That was quick! I'm a bit scared to upgrade as I don't want to break all the installed scripts/plugins! The Linux bit has been there for years, at least since 2014! Also glad to know we can go back to the future with the flux capacitors required for MARS travel (and potentially total recall!)
@@CuivTheLazyGeek be aware the database is far from finished so it will be only good for the regular targets and more of the Northern sky, It couldn't reference the Dolphin head Nebula but it referenced M42, they should have built up the database more before releasing it in my opinion.
@@CuivTheLazyGeek Seti Astro just posted a video regarding this and showed some workaround with the settings, as you said though it still not convincing enough but they will tweak it and upgrade it. to me this feels like an unfinished product. As for the rest of pixibsight it stills works perfectly, Plate solver has ended up in the astrometry folder in scripts and I like that now you can zoom several images in their windows.
Many thanks, Sascha. You saved me hours of banging my head against the wall. Made it through the whole process (installation, configuration, and processing an image in one day. But still, lots to learn!
Excellent video. Thanks! I installed 1.9 today and it was the easiest upgrade ever - all my packages survived 😊 Can’t wait to try the new multiscale gradient removal. Thanks for pointing out that we need to install the two XMARS files (I must have missed that from Juan’s announcement). The image sync feature is nice 😊
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year Sacha with a lot of CS. Here in the flat country of Switzerland we were definitely not spoiled in the past. :( Many thanks for your always interesting videos with your straight forward explanations. Gruss Thomas
Really helpful video Sascha - I just wanted to get going quickly on Mars and this was just what I wanted. I had no trouble updating to 1.9 on my M2 mini either. It's a Flux Capacitor by the way! Merry Xmas!
Ok I just laughed completely out loud at the beginning of this video. As someone who grew up playing the original FF7, she certainly did not look like that on the Playstation 1 back in the 90s, haha.
Sasha, You are on top of things! I downloaded PI 1.9 yesterday but wasn't sure if I needed one or both of the Mars files. Es ist mir schleierhaft. I got them both and linked them while watching your video. Now to look into the Flux process. Can't wait to try the new MultiscaleGradientCorrection. Thank you for the timely video. Randall Schleier PS - from Perplexity Ai "Spectrophotometric flux calibration is a crucial technique in astronomical observations used to convert the measured intensity of light from celestial objects into absolute physical units. This process involves comparing the observed spectrum of a target object with that of a standard star whose absolute flux is well-known."
Thanks for looking that up. And while it was meant as a joke, but if Mr. B. ever creates a lengthy video explaining flux I will watch it (with a few coffees by my side), as it would still be interesting to understand the full background....
Thanks for the video. Always very useful. Interesting about the Mac version still not supporting Apple silicon but then they say it might not work on anything older than MacOs14! New gradient tool looks good though. I wonder if it will mean an end to taking flats? It handled the vignetting very well. Perhaps it will remove dust bunny artifacts too? Hope you had a great Christmas and best wishes for 2025. Clear skies.
Sasha, Linux is obvious. Linux is THE development platform for any serious software (except NINA: but NINA is mostly an "interface" problem, not a computational one). QT and the most important parts of PI are native Linux libraries. Merry Xmas and thanks for your dedication to this passion.
Very informative and timely video. Any guess on how long it is going to take for the rest of the Mars data to be collected. I am guessing years. Maybe by then they will support the native Mac silicon. They really have limited testing on the Mac also.
Beware, there is aa processor hardware requirement at the bottom of the Release info page. It will not run on my computer but doesn't perform a hardware check and appeared to install but will not open after installed. Had to then uninstall and revert back to Ripley. Repositories are intact, but do have to reinstall all. Here is the requirement: Since version 1.9.0, PixInsight requires an x64 processor with AVX2 and FMA3 instruction support on Linux and Windows. Unfortunately, this requirement breaks compatibility with hardware using Intel processors released before 2013 and AMD processors older than 2015, approximately.
Probably need to include what happens if you try the MARs approach on an object not yet in the data base - rather than a helpful descriptive message that tells you this you get an error message about no reference data on your red filter...
It worked! Even after a double Vodka Martini. However, I have questions/observations: 1) Does Flux Calibration replace SPCC? 2) Each time I run MultiscaleGradient, the MARS Database window is blank until I click on Default Files; then, the two MARS DBs appear. DO I have to do this each time I use Multiscale? 3) The write code and compile in Linux, which is why in 2024 we still have to use underscore when renaming files.
@@viewintospace From the Pixinsight Forum, the selection of MSG from a Process Icon opens with no MARS DBs loasded. Opening it as a Process (from the Process menu) opens the app with previously selected MARS DBs. The solution is to configure MSG, then create a process icon. Like a lot of things Pix, it makes no sense.
The Gradient tool also works on SHO images. Unfortunately the image I tried to remove the gradient from was outside the mapped area, but it still removed the gradient. The image was NGC 7822.
Moin Very helpfull video, thanks. But where the heck is the butterfly nebula? When searching Stellarium shows no butterfly nebula, but Schmetterling-Nebel, NGC 2346, in Mon. Sadr resides in Cyg.
@@viewintospace Ja, schon klar. Aber ich hätte besser gleich NINA befragt. Der PN hat gar keine NGC-Nr.; es ist IC1318, und nun finde ich ihn auch in der SADR-Region. (NINA findet gleich 3 Buttefly Nebula)
On my MacBook Pro, do I need to first completely delete the PI app as well as the hidden folder "core-001-pxi.settings" before installing the new version?
For Mac users, are we going to have to reinstall a bunch of other scripts/ processes we've added when we delete the Applications/Pixinsight folder? Some just use the repository, but others required me to add stuff to that folder.
Well, the clean way is that all scripts should be in a repository, and then once you installed the new version it prompts you to do xx updates and then it download all the scripts again and and installs them. Given that these version updates happen rather often, I would make sure that you find here a solution which does not require too much effort each time.
Might be that this area is not covered yet by MARS. How the whole thing with providing your own reference picture works, mostly what qualities these reference pics have to have, is also still mystery to me. I hope they will cover that soon.
I personally doubt that Block can give me the useful info that you manged to do in 12 minutes in less than 4 hours! lol lol Bring lots of coffee and energy drinks when you start a Block tutorial! 🙂
Thank you for the info. I am totally new to astrophotography, especially the software, and am in the process of building a new computer and noted under system requirements that the new release is geared to linux. I have no desire to use linux, MAC or AMD processors. I am not as computer literate as the audience, but the impression I get is that I should forget using PixInsight and essentially forget high level astrophotography. You may have save me a great deal of money. I'm sure the wife will love that, but for me ... Total let down.
When I try the gradient tool it says _"*** Error: No reference data found for filter 'R' "_ But I haven't used PI for a few months so it could be something obvious I'm missing. Is the tool supposed to be for normal OSC cameras or, is it for mono cameras where you take your R, G B and L images separately?
I'm trying to use the new tool. I need to plate solve the image first. Image solve in scripts is now gone. Using windows version. Don't know where it's been moved to.
Great work Sasha ! I agree with the stupidity of these devel;opers that they miss what the MAJORITY of their target customers use ! Its not Linux ! Happy Holidays !
To be fair, they are not stupid, quite the opposite. The issue is, that they have no clue how to deal appropriately with customers and given they have a quasi monopoly, they can operate their business successfully this way, doing their own thing and offering it to us on a take it or leave it bases....
Linux version is a few percent faster, that is in the context of all that time what our hobby costs absolutely unimportant. More respect to developers of such piece of sw would be nice.
I think it depends what hardware you are running on. For me, Linux PixInsight was indeed faster than my Windows PI on the same machine, specifically Linux would pretty much max out all my cores whereas Windows did not. However, PI on my M4 Mac Mini 32GB runs circles around the Linux PI on my Intel i5-12600k with 96GB ram. I mean, it is shockingly faster. I have zero bias of any platform but all my PI workflow is on the Mac M4.
Thank you for keep updating us and this nice video again. Wish you merry Chrismas and all the best
That was quick! I'm a bit scared to upgrade as I don't want to break all the installed scripts/plugins!
The Linux bit has been there for years, at least since 2014! Also glad to know we can go back to the future with the flux capacitors required for MARS travel (and potentially total recall!)
So far all scripts look fine. Also GHS which sometimes makes trouble at updates is working without issues. But that is on a Mac…
@@viewintospace I guess I have to roll the dice and try it on Windows :D
@@CuivTheLazyGeek be aware the database is far from finished so it will be only good for the regular targets and more of the Northern sky, It couldn't reference the Dolphin head Nebula but it referenced M42, they should have built up the database more before releasing it in my opinion.
@nikaxstrophotography I've also seen it nuke nebulosity, still... Not convinced:(
@@CuivTheLazyGeek Seti Astro just posted a video regarding this and showed some workaround with the settings, as you said though it still not convincing enough but they will tweak it and upgrade it. to me this feels like an unfinished product.
As for the rest of pixibsight it stills works perfectly, Plate solver has ended up in the astrometry folder in scripts and I like that now you can zoom several images in their windows.
Another really helpful and timely video Sasha, thanks and have a great Christmas. See you in the New Year!
Excellent explanation and directly to the point. So glad that all the 3rd party scripts don’t break with this update. Thank you and Happy Holidays!
Many thanks, Sascha. You saved me hours of banging my head against the wall. Made it through the whole process (installation, configuration, and processing an image in one day. But still, lots to learn!
Excellent video. Thanks! I installed 1.9 today and it was the easiest upgrade ever - all my packages survived 😊 Can’t wait to try the new multiscale gradient removal. Thanks for pointing out that we need to install the two XMARS files (I must have missed that from Juan’s announcement).
The image sync feature is nice 😊
Thanks for a great video, hope you had a great xmas and wishing you a happy new year!
Feliz Navidad amigo. Gran video.
Gracias! 😊
Merry Christmas Sasha & thanks for this tutorial. I've just installed it and works great.
Are you running Linux?
Very nice and helpful, Sasha! Thank you for sharing.
Thanks for the video. Love your attitude. I, too, am looking forward to spending another 2 hours with Adam Block.
🤣
Adam takes 2 hours just to describe getting out of bed :)
🤣🤣
Merry Xmas Sascha. Have a good one! Clear skies.
Great video. Thank you and merry Christmas.
Thanks! lol the AB remark 😂👍happy Xmas Sasha
Excellent introduction. Many thanks
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year Sacha with a lot of CS. Here in the flat country of Switzerland we were definitely not spoiled in the past. :(
Many thanks for your always interesting videos with your straight forward explanations. Gruss Thomas
Thanks!!! And yes, this year was as miserable as it gets when it comes to CS - lets hope 2025 will be better!!!!
Merry Christmas Sasha.
Really helpful video Sascha - I just wanted to get going quickly on Mars and this was just what I wanted. I had no trouble updating to 1.9 on my M2 mini either. It's a Flux Capacitor by the way! Merry Xmas!
Thank You ❤
LMAO on your comments on the Flux Capacitor and Back to the future. Nice video as always.
Ok I just laughed completely out loud at the beginning of this video. As someone who grew up playing the original FF7, she certainly did not look like that on the Playstation 1 back in the 90s, haha.
grazie, spiegazione molto semplice!!
Sasha, You are on top of things! I downloaded PI 1.9 yesterday but wasn't sure if I needed one or both of the Mars files. Es ist mir schleierhaft. I got them both and linked them while watching your video. Now to look into the Flux process. Can't wait to try the new MultiscaleGradientCorrection. Thank you for the timely video. Randall Schleier
PS - from Perplexity Ai "Spectrophotometric flux calibration is a crucial technique in astronomical observations used to convert the measured intensity of light from celestial objects into absolute physical units. This process involves comparing the observed spectrum of a target object with that of a standard star whose absolute flux is well-known."
Thanks for looking that up. And while it was meant as a joke, but if Mr. B. ever creates a lengthy video explaining flux I will watch it (with a few coffees by my side), as it would still be interesting to understand the full background....
Thanks for the video. Always very useful. Interesting about the Mac version still not supporting Apple silicon but then they say it might not work on anything older than MacOs14!
New gradient tool looks good though. I wonder if it will mean an end to taking flats? It handled the vignetting very well. Perhaps it will remove dust bunny artifacts too?
Hope you had a great Christmas and best wishes for 2025. Clear skies.
Merry Christmas Sascha
Thanks for both of the tiring information and refreshing irony :)
I love your explanation of the choice of Lockhart as the name…..outstanding ! 😉😂😂
And here I thought it was named after June Lockhart from the ‘60’s Lost in space show.
@@denisdubrule7318 I think this Lockhart is even better 😂😂
Sasha, Linux is obvious. Linux is THE development platform for any serious software (except NINA: but NINA is mostly an "interface" problem, not a computational one).
QT and the most important parts of PI are native Linux libraries.
Merry Xmas and thanks for your dedication to this passion.
Very informative and timely video. Any guess on how long it is going to take for the rest of the Mars data to be collected. I am guessing years. Maybe by then they will support the native Mac silicon. They really have limited testing on the Mac also.
Thanks for clarifying that I need both mars files. I didn't find that anywhere or advice on where to store them.
Beware, there is aa processor hardware requirement at the bottom of the Release info page. It will not run on my computer but doesn't perform a hardware check and appeared to install but will not open after installed. Had to then uninstall and revert back to Ripley. Repositories are intact, but do have to reinstall all.
Here is the requirement: Since version 1.9.0, PixInsight requires an x64 processor with AVX2 and FMA3 instruction support on Linux and Windows. Unfortunately, this requirement breaks compatibility with hardware using Intel processors released before 2013 and AMD processors older than 2015, approximately.
Probably need to include what happens if you try the MARs approach on an object not yet in the data base - rather than a helpful descriptive message that tells you this you get an error message about no reference data on your red filter...
It worked! Even after a double Vodka Martini. However, I have questions/observations:
1) Does Flux Calibration replace SPCC?
2) Each time I run MultiscaleGradient, the MARS Database window is blank until I click on Default Files; then, the two MARS DBs appear. DO I have to do this each time I use Multiscale?
3) The write code and compile in Linux, which is why in 2024 we still have to use underscore when renaming files.
1) No, it does not - you will still have to run SPCC
2) The way they explain it you have every time to press Default
@@viewintospace From the Pixinsight Forum, the selection of MSG from a Process Icon opens with no MARS DBs loasded. Opening it as a Process (from the Process menu) opens the app with previously selected MARS DBs. The solution is to configure MSG, then create a process icon. Like a lot of things Pix, it makes no sense.
I’m happy to see they named after a video game character. Now I know why the bugs never get fixed.
🤣
Did the upgrade on Win 11 and all the resources seem to still be there including 3rd party like GHS.
Not directed to their costumers. So beautifully put. They do have an air of arrogance regarding how things are done.
The Gradient tool also works on SHO images. Unfortunately the image I tried to remove the gradient from was outside the mapped area, but it still removed the gradient. The image was NGC 7822.
Moin
Very helpfull video, thanks.
But where the heck is the butterfly nebula? When searching Stellarium shows no butterfly nebula, but Schmetterling-Nebel, NGC 2346, in Mon. Sadr resides in Cyg.
Für Dich zeigt es es halt in Deutsch - ist aber der gleiche. 😉
@@viewintospace Ja, schon klar. Aber ich hätte besser gleich NINA befragt. Der PN hat gar keine NGC-Nr.; es ist IC1318, und nun finde ich ihn auch in der SADR-Region.
(NINA findet gleich 3 Buttefly Nebula)
On my MacBook Pro, do I need to first completely delete the PI app as well as the hidden folder "core-001-pxi.settings" before installing the new version?
No, only the PI folder in application. Leave the hidden settings folder, it ensures that everything is installed again as before with the new version
Flux Capacitor :D
Thanks again Sascha. What will be a good location (Mac) for the MARD files? Thanks.
I would put in a directory, that is not synched to iCloud. Best, you put it where you have the Gaia DR3 files.
Linux is used a lot for scientific applications and usually does run better than Windows. I have Ubuntu on one machine but do run Pix on Windows.
Eigentlich möchte ich nur wissen, ob ich es installieren soll oder nicht… Eigentlich: Never change a Running System!
Aber: wenn es sich lohnt?!
Es lohnt sich und die meisten haben keine Probleme - ich würde es machen!
At what point of your steps you use this? mine failed:"Error: No stars found (channel 0)"?
For Mac users, are we going to have to reinstall a bunch of other scripts/ processes we've added when we delete the Applications/Pixinsight folder? Some just use the repository, but others required me to add stuff to that folder.
Well, the clean way is that all scripts should be in a repository, and then once you installed the new version it prompts you to do xx updates and then it download all the scripts again and and installs them. Given that these version updates happen rather often, I would make sure that you find here a solution which does not require too much effort each time.
@@viewintospace all the scripts worked as you said. It's Starnet++ that needs to be installed into the application folder. Thanks!
Not another 2 hour Adam Block video 😂 😵cruel, but funny.
I love the wealth of information he provides, but I need to pick a moment when I'm wide awake with a lot of caffein on my side... 🤣
The endurance … is the most obvious, to me at least. 😂
🤣
I'm stuck - It won't work on my image of the Tarantula in the LMC. How do I tell it what the reference image is? Thanks for your hints / tips.
Might be that this area is not covered yet by MARS. How the whole thing with providing your own reference picture works, mostly what qualities these reference pics have to have, is also still mystery to me. I hope they will cover that soon.
@@viewintospace Danke vielmal!
the database is far from finished , most souther targets are not in the databases yet only Northern and main milkyway targets
@@nikaxstrophotography Many thanks - much appreciated.
im using Linux Mint and wow twice the speed. Anyone else get Alien faces on there icons that now no longer works. lol
STF is not working for me in 1.9. will not reset and therefore ez soft stretch will not work
PLEASE do not use EZ Soft stretch anymore - this is ancient history... If you like these automated stretches, try Statistical Stretch of Seti Astro.
I personally doubt that Block can give me the useful info that you manged to do in 12 minutes in less than 4 hours! lol lol Bring lots of coffee and energy drinks when you start a Block tutorial! 🙂
Thank you for the info. I am totally new to astrophotography, especially the software, and am in the process of building a new computer and noted under system requirements that the new release is geared to linux. I have no desire to use linux, MAC or AMD processors. I am not as computer literate as the audience, but the impression I get is that I should forget using PixInsight and essentially forget high level astrophotography. You may have save me a great deal of money. I'm sure the wife will love that, but for me ... Total let down.
Don’t worry, PixInsight works perfectly well on any recent Windows PC.
When I try the gradient tool it says _"*** Error: No reference data found for filter 'R' "_
But I haven't used PI for a few months so it could be something obvious I'm missing.
Is the tool supposed to be for normal OSC cameras or, is it for mono cameras where you take your R, G B and L images separately?
I used it on both SHO and RGB mono images once they were combined. It worked on both combinations.
I'm trying to use the new tool. I need to plate solve the image first. Image solve in scripts is now gone. Using windows version. Don't know where it's been moved to.
Did you run the flux calibration first? It almost sounds like it is trying to compare to the reference flux and can't find it.
@@211milkman Image solver has been moved to the Astrometry folder in scripts.
@briangriffiths937 yeah. I found it after I posted this. Have to get used to things again. Thank you 😊
Great work Sasha ! I agree with the stupidity of these devel;opers that they miss what the MAJORITY of their target customers use ! Its not Linux ! Happy Holidays !
To be fair, they are not stupid, quite the opposite. The issue is, that they have no clue how to deal appropriately with customers and given they have a quasi monopoly, they can operate their business successfully this way, doing their own thing and offering it to us on a take it or leave it bases....
Linux version is a few percent faster, that is in the context of all that time what our hobby costs absolutely unimportant. More respect to developers of such piece of sw would be nice.
No reference file found for Red then it got no further, this is for the dolphin Head Nebula so I think the database is still way too unfinished.
Same here, maybe we need another reference file. Tried using it on a Canon EOS Ra image.
I've just tried to use this tool, but it seems the XMARS database covers very little of the sky so far. So it's not all that useful.
I think depends where you live. On the Northern side it covers quite some parts, but yes, this tool will definitely get better with time!!!
Your gradient model clearly shows that you overcorrected. The Pixinsight video shows how to avoid this.
Very true - unfortunately the PixInsight video explaining this was only published after I published mine 😉
@@viewintospace Fair enough, I guess that's always a risk when trying to get the news out first! :)
Linux is faster than Mac.
I think it depends what hardware you are running on. For me, Linux PixInsight was indeed faster than my Windows PI on the same machine, specifically Linux would pretty much max out all my cores whereas Windows did not. However, PI on my M4 Mac Mini 32GB runs circles around the Linux PI on my Intel i5-12600k with 96GB ram. I mean, it is shockingly faster. I have zero bias of any platform but all my PI workflow is on the Mac M4.