I've realised I made an error on the pixel scale calculation for the 130PHQ segment! - It's 0.77"/pix for B1, and 1.56"/pix for B2 - I calculated using the wrong pixel size (2.4um2 still from the previous test, rather than 3.76um2 actually used) Regardless of the numbers anyway, the observations hold up! :-) Clear skies!
Ok! I was thinking: "Great resolution for 1,94"... But, if it's 0,77" I understand!! ;-) (actually, you've a dawes limit of 0.89 arc/secs with the 130) Thank you for this test, it's good to see it in "real life". Take care (from France).
I have a simple solution: just always be severely undersampled! Then the answer is Not To Bin :D in all seriousness this is great, thank you for spending the time!!
Hello Luke, just a shout out to you and your community, I decided to join your channel because of all you do for us, providing great content and files to practice without begging for money in videos. You really appear to care about this community. I really like that quality files are available to everyone, regardless of membership status. For this reason, I am supporting you. I am new at imaging but learning so much; not new to astronomy or life, pretty advanced of those fronts.
Aw mate, that's incredibly kind of you to give your support like that - Thank you! Your reasoning behind the decision was honestly touching to read, thank you for your kind message my friend, and once again thank you for your support, - It's truly valued! :-) Clear skies!
Thank you Sarah!! - I'm glad the daft into wasn't a waste :-D It was a lot of fun capturing the data and putting this together, I appreciate you watching! Clear skies!
Absolutely loved your ‘Hamlet!’ Let’s have more Shakespeare going forward 😅 Luke, you’ve become a master teacher. Your videos and examples are a first rate learning experience. Clearly, your comparisons require time and effort to compile, but they are soooooo worth it! Thank you and no doubt Hamlet will become a bin 1 guy from now on,
Hey Luke! Normally even when I was using long focal lengths, I wouldn't bin because unless you are using a CCD, CMOS just loses data and you are better off either resampling or deconvoluting the image. This was a good video to drive that point home! People do sometimes use a combination of BIN1 and BIN2 since sometimes BIN2 captures extra contrast. Once again excellent video! I wish other people would do more experimenting as this make things more fun and interesting than just imaging. Clear Skies!
Thanks so much Dave!! :-) I'm glad we're on the same page with this stuff, I'm a huge advocate for experimenting and testing, it's a ton of fun and you always seem to learn something! Thanks very much for watching mate!
Thanks Luke, it is great to see these topics debated using actual experiments and real data, instead of only theory. As you demonstrate, it is hard to oversample an image. Most of your examples change from proper sampling (0.7-1) to near undersampling. It would be great to see an experiment like this with really oversampled images (0.3"/px or so) from 2000-3000mm systems.
Thank you mate!! I'd definitely like to check this out again with a really long f/l system, could be interesting 👍 I appreciate you watching and commenting!
Thanks so much for this comparison Luke. I can clearly see that I will only ever use bin one. This subject has always puzzled me until now. I would also like to say thanks for making my astrophotography journey so trouble free due to such great tutorials on such complex subjects. I consider you a great teacher and your channel is my number one go too for astrophotography. You always have time to reply if a question is ask. great work.
Hey there Michael, that's really kind of you to say my friend - Thank you for taking the time to leave such a nice comment, I'm glad that you have found my content useful! :-) Thanks again and all the best!!
I'm surprised how much of a difference was even apparent over RUclips. Really appreciate you taking the time with multiple images and cameras/scopes. These real world examples are much more useful than theoretical limits, but they just take more time to do right - as you did here. I'm happy with the result! It makes it easier to not think about it, haha. Thanks again, Luke.
Thanks so much for watching mate!! Really happy to hear you liked the video, and that the difference came across well still via YT! :-) Clear skies my friend!
Hi Luke, thank you for providing this binning tutorial and the results that It provides.I’ve only used Bin1 and believe it’s the way to go for my set up.Clear skies.
Great to hear Jon!! Thanks ever so much for your kind message and for sharing your own experience!! :-) I think sticking to bin 1 is a pretty solid strategy in most cases! 👍
Great comparison Luke! I’ve only ever used bin 1 and don’t plan to use anything else mate! I’m happy with my results so far! Nice to see it compared like that, great job, thanks Luke and clear skies!
Cheers Simon mate!! - It's good to have a little experiment with things every now and then, I'm glad at the results too, feel like I've got a decent plan going forwards! :-D Clear skies mate!
Hi Luke! Really enjoyed this very informative comparison. There is so much value in your videos! Sincere thanks for all your efforts and all you do for the community :) You are an awesome resource!
Awesome, thank you so much mate! :-D I'm really pleased you enjoyed this one :-) I appreciate you watching and leaving such a great comment! Clear skies!
This is pretty much the proof I need as they were advising me on forums not to bother with bin2. Current CMOS sensors do not act like old CCDs. The bin2 is basically a resampled bin1 image with no gain, but more likely a noisier version, but everyone's milage may vary. There is one benefit though. I was recently using my Kstars/Ekos loaded Raspberry pi and noticed that I'm running out of space, so instead of going around and deleting stuff, I decided to bin 2 to save on hard drive space. It's also faster to process smaller files of course. And lets not forget the drizzle integration, in case the bin2 doesn't look well.
Thanks for the great comment! - I definitely see the usage case for bin2 in that kind of scenario, where you're finding yourself system/storage limited :-) Doing a drizzle of the bin2 data could have been interesting to add to the comparison too, thanks for the suggestion! I'll perhaps need to revisit this sometime. Clear skies!
Hey Luke. Super comparison mate. I have never diverted from bin 1. It was great to see the difference, more different than what I thought. Enjoyed watching the video, quite interesting. Take it easy buddy, clear skies!
Thanks for the comparison! I always like the finer noise pattern of smaller pixels. One more thing would have been interessting ... a comparison between Bin1 vs. Bin2 2x drizzled 🙂
As always Luke, super useful! Most of my imaging is done at 0.96” /px so I’ve always wondered if I should be binning. But it looks like I’m fine 😊 Thanks mate!
Great video, interesting comparison Luke, very informative. So bin1 is the absolute winner over all, and even with youtube compression the difference is clear without a doubt. Thanks for the effort for making this !
I don't see a reason to use anything other than Bin1 with CMOS sensors. CMOS binning is entirely performed in software by the camera's firmware (as opposed to CCDs where binning is a hardware feature of the sensor). In other words, it's just software-based re-sampling. You can achieve the same in your own image processing with a lot more control while keeping the raw data.
Great Video Again Luke, I must admit I expected the Bin 1x to win overall oversampled or not, but was very surprised how close the Bin 2x and 50% re sample were, with surprisingly the re sample being slightly better in many parts than the Bin 2x, so thanks for that…very interesting…👍🏻
Great comparison Luke as usual you do it so it saves us from doing it. Think I have only ever shot Bin 2 once and I didn’t see the advantages at the time this in-depth review just confirms that. Interesting result on the oversampling as well. Thanks
I gave up worryingly about binning on my main camera ages ago and only use Bin1. But, on my guide camera, I always using Bin2 just to give me an increased sensitivity to detect stars for guiding :)
Really interesting comparison. I've been shooting Bin2 with my ASI2600 at 1477mm to get my image scale to a match. Looks like I'm going to have to do a bit of homework to test this out.
Hi Luke It seems that at Bin1 you're not very oversampled, and thus you lose resolution when binning. This has been a very useful comparison. Thanks for posting it.
Thanks so much mate! That's a great question by the way, I'm thinking about skipping binning pretty much entirely for all captures now! I can always resample if I needed a little higher SNR I guess 👍 Thanks for watching mate!
Thanks Rob! - I think all cmos binning is done after reading yeah, it's still an SNR boost but not as effective as binning on a CCD used to be! Definitely seemed like resampling did a better job than binning though interestingly! :-) Clear skies my friend!
@@lukomatico It's not an SNR boost if done with CMOS. There is an improvement in the pixel SNR but it's a meaningless metric, if you average the SNR of the same patch of sky there is no SNR difference between binned and unbinned CMOS. The only senario where I can see CMOS binnig being useful is if for some reason you need to save disk space or if you need faster transfer from camera to PC
Thanks for doing this Luke. I’ve had mixed results and always been confused about the Benefits, having a 2000mm FL and smallish pixels I thought binning would help but I never found it did
Thanks Tom! - I've pretty much always found the same mate, there's big savings on file-size and processing/stacking time, but the end result never seems as good as bin1 would be! Hope you have a super weekend mate!
Another great video! Took me a few days to get around to watching it. I had wondered this for myself mostly because I'm using an old DSLR that doesn't support hardware binning so I was wondering if I was losing out on anything. Looks like I'm not so thank you! The difference seems to be contrast mostly for me and I don't see much difference between hardware binning and resampling, so better to keep the flexibility I think.
Nice Tutorial there Luke. In my Case, I use 2x2 binning some times For Planetary imaging when Im using a 6x Barlow (3x+2x) combo, At F30 lol. It works Great That Way! I might experiment to see if I can Photograph any Bright galaxies with short Exposures this summer! Clear skies
Sounds great Avanteesh! :-D Binning for planetary captures is an interesting use case for sure, allowing you to use shorter exposures and freeze the atmosphere more effectively I guess! Definitely seems to work for you buddy! :-) Clear skies and good luck with those galaxies! :-D
Been saying this forever, it’s a case of mathematics being an occupational hazard, I’ve never seen a case where I had a sensor behind some nice glass and thought having less resolution would be a great idea…
I'm at 0.79"/px with my 1955efl and 3.76µ ASI2600. That's at Bin 2. Bin 1 would be 0.40"/px and that just seems too spread out for seeing with 2.0"-2.5" stars.
Selection of camera and binning is defined by image scale. I aim to get 0.7-1.2” ideally; 1.2-2” is ok, and no below 0.7-0.8” or no to scope producing above 2”. What about 0.7”-1” image scale and low f ratio? This is the best systems. Scopes with massive mirrors and complicated optical systems. Observatory-grade scopes. It could have been great to have numbers (FWHM), especially that 0.5 vs 1”. It is surprising that seeing + guiding accuracy support it.
Thanks Ana! - I'm sorry I didn't include the extra info such as FWHM for each capture - that's something I could perhaps do in a more in-depth look at the subject I guess! I'm glad it was still useful to a lot of people though :-D Clear skies!
@@lukomatico For my system, anything below 0.7”/pixel doesn’t work. I don’t know seeing or mount accuracy. Besides, small pixels strongly undermine SNR. It is tough compromise to make.
Nice set of comparisons, Luke. This was great. What would you say your seeing was on the nights you did these tests? Wouldn't this play into whether or not you want to bin, e.g., with poor seeing you might be oversampled and want to bin? (Please forgive this question if it's naive. Still trying to wrap my head around all these nuances of imaging...)
Hey there Greg! It would indeed be a factor worth consideration if you regularly experience good seeing conditions, but on these nights my seeing was just average 👍 Cheers!
Really interesting video Luke. I'm a OSC user myself but I have seen some mono shooters image Ha in bin 1 and Sii and Oiii in bin 2. I'm guessing they do it to try and get the best of both worlds when they do their lrgb combination obviously using Ha as luminance. That might be worth a look at in some future video ? Anyway great watch 👍
Very interesting. You may have negated the 1-2 a-s/pixel rule of thumb here. Am wondering if this is specific to your equipment somehow, or if the PixInsight processing has evolved to allow more oversampling in the data. But not sure how you are binning at 2x2 with a OSC cam. Your images should go from RGB color to monochrome grey as the Bayer matrix can't be binned. Cheers.
Thanks John! - I'm glad you found it interesting my friend :-) RE: OSC binning retaining colour, I believe it's an interpolated bin technique that most of the astro cam manufacturers seem to use these days, not actually a 'true' bin2, but slightly higher than that so it can average the same coloured nearby pixels into groups for binning. - Hope that helps! Clear skies mate
Thank you mate!! That's a good question, I'm sure there's a tipping point where there's just no more resolution benefit to be found, and you may well be at it when using an EdgeHD 11, that said - the noise quality in the images on test seemed far more pleasing with bin1 or resampled data - that could be something further to consider I guess! Clear skies! :-)
Thank you for doing the comparisons. I use bin2 to on my one shot color camera a fair bit because I’m way way oversampled when seeing is mediocre. This shows there is still a difference even with modestly oversampled data although for some reason I don’t think your data was really truly fully over sample because there was a difference even with the bin1 subsampled data. If you were truly 2X over sampled then there would be no resolution difference between bin1 and bin1 processed and then downsampled to bin2. But there was still quite a difference. Possibly your seeing was just too good! But that’s, OK more test for someone in the future perhaps. It still clearly shows that OSC bin2 degrades an image in some ways, and I think it's related to how OSC bin2 works: It's not a true debayered sub-sample, but must select like-colored pixels from a fairly large area across the camera, much larger than a 2x2 area like mono does, so bin2 is more like bin2.5. You should show ASI's documentation for their bin2 subsampling pattern diagram to show why this is true, it would help complete the story of why OSC bin2 degrades it so much.
Thanks Steven! :-) I agree there's certainly a good few questions left unanswered by this, but that's a good opportunity for a follow-up test I guess, as you mentioned! :-D I appreciate your comment, you raise some great points! Clear skies mate!
Having experimented with binning, I've never been happy with the results. Perhaps I have been shooting photography and videography so long I am a bit pickier about the loss of detail. Regardless, I find there are plenty other good ways to deal with noise and enhance signal than sacrificing half or more of my resolution with binning.
Hey mate! - Honestly that's really fair to say, I basically feel the same way about binning these days haha - it can be useful if you're absolutely hilariously oversampled though I guess! Thanks for watching!
I’m just starting in this hobby. When would you want to change from Bin 1 to Bin 2 or greater? Can post processing reverse it? I have a C8 SCT and am looking for my first OCS cooled camera. Is Binning more important to high focal length OTA? I think I’m figuring out that my C8 is best for planets and galaxies except M31 ( without creating a mosaic). But there is always iHyperstar for Nebula. Thanks
Hi there mate! You've basically got it already yeah, you'd bin when shooting unbinned causes you to be oversampled, so generally that's long focal length deep sky work 👍 For planetary/lunar though you want to sample as finely as possible so you'd never really bin for that, just as a general rule! During stacking you can restore some spatial resolution if you drizzle your integration, but you can only really successfully drizzle data that was well dithered during capture and significantly oversampled anyway. Hope that helps!
I've not had any time lately to do Bin1 vs Bin2 test on my equipment with the same data, but I do know that I'm greatly oversampled with my EdgeHD8 and 294MM in Bin1. Bin1 puts me at .33 "/px... I shoot at Bin2 to get me to .67"/px and my stars are slightly bloated especially when the seeing is not great. If I shot at Bin1 I'd be massively oversampled and my stars would be even bigger... I need to do a Bin1 / Bin2 test soon on the same target on the same night ...
Luke, Are you using WBPP script? There is a new updated section for drizzle data; under 'Post Calibration' did you use this feature? If your Images are Bin2x2, then in the updated section 'Drizzle Configuration', you would select Scale 2, and 'Function (Circular)'. Apply to all groups if required. Something to try! -------------
Thanks for the heads up Robin! I'm actually using APP for all stacking and preprocessing tasks these days though, still - I appreciate you taking the time to offer wisdom! Clear skies my friend 👍
Hiya Luke . Great info in this videos , however , being a Noob and still using a DSLR I'll assume that Bin 1 and Bin 2 Modes are Options for the Camera that you are using ? This really improves the case for upgrading . LOL ./SRK
Hey there Scott!! :-) good to hear from you mate! Re: binning options, it's an astrocam thing yeah! I wouldn't worry about it too much though, while there are usage cases for bin2 I think it seems like most people should be sticking to bin1 anyway which your DSLR does natively 👍 Clear skies mate!
I just asked another RUclipsr the question would it be beneficial to maybe add 10-20 exposures at Bin2 to get a bit more of a background/colour shadowing to pop the colours a little more maybe?
Really great Video, I love this topic and would like to see a more in depth version of it where you could add the factors of rayleigh limit of a telescope or seeing etc. (things that influence the practical resolution or sharpness of an image) I always thought that a lower pixel scale would not make sense if its lower than the rayleigh limit of a telescope... but the 130phq has a rayleigh limit of 1.06" and your bin 1 version was way sharper than the bin 2 version with 1 "/pix. So how are those two things effect each other? In theory there should be no difference in resolution in your bin 1 and bin 2 version with 130phq because both pixelscales are benith the telescopes rayleigh limit of 1.06"... The 130phq should not be able to resolve a greater resolution than 1.06"/pix but its still a difference in your images :O
Thanks mate! - I've realised I made a mistake with the pixel scale calculation for the imx571 on the 130phq by the way, it's 0.78"/pix at bin1! I calculated with a smaller pixel by accident unfortunately (2.4um2 rather than 3.76um2") Oops! Still, regardless of the numbers & which theory we apply, be it Nyquist, Dawes or Rayleigh, we can definitely see bin1 was better on this scope! :-D The proof is in the pudding I guess! Thanks for watching!
@@lukomatico This really makes sense :D If the scopes resolution capibility is arround 1"/pix we should see a great difference between the bin 1 (0.77) and the bin 2 (1.56) image. And thats what is showing in your test exposures!
Thanks Darren! I appreciate your thoughts mate! - I guess resampling can be useful if your image scale is way beyond the intended display scale, so you can resample down and get a stronger SNR to allow more aggressive processing - that said, it's not something I'd usually do either! :-)
I've realised I made an error on the pixel scale calculation for the 130PHQ segment! - It's 0.77"/pix for B1, and 1.56"/pix for B2 - I calculated using the wrong pixel size (2.4um2 still from the previous test, rather than 3.76um2 actually used) Regardless of the numbers anyway, the observations hold up! :-) Clear skies!
Ok! I was thinking: "Great resolution for 1,94"... But, if it's 0,77" I understand!! ;-) (actually, you've a dawes limit of 0.89 arc/secs with the 130) Thank you for this test, it's good to see it in "real life". Take care (from France).
I have a simple solution: just always be severely undersampled! Then the answer is Not To Bin :D in all seriousness this is great, thank you for spending the time!!
Thanks so much for watching bud!! - I definitely like your solution too haha :-D Clear skies mate!
Hello Luke, just a shout out to you and your community, I decided to join your channel because of all you do for us, providing great content and files to practice without begging for money in videos. You really appear to care about this community. I really like that quality files are available to everyone, regardless of membership status. For this reason, I am supporting you. I am new at imaging but learning so much; not new to astronomy or life, pretty advanced of those fronts.
Aw mate, that's incredibly kind of you to give your support like that - Thank you! Your reasoning behind the decision was honestly touching to read, thank you for your kind message my friend, and once again thank you for your support, - It's truly valued! :-)
Clear skies!
Fantastic comparisons and discussion, Luke. Thank you for this! I also really appreciated the Shakespearian intro. You did Prince Hamlet justice!
Thank you Sarah!! - I'm glad the daft into wasn't a waste :-D It was a lot of fun capturing the data and putting this together, I appreciate you watching!
Clear skies!
Absolutely loved your ‘Hamlet!’ Let’s have more Shakespeare going forward 😅 Luke, you’ve become a master teacher. Your videos and examples are a first rate learning experience. Clearly, your comparisons require time and effort to compile, but they are soooooo worth it! Thank you and no doubt Hamlet will become a bin 1 guy from now on,
Thanks so much Joe! Really glad you liked it mate, even down to the little skit :-D Clear skies!
Hey Luke! Normally even when I was using long focal lengths, I wouldn't bin because unless you are using a CCD, CMOS just loses data and you are better off either resampling or deconvoluting the image. This was a good video to drive that point home! People do sometimes use a combination of BIN1 and BIN2 since sometimes BIN2 captures extra contrast. Once again excellent video! I wish other people would do more experimenting as this make things more fun and interesting than just imaging. Clear Skies!
Thanks so much Dave!! :-) I'm glad we're on the same page with this stuff, I'm a huge advocate for experimenting and testing, it's a ton of fun and you always seem to learn something!
Thanks very much for watching mate!
Thanks Luke, it is great to see these topics debated using actual experiments and real data, instead of only theory. As you demonstrate, it is hard to oversample an image. Most of your examples change from proper sampling (0.7-1) to near undersampling. It would be great to see an experiment like this with really oversampled images (0.3"/px or so) from 2000-3000mm systems.
Thank you mate!! I'd definitely like to check this out again with a really long f/l system, could be interesting 👍
I appreciate you watching and commenting!
Thanks so much for this comparison Luke. I can clearly see that I will only ever use bin one. This subject has always puzzled me until now. I would also like to say thanks for making my astrophotography journey so trouble free due to such great tutorials on such complex subjects. I consider you a great teacher and your channel is my number one go too for astrophotography. You always have time to reply if a question is ask. great work.
Hey there Michael, that's really kind of you to say my friend - Thank you for taking the time to leave such a nice comment, I'm glad that you have found my content useful! :-)
Thanks again and all the best!!
I'm surprised how much of a difference was even apparent over RUclips. Really appreciate you taking the time with multiple images and cameras/scopes. These real world examples are much more useful than theoretical limits, but they just take more time to do right - as you did here. I'm happy with the result! It makes it easier to not think about it, haha. Thanks again, Luke.
Thanks so much for watching mate!! Really happy to hear you liked the video, and that the difference came across well still via YT! :-) Clear skies my friend!
Hi Luke, thank you for providing this binning tutorial and the results that It provides.I’ve only used Bin1 and believe it’s the way to go for my set up.Clear skies.
Great to hear Jon!! Thanks ever so much for your kind message and for sharing your own experience!! :-)
I think sticking to bin 1 is a pretty solid strategy in most cases! 👍
Very interesting video. Nice comparison and a clear win to Bin1. Clear skies.
Many thanks Logan!! Happy you enjoyed this my friend 🙏
Great comparison Luke! I’ve only ever used bin 1 and don’t plan to use anything else mate! I’m happy with my results so far! Nice to see it compared like that, great job, thanks Luke and clear skies!
Cheers Simon mate!! - It's good to have a little experiment with things every now and then, I'm glad at the results too, feel like I've got a decent plan going forwards! :-D
Clear skies mate!
Thanks, Luke - I have an external hard drive next to me as I type - these 1 x 1 files are huge!
You're not kidding Peter! - Project sizes really get out of hand quick haha :-D Clear skies my friend!
Hi Luke! Really enjoyed this very informative comparison. There is so much value in your videos! Sincere thanks for all your efforts and all you do for the community :) You are an awesome resource!
Awesome, thank you so much mate! :-D I'm really pleased you enjoyed this one :-)
I appreciate you watching and leaving such a great comment! Clear skies!
This is pretty much the proof I need as they were advising me on forums not to bother with bin2. Current CMOS sensors do not act like old CCDs. The bin2 is basically a resampled bin1 image with no gain, but more likely a noisier version, but everyone's milage may vary.
There is one benefit though. I was recently using my Kstars/Ekos loaded Raspberry pi and noticed that I'm running out of space, so instead of going around and deleting stuff, I decided to bin 2 to save on hard drive space. It's also faster to process smaller files of course. And lets not forget the drizzle integration, in case the bin2 doesn't look well.
Thanks for the great comment! - I definitely see the usage case for bin2 in that kind of scenario, where you're finding yourself system/storage limited :-)
Doing a drizzle of the bin2 data could have been interesting to add to the comparison too, thanks for the suggestion! I'll perhaps need to revisit this sometime.
Clear skies!
Hey Luke.
Super comparison mate. I have never diverted from bin 1. It was great to see the difference, more different than what I thought. Enjoyed watching the video, quite interesting.
Take it easy buddy, clear skies!
I appreciate that Ben! - I'm glad you found the vid interesting my friend! :-D Great to catch up earlier on by the way!
Clear skies mate!
I really enjoyed this! Thank you so much!
Thanks so much for watching!! :-D
Thanks for this. Saves me the precious little time of clear skies for testing this myself 😊. Only used bin 1 for all my images.
Thank you for watching my friend!! :-D It was good fun to test this out so I'm very happy it was of some use! :-)
Hi Luke,
For me, I see no competition between bin1 vs Bin2 ... Bin1 is the clear winner.
Great comparison video and very useful for me.
I'm so glad it was useful to you Pat! - You can't really go wrong with Bin1! Thanks very much indeed for watching my friend :-)
Thanks, Luke. This was very useful so I don't have to do the experimenting myself!
Glad it was helpful Peter! - Thanks so much for watching and giving your continued support my friend :-) Clear skies!
Thanks for the comparison! I always like the finer noise pattern of smaller pixels. One more thing would have been interessting ... a comparison between Bin1 vs. Bin2 2x drizzled 🙂
Thank you for the suggestion my friend!!
I appreciate you taking the time to watch and comment! Clear skies 👍👍
As always Luke, super useful! Most of my imaging is done at 0.96” /px so I’ve always wondered if I should be binning. But it looks like I’m fine 😊 Thanks mate!
Happy to help buddy!! Seems like sticking to bin1 at that pixel scale is a solid plan yeah! 👍
Clear skies!
Great video, interesting comparison Luke, very informative. So bin1 is the absolute winner over all, and even with youtube compression the difference is clear without a doubt.
Thanks for the effort for making this !
Thanks Siegfried!! Glad it showed up well over RUclips! :-)
I don't see a reason to use anything other than Bin1 with CMOS sensors. CMOS binning is entirely performed in software by the camera's firmware (as opposed to CCDs where binning is a hardware feature of the sensor). In other words, it's just software-based re-sampling. You can achieve the same in your own image processing with a lot more control while keeping the raw data.
Thanks for your comment Andre! I'm pretty much in total agreement :-) Clear skies!
Great Video Again Luke, I must admit I expected the Bin 1x to win overall oversampled or not, but was very surprised how close the Bin 2x and 50% re sample were, with surprisingly the re sample being slightly better in many parts than the Bin 2x, so thanks for that…very interesting…👍🏻
Thank you mate, really glad you found it interesting! :-) I enjoyed having a look at this subject! Clear skies!
Since I started using a dedicated astro cam... I always use Bin 1....nice test.
Good to know mate! - thanks so much for watching and taking the time to comment :-D I appreciate it!
Great comparison Luke as usual you do it so it saves us from doing it. Think I have only ever shot Bin 2 once and I didn’t see the advantages at the time this in-depth review just confirms that. Interesting result on the oversampling as well. Thanks
Cheers Simon!! I had a good bit of fun with this particular test so I'm really happy it was useful too 👍
Thank you for watching mate, as always!
Very nice comparison Luke, looking like bin 1 is a clear winner
Thanks mate!! And I agree, definitely looks like b1 is the way forwards for me! :-)
I gave up worryingly about binning on my main camera ages ago and only use Bin1. But, on my guide camera, I always using Bin2 just to give me an increased sensitivity to detect stars for guiding :)
I hear ya buddy!! Definitely no point stressing about any of this, just keep catching those photons and all will be well :-D
Clear skies mate!
@@lukomatico indeed still it was an really interesting seeing your real-life examples and as always keep up the great work Luke :)
Useful comparisons, thank you.
My pleasure mate! Glad you enjoyed :-) Clear skies!
Really good info and teaching. Thank You!!
Glad you enjoyed it my friend! - Thank you so much for watching :-) Clear skies!
Really interesting comparison. I've been shooting Bin2 with my ASI2600 at 1477mm to get my image scale to a match. Looks like I'm going to have to do a bit of homework to test this out.
That's definitely the best way mate, a bit of resarch then give it a test with your rig and see how the results turn out :-) Good luck buddy!
Hi Luke
It seems that at Bin1 you're not very oversampled, and thus you lose resolution when binning.
This has been a very useful comparison. Thanks for posting it.
Thank you my friend! It was quite surprising to see how much resolution my skies were giving!
Clear skies :-)
Fantastic video. Thanks for doing the hard work! Seems like even for the RGB component of LRGB it's not worth it?
Thanks so much mate! That's a great question by the way, I'm thinking about skipping binning pretty much entirely for all captures now! I can always resample if I needed a little higher SNR I guess 👍
Thanks for watching mate!
Nice comparison Luke. Definitely bin 1. Isn't bin 2 just software interpolation with cmos camera's so can resample afterwards. Clear skies bud.
Thanks Rob! - I think all cmos binning is done after reading yeah, it's still an SNR boost but not as effective as binning on a CCD used to be! Definitely seemed like resampling did a better job than binning though interestingly! :-) Clear skies my friend!
@@lukomatico It's not an SNR boost if done with CMOS. There is an improvement in the pixel SNR but it's a meaningless metric, if you average the SNR of the same patch of sky there is no SNR difference between binned and unbinned CMOS.
The only senario where I can see CMOS binnig being useful is if for some reason you need to save disk space or if you need faster transfer from camera to PC
Thanks for doing this Luke. I’ve had mixed results and always been confused about the Benefits, having a 2000mm FL and smallish pixels I thought binning would help but I never found it did
Thanks Tom! - I've pretty much always found the same mate, there's big savings on file-size and processing/stacking time, but the end result never seems as good as bin1 would be! Hope you have a super weekend mate!
Isn't the real question (specifically applied to the over-sampled image): Bin 1 vs Bin 2 and drizzled?
That would have been a good one to add to the test, you're spot on! Perhaps I'll have a play around and do a part 2 sometime 👍
Clear skies mate!
Another great video! Took me a few days to get around to watching it. I had wondered this for myself mostly because I'm using an old DSLR that doesn't support hardware binning so I was wondering if I was losing out on anything. Looks like I'm not so thank you! The difference seems to be contrast mostly for me and I don't see much difference between hardware binning and resampling, so better to keep the flexibility I think.
Agreed mate! I think you're totally fine 👍
Enjoy yourself and keep catching those photons my friend :-)
Clear skies!
Nice Tutorial there Luke. In my Case, I use 2x2 binning some times For Planetary imaging when Im using a 6x Barlow (3x+2x) combo, At F30 lol. It works Great That Way! I might experiment to see if I can Photograph any Bright galaxies with short Exposures this summer! Clear skies
Sounds great Avanteesh! :-D Binning for planetary captures is an interesting use case for sure, allowing you to use shorter exposures and freeze the atmosphere more effectively I guess! Definitely seems to work for you buddy! :-)
Clear skies and good luck with those galaxies! :-D
Been saying this forever, it’s a case of mathematics being an occupational hazard, I’ve never seen a case where I had a sensor behind some nice glass and thought having less resolution would be a great idea…
That's a good way to look at it Robert! :-) Thanks so much for watching and sharing your perspective mate!
I'm at 0.79"/px with my 1955efl and 3.76µ ASI2600. That's at Bin 2. Bin 1 would be 0.40"/px and that just seems too spread out for seeing with 2.0"-2.5" stars.
Selection of camera and binning is defined by image scale. I aim to get 0.7-1.2” ideally; 1.2-2” is ok, and no below 0.7-0.8” or no to scope producing above 2”.
What about 0.7”-1” image scale and low f ratio? This is the best systems. Scopes with massive mirrors and complicated optical systems. Observatory-grade scopes.
It could have been great to have numbers (FWHM), especially that 0.5 vs 1”. It is surprising that seeing + guiding accuracy support it.
Thanks Ana! - I'm sorry I didn't include the extra info such as FWHM for each capture - that's something I could perhaps do in a more in-depth look at the subject I guess!
I'm glad it was still useful to a lot of people though :-D
Clear skies!
@@lukomatico For my system, anything below 0.7”/pixel doesn’t work. I don’t know seeing or mount accuracy. Besides, small pixels strongly undermine SNR. It is tough compromise to make.
I've never binned any data & after watching this I don't think I will be either lol, interesting comparison between the three.
Thanks so much Tich! :-D Keep that bin1 rolling! Clear skies mate!
Nice set of comparisons, Luke. This was great. What would you say your seeing was on the nights you did these tests? Wouldn't this play into whether or not you want to bin, e.g., with poor seeing you might be oversampled and want to bin? (Please forgive this question if it's naive. Still trying to wrap my head around all these nuances of imaging...)
Hey there Greg! It would indeed be a factor worth consideration if you regularly experience good seeing conditions, but on these nights my seeing was just average 👍
Cheers!
Really interesting video Luke. I'm a OSC user myself but I have seen some mono shooters image Ha in bin 1 and Sii and Oiii in bin 2. I'm guessing they do it to try and get the best of both worlds when they do their lrgb combination obviously using Ha as luminance. That might be worth a look at in some future video ? Anyway great watch 👍
Thanks Paul!! - May well be worth the experiment yeah! :-D I'll have to look into doing that at some point, thanks mate!
Just answered the question perfectly for me - ill subscribe to the channel
Thanks so much! Clear skies to you :-D
Very interesting. You may have negated the 1-2 a-s/pixel rule of thumb here. Am wondering if this is specific to your equipment somehow, or if the PixInsight processing has evolved to allow more oversampling in the data.
But not sure how you are binning at 2x2 with a OSC cam. Your images should go from RGB color to monochrome grey as the Bayer matrix can't be binned.
Cheers.
Thanks John! - I'm glad you found it interesting my friend :-)
RE: OSC binning retaining colour, I believe it's an interpolated bin technique that most of the astro cam manufacturers seem to use these days, not actually a 'true' bin2, but slightly higher than that so it can average the same coloured nearby pixels into groups for binning. - Hope that helps!
Clear skies mate
Very useful. How do you think this comparison would hold for a large SCT (11" EdgeHD), would the smaller pixels of bin1 still be preferred?
Thank you mate!! That's a good question, I'm sure there's a tipping point where there's just no more resolution benefit to be found, and you may well be at it when using an EdgeHD 11, that said - the noise quality in the images on test seemed far more pleasing with bin1 or resampled data - that could be something further to consider I guess!
Clear skies! :-)
Thank you for doing the comparisons. I use bin2 to on my one shot color camera a fair bit because I’m way way oversampled when seeing is mediocre. This shows there is still a difference even with modestly oversampled data although for some reason I don’t think your data was really truly fully over sample because there was a difference even with the bin1 subsampled data. If you were truly 2X over sampled then there would be no resolution difference between bin1 and bin1 processed and then downsampled to bin2. But there was still quite a difference. Possibly your seeing was just too good! But that’s, OK more test for someone in the future perhaps. It still clearly shows that OSC bin2 degrades an image in some ways, and I think it's related to how OSC bin2 works: It's not a true debayered sub-sample, but must select like-colored pixels from a fairly large area across the camera, much larger than a 2x2 area like mono does, so bin2 is more like bin2.5. You should show ASI's documentation for their bin2 subsampling pattern diagram to show why this is true, it would help complete the story of why OSC bin2 degrades it so much.
Thanks Steven! :-) I agree there's certainly a good few questions left unanswered by this, but that's a good opportunity for a follow-up test I guess, as you mentioned! :-D
I appreciate your comment, you raise some great points!
Clear skies mate!
Having experimented with binning, I've never been happy with the results. Perhaps I have been shooting photography and videography so long I am a bit pickier about the loss of detail. Regardless, I find there are plenty other good ways to deal with noise and enhance signal than sacrificing half or more of my resolution with binning.
Hey mate! - Honestly that's really fair to say, I basically feel the same way about binning these days haha - it can be useful if you're absolutely hilariously oversampled though I guess! Thanks for watching!
Bin1 cause like you said can always take more data...this isnt a quick hobby it takes time and dedication for the best so yep
I’m just starting in this hobby. When would you want to change from Bin 1 to Bin 2 or greater? Can post processing reverse it? I have a C8 SCT and am looking for my first OCS cooled camera. Is Binning more important to high focal length OTA? I think I’m figuring out that my C8 is best for planets and galaxies except M31 ( without creating a mosaic). But there is always iHyperstar for Nebula. Thanks
Hi there mate! You've basically got it already yeah, you'd bin when shooting unbinned causes you to be oversampled, so generally that's long focal length deep sky work 👍
For planetary/lunar though you want to sample as finely as possible so you'd never really bin for that, just as a general rule!
During stacking you can restore some spatial resolution if you drizzle your integration, but you can only really successfully drizzle data that was well dithered during capture and significantly oversampled anyway.
Hope that helps!
I've not had any time lately to do Bin1 vs Bin2 test on my equipment with the same data, but I do know that I'm greatly oversampled with my EdgeHD8 and 294MM in Bin1. Bin1 puts me at .33 "/px... I shoot at Bin2 to get me to .67"/px and my stars are slightly bloated especially when the seeing is not great. If I shot at Bin1 I'd be massively oversampled and my stars would be even bigger... I need to do a Bin1 / Bin2 test soon on the same target on the same night ...
Good luck with your test bud! It's a lot of fun to compare these things on your own system for sure :-) Clear skies!
Luke,
Are you using WBPP script?
There is a new updated section for drizzle data; under 'Post Calibration' did you use this feature?
If your Images are Bin2x2, then in the updated section 'Drizzle Configuration', you would select Scale 2, and 'Function (Circular)'.
Apply to all groups if required.
Something to try!
-------------
Thanks for the heads up Robin! I'm actually using APP for all stacking and preprocessing tasks these days though, still - I appreciate you taking the time to offer wisdom!
Clear skies my friend 👍
Thanks for the tip!
Fantastic comparison! Thanks :D
Glad you liked it! Thanks for watching :-)
Hiya Luke . Great info in this videos , however , being a Noob and still using a DSLR I'll assume that Bin 1 and Bin 2 Modes are Options for the Camera that you are using ? This really improves the case for upgrading . LOL ./SRK
Hey there Scott!! :-) good to hear from you mate!
Re: binning options, it's an astrocam thing yeah! I wouldn't worry about it too much though, while there are usage cases for bin2 I think it seems like most people should be sticking to bin1 anyway which your DSLR does natively 👍
Clear skies mate!
I just asked another RUclipsr the question would it be beneficial to maybe add 10-20 exposures at Bin2 to get a bit more of a background/colour shadowing to pop the colours a little more maybe?
Potentially mate! Best thing to do would be give it a go both ways if you can, then you can compare and go from there! 👍
Really great Video, I love this topic and would like to see a more in depth version of it where you could add the factors of rayleigh limit of a telescope or seeing etc. (things that influence the practical resolution or sharpness of an image) I always thought that a lower pixel scale would not make sense if its lower than the rayleigh limit of a telescope... but the 130phq has a rayleigh limit of 1.06" and your bin 1 version was way sharper than the bin 2 version with 1 "/pix. So how are those two things effect each other? In theory there should be no difference in resolution in your bin 1 and bin 2 version with 130phq because both pixelscales are benith the telescopes rayleigh limit of 1.06"... The 130phq should not be able to resolve a greater resolution than 1.06"/pix but its still a difference in your images :O
Thanks mate! - I've realised I made a mistake with the pixel scale calculation for the imx571 on the 130phq by the way, it's 0.78"/pix at bin1! I calculated with a smaller pixel by accident unfortunately (2.4um2 rather than 3.76um2") Oops! Still, regardless of the numbers & which theory we apply, be it Nyquist, Dawes or Rayleigh, we can definitely see bin1 was better on this scope! :-D The proof is in the pudding I guess!
Thanks for watching!
@@lukomatico This really makes sense :D If the scopes resolution capibility is arround 1"/pix we should see a great difference between the bin 1 (0.77) and the bin 2 (1.56) image. And thats what is showing in your test exposures!
BIN2 works great with EAA
It can help for sure yeah! :-)
Thanks . Very usefull
You are welcome! :-) clear skies!
Oh no, now you have mt OCD kicking in lol.. 🤪
Haha!! - My apologies mate :-D Thanks for watching!!
i always use bin1 its sharper & i don't see any reason to resample 50%
Thanks Darren! I appreciate your thoughts mate! - I guess resampling can be useful if your image scale is way beyond the intended display scale, so you can resample down and get a stronger SNR to allow more aggressive processing - that said, it's not something I'd usually do either! :-)
First??
You got it :)
That's superb haha! :-D Congrats mate!