation and/or luminance.
• all data processing in APP can be done on linear data. The selective color tool has no problem for instance with your linear data.
4 1 INTRODUCTION
Astro Pixel Processor Quick Reference Guide 5
• APP will run on any 64bits operating system where the Oracle Java Runtime is available. APP is installed with the correct Java Runtime Environment
(JRE), so the user doesn’t need to worry about this. Currently, complete installers for Linux (DEB & RPM), Windows (.exe) en MacOS (DMG)
are available.
1 INTRODUCTION 5
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APP will run on any 64bits operating system where the Oracle Java JRE is available. If you need a different installer type or want to use APP on a
currently unsupported OS where the Oracle Java JRE is available, please please post you request at the forum:
https://www.astropixelprocessor.com/community/
in your system. Ideally, you want to reserve at least 1-2GBs of RAM memory for your Operating System. If you would let APP use all available RAM
memory, your OS might need to start swapping at some point, which will reduce performance drastically.
which is already extremely big, but this limitation should become a thing of the past as APP develops further.
• FITS, read and write, 8,16,32 bits integers, 32bits floats, 64bits doubles
• Canon CR2, read (no support currently for sRaw, sRaw2 formats 1 .)
Unlike most other astrophotography programs, APP has no dependency on DCRAW for the interpretation of DSLR raw images. The conversion of CR2
and NEF files is completely written by Mabula himself. The implementation of other RAW image formats (Sony, Fuji, Pentax) is on the TODO list to be
implemented. If you do encounter problems with your current CR2, NEF or FITS files or want to request other image formats, please share this on the
Astro Pixel Processor forum at:
https://www.astropixelprocessor.com/community/
1
The sRaw and sRaw2 formats aren’t supported yet in APP, because these formats don’t contain linear data and are of lower resolution. The data is stored using YCbCr 4:2:2
chroma subsampling encoding. Before encoding the data, the data is transformed by your camera to one of the available non-linear colorspaces (e.g. sRGB, Adobe 1998). Linear
data is essential for astronomical data calibration and processing, like data normalization and integration. If you are shooting data with your Canon DSLR, always set the data
format at RAW, not at sRaw or sRaw2.
4 User Interface
APP’s user interface has the following components:
• information panel
• control panel
4.1.1 INFO
This will show your
• Astro Pixel Processor version
• license information
4.1.2 CFG
APP’s configuration for
• the amount of RAM memory available to APP
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• Tabs 1) LOAD to 6) INTEGRATE are for all processing steps up to and including data integration
(a.k.a stacking).
• Tab 9) TOOLS is for post-processing of your images and contains tools for gradient/light pollution
removal, background and star color calibration among others.
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4 USER INTERFACE 13
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Figure 5: Left: zooming out with a couple of right mouse clicks. Right: zooming in with a couple of left mouse clicks.
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Astro Pixel Processor Quick Reference Guide 15
4.3.2 orientation
If you select the orientation selectbox (Figure 6), all frames that are loaded into the image viewer will be shown with the TIFF Tag orientation applied
to the frame, if this tag actually exists in the metadata of the frame. The only frame formats that could have this tag are: JPEGs, TIFFs, and the DSLR
RAW image formats. The FITS format doesn’t support this tag, so the orientation selectbox has no influence on FITS frames.
Please note: this setting only affects how the frame is shown in the image viewer, it does not have any influence on the actual
data processing in the data processing steps from 0) RAW/FITS to 6) INTEGRATE.
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4.3.3 details
If details is selected (Figure 6), the META data or Header of the frame is shown. This works for all supported image formats. You can see the complete
META data of the DSLR RAW frames, like the TIFF Image File Directories (IFDs), EXIF, MakerNote and subIFDs. For FITS files you can view the
complete Header of the frames showing image dimensions and possible analytical results after data Integration for example. A light integration task will
analyse your integration for noise and Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) for example (Figure 7). If you load a star map using the image viewer mode dropdown
box, then you will see analytical results of all stars that were detected in the light frame.
Figure 7: Left: META data of a CR2 frame of a Canon EOS 5D Mark II showing IFDs, Exif and MakerNote data. Right: Header of a FITS frame that
was created by APP in a light frame integration task, showing analytical results of the integration.
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4.3.4 scale
With the scale selectbox selected (Figure 6), all frames that are loaded into the image viewer will be shown as in scale to fit to the image viewer panel.
So the frame is shown at the maximum size, the image viewer can use to show the complete frame.
With the scale selectbox turned off, the frames are shown with the same zoom factor as the previous frame. Zooming can be accomplished with
the left/right mouse buttons on the frame in the image viewer.
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Astro Pixel Processor Quick Reference Guide 19
5 Workflow principle
APP has a built-in automatic workflow which will ensure the user that the processing steps up until and including integration (stacking) are done in the
right order. The user can choose to do each step from calibration (2) CALIBRATE) to integration (6)INTEGRATE) and verify each step using the image
viewer and the analytical results in the file list panel. You’ll have the option to save intermediate results like, calibrated lights, registered lights or even
normalized lights.
Or, after loading all of your frames (lights and calibration frames), you can set all settings, according to your wishes, in the tabs in the control panel from
2) to 6) and immediately click on the integrate button in tab 6). APP will automatically perform steps 2) to 6) in that case. It will also automatically
choose a reference frame for registration. You can interrupt APP at any time if you want. Or just wait for the integration result.
7 Work Directory
The first thing to do is to set your work directory. This directory is used to save temporary files, while performing data integration, and integration and
post-processing results. The HDD number in the information panel (Figure 2) will indicate how much free space you have on the harddisk partition
that contains your work directory. Make sure that you have enough room on the disk to be able to save the results and temporary integration files.
7 WORK DIRECTORY 19
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8 0) RAW/FITS
The RAW/FITS tab (Figure 10) is a configuration tab for the processing of your
frames.
Figure 10: tab 0) RAW/FITS
• Bayer CFA pattern Choose the bayer pattern of your sensor for correct de-
bayering of your Color Filter Array, or CFA, data
• Bayer CFA algorithm Choose the debayer algorithm. These algorithms have a
big influence on your data which will translate into the quality of your integration
results. For RGB data, the Adaptive Airy Disc (AAD) algorithm is highly
recommended. If you have used a narrowband filter with your One Shot Colour
(OSC) camera, choose the appropriate algorithm for the filter that was used.
– no interpolation This will show you the monochrome raw CFA data without interpolation.
– Bilinear This is the most simple debayer algorithm. It gives artefacts, blurs details and injects a lot of chromatic noise in your data when
compared to the other options.
– Adaptive Edge This is an advanced debayer algorithm for processing of normal photography images. It gives the least artefacts along lines in
your images, since it adapts to contrast edges.
– Adaptive Airy Disc This is a very advanced debayer algorithm for processing of astrophotography images and therefor the default algorithm
in APP. This algorithm is developed by Mabula, especially for astrophotography. It performs better than any other algorithm (like AHD, VNG).
It gives the best resolution, least artefacts, least chromatic noise and the best colors, especially after background and star color calibration of
your integration result.
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Astro Pixel Processor Quick Reference Guide 21
– Super Pixel This modus will not debayer your data, instead, each 2x2 CFA block on your sensor will be replaced by a 1x1 block. The R,G,B
values will be the values that were recorded by your sensor in the original 2x2 block. For green, this will be the average of the 2 green cfa pixels.
Super Pixel modus will downscale your data by a factor of 2, so only use this setting if you have a clear reason to start with downscaling your
data. A reason could be to make a downscaled integration as a preview of your data. Please realise, that the super pixel modus will have a
big degrading effect on the registration quality of your results, since star lokation calculations will have much bigger uncertainty. Super Pixel
modus immediately throws away valuable information.
– Hydrogen Alpha, Beta, Sulfur II, Oxygen III, Nitrogen II You can directly debayer narrowband data, shot with your One Shot Colour
(OSC) camera. If you choose any of these algorithms, you will directly have the monochrome narrowband exposure. There is no need to seperate
the channels first. This method is superior to any other workflow used in processing narrowband data shot with an OSC camera. It preserves
resolution, which also has the benefit that registration will not suffer. In other workflows, the integration result usually is upscaled again by
using drizzle integration which will inject a lot of noise.
• force CFA Enable this if the frames are monochrome CFA frames and APP
doesn’t detect this should be interpreted as such.
• camera White Balance Enable this to use the camera White Balance of DSLR
RAW images.
• RGB multipliers Adjust the RGB multipliers if you want to set your own
White Balance for instance. This works on all currently supported data formats.
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9 1) LOAD
This tab (Figure 11) is used to load, select and deselect all of your frames for pro-
cesssing up until data integration (tab 6)INTEGRATE). All loaded frames will show
in the bottom file list panel. Figure 11: tab 1) LOAD
• light add light frames. If you load a previously created stack with this button,
it will be used as a light frame.
• flat add flat frames.
• dark add dark frames.
• bias add bias frames.
• all\none to the right of the light, flat, dark & bias buttons, there are switch-
boxes which you can use to select/deselect all frames of that type.
• clean to the right of the all\none switchboxes, there are clean buttons to
remove all deselected frames of that type.
• number of frames per type to the right of the clean buttons, a number is
shown, which indicates the number of loaded and selected lights for that frame
type.
• sort use this button to sort the frames per type using the criterium in the
dropdownbox to the right of this button. You can sort on
– file name sort your frames alphabetically by file name
– ISO\gain sort your frames on the ISO or gain value if available
– exposure sort your frames on the exposure length of your frames.
– time shot default setting, it will sort your frames chronologically.
• clear clears the frame list window, memory and the image viewer.
All master calibration frames (MasterBias, MasterDark, MasterFlat & BadPixelMap) can be loaded with any of the light, flat, dark or bias
buttons. APP will recognize that these are Master frames and will use them as such.
22 9 1) LOAD
Astro Pixel Processor Quick Reference Guide 23
10 2) CALIBRATE
10 2) CALIBRATE 23
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11 3) ANALYSE STARS
24 11 3) ANALYSE STARS
Astro Pixel Processor Quick Reference Guide 25
12 4) REGISTER
12 4) REGISTER 25
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13 5) NORMALIZE
26 13 5) NORMALIZE
Astro Pixel Processor Quick Reference Guide 27
14 6) INTEGRATE
14 6) INTEGRATE 27
28 Astro Pixel Processor Quick Reference Guide
15 9) TOOLS
28 15 9) TOOLS
Astro Pixel Processor Quick Reference Guide 29
Solar magnetic fluxtubes diagnosed from isolated internetwork bright points - An analysis of Dutch Open Telescope observations
Astronomy & Astrophysics, AA 441, 1183-1190 (2005) DOT tomography of the solar atmosphere. IV. Magnetic patches in internetwork areas
prof. dr. R.J. Rutten, dr. P. Sütterlin, dr. A.G. de Wijn, drs. E.M.W.P. Haverkamp