14 Nov 2025 18:41
Cloudy nights - so I decided to do a second processing of NGC 7023 on the images from 2022. The processing from 2022 included stacking with SiriL and processing with Photoshop and plugins like Topaz DeNoise AI for noise reduction, ProDigital Astroflat and the Astronomy Tools plugins. The results were not really satisfying, as the core was too bright, and the background showed some banding (see image below).
21 Dec 2024 18:54
Pleiades recently launched PixInsight version 1.9 with some great new features - see Juan's announcement in the forum here.
24 Aug 2024 17:53
For a better documentation and control of my observation conditions, I purchased a Lunatico Pocket CW 2 cloud watcher. It provides a couple of sensors and alarms:
21 Aug 2024 21:18
It was time for a new PC. My old machine was from 2017 - it was not too bad. Here are some data from the PixInsight benchmark:
14 Feb 2024 21:41
Today was another interesting day at the PixInsight forum. I was not aware of the arrogance, with which the PixInsight staff treats paying customers, if they do not agree with their opinion. There is an unacceptable disrespect of customers, if they, e.g. complain about missing tools after updates. I remember a thread where the forum complained about the 'Copy coordinates' tool being deleted. The chief developer told us to use the command line tool, there would be no need for a GUI. Some forum members disagreed, so finally the staff member told us, that only he is correct and we can now 'continue with whatever we are doing here'.
18 Jan 2024 21:44
After a couple of cloudy weeks, I had the chance of taking some new images, this time of the flaming star nebula IC 405. The images are not processed, yet, but after some updates to PixInsight I again gave the Weighted Batch Processing Script a chance and stacked the images as OSC to compare results and processing time with SiriL.
18 Sept 2023 20:15
The new Skywatcher Quattro 150P offers some exciting opportunities for images of large hydrogen structures, g.e. supernova remnants like the Veil Nebula in the Cygnus constellation.
3 Sept 2023 16:32
Early this year (2023) I thought about upgrading my gear for wide field images. I was thinking about a new APS-C or even full frame camera and at the same time moving from OSC to monochrome with a filter wheel. I was still hesitating, because even a kit of a cooled monochrome APS-C with filter wheel and filters (e.g. ZWO Kit ASI2600 MM Pro - 7 Pos 36 mm filter wheel L-RGB & Narrowband) is more than 4.000 EUR and the gain in field view is small:
24 Aug 2023 08:45
This May I took some first images with my new Skywatcher Quattro 150P. I selected the Pelican Nebula (IC 5070), using an Optlong L-eXtreme dual band filter.
7 May 2023 17:27
In the past moths I faced lots of problems with data transmission using my USB cables. I used a 5 m standard cable connected to a 3 m cable with amplifier. Very often I lost contact to the camera or could not even connect. This became worse with the humid conditions end of 2022 as there was lots of flash rust on the connectors. I connected a power supply to my USB hub, but even that did not help.
26 Mar 2023 19:16
The weather in southern Germany is bad. Cloudy since months, hardly a clear night. In February, there was a chance to take some images - so I planned to capture IC 63 (an emission nebula) together with and IC59 (a reflection nebula) close to Gamma Cassiopeiae.
21 Mar 2023 22:06
Recently, a new tool for PixInsight was released - Russel Coman's BlurXTerminator. Another AI based tool for hobby astronomers, this time for deconvolution - resulting in sharp stars and amazing details in galaxies and nebulae.