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You are a game changer. Question on collecting OSC SHO. It seems a bit different than expected. Do I still follow SHO function? Any other advice? Thank you!

Thanks Bill. New user and found your color masks, playing/learning them now. Need to figure out if this script will help me. I am se Starxterminator now, and seems to work. Never thought of star reduction.

Can't seem to open the repository? Anyone else having issues?

Used this script but must have overlooked something, all the Ha came through as bright white versus Red. Any suggestions?

I don't even have a solar scope but I enjoyed this video 🙂

Excellent processing. Why not charge 100 dollars for this script like Russell Croman ?

Hey Bill. Thank you so much for creating this. It's pretty incredible. I'm just getting started on learning Pixinsight. If you have time, I have a question for you. All my pics so far are taken with a OSC camera (ASI 533MC pro) and a dual narrowband filter (Svbony 220 7nm). When I open my images in Pixinsight and throw your HOO plug in on them, they look better, but all i get is kind of ambers and gold colors, no blues, or even greens. What am i missing? Do I just need to do something different in post? Or am I not getting the right data initially? Thank you for any thoughts and thanks again for this great plug-in. Aaron.

Hi Bill, fantastic work (As usual) I have just downloaded the scripts, however the GHS script does not seem to be there. Has it been removed? Regards Mark.

The script still doesn’t show up for me, even when I do the Resources -> Updates -> Reset Updates and restart pixinsight. Am I missing a step? Edit: I just realized I was using build 1588. I’ll update Pixinsight and hope that fixes my issue.

It said the script for star reduction was added successfully - but under Scripts -> Utilities Star reduction isn't appearing - any ideas? Found the answer in PI forums (problem with the install script commands I wonder?) - Solution was Go to Scripts > Feature Scripts... , click Add, navigate to StarReduction folder, click Open/OK, PI should find the script. Click Done.

I literally stared at my screen for what felt like an eternity! Could not believed how this transformed my OSC imaging. Thank you kindly,

awesome work! thanks for your efforts

Works sooo great - and THANKYOU! However - a question re future: As far as i can tell, there is no way to Batch-process your settings - so its not useable for doing a Timelapse. Ccan align alll with IMPPG, sure, but when it comes to the really great tool in TOolbox re color and sharpness and contrast, there is no way to apply those to all the images …. Especially if say, 200 … Any workaround for that, or update coming re that?

Is your server down? Unable to download Solartool box Repository Link:

Just wondering why the url for screen stars keeps timing out...I would love to use that script for my images.

I just used this with an ImageContainer to bulk edit the frames from a solar time lapse: czcams.com/video/Vu4NvicdiHs/video.htmlsi=SZgta0PkWPPRoThA - it was so easy! Thanks for all the work on this.

WOW! This is a killer script!! Amazing! Thank you!!

The link to the toolbox does not work for me. I get 404 error.

Oh, I had this script already in PI and I didn't even know it! I must have installed it with a bunch of others and forgot about it. But it's great; I just did a quick test on some old data that had a few huge stars, and then ran BlurXTerminator on an image with, and without, the Reduced Stars script. And I got a much better result on the image that had Star Reduction applied to it. The most noticeable difference was on a double star, where the script made the stars just small enough that BlurXTerminator could work its magic properly. I'll be using this a lot from now on!

Great work on the Solar Toolbox. I tried it on just a white light filter shot and it brought out much more detail I didn't even know was there.

This is great! Thanks Bill

This is so cool! Thank you Bill!

This is simply amazing. Thank you very much.

Hello :) I cant find a contact formular at your website, I try it here. I have the actual Pixinsight version and build and can not install the process. I tried to reset the updates, reopenend Pixinsight and installed all updates new. The solar tool box will not shown in the processes. Can you help me please?

Glad that I bumped into this video. Thanks for putting the solar processing process together. It’s awesome. One question I do have if the recommend starting point is with a stacked image from PIPP, Autostakkert or RegiStax? What did you use to get this stacked image?

how did i miss this.... thanks bill

thank you

Thank you Bill. I'm a planetary and lunar imager and now venturing into solar. Your Solar Toolbox will now be my go to post processing tool. I think I will use it on planets and the Moon too and replace the legacy tools like Registax and perhaps Astrosurface. PixInsight is the best software investment I've made in a long time. For my Easter wish list, can you add solar timelapse to you toolbox? You and Mike are taking this hobby to the next level. I mean, we amateurs can start to perhaps make scientific contributions. I need to buy you coffee

I am gettingf a 404 Error on your link. Is there a new link that works ?

I process most of my solar images inverted and leave them greyscale because I could never produce a consistent approach to masking and colourising an in phase image to show the surface and prominences. That said, I also enjoy the dark mood and dramatic appearance they have. Currently we are hounded by clouds so I have used the script on historic data and WOW, what an impact. I sincerely appreciate all the time and effort both Bill and Mike have put into developing this too and look forward to producing more colourised in-phase images. I guess I have joined the ‘orange’ side!

Bill , I wanted to send you an email but cant find one so I will ask you a question about processing ... A cousin of mine wanted me to image Leo 1 and keep the star Regulus in frame. The problem is Regulus just gets so blown out and I have tried to process it but just cant seem to do it ... Any tricks... ??? If you want me to send image of it I could. Not sure if you take requests but watch and use a lot of your tools , maybe not as well as you but they make things so much easier . Thanks

Enjoying the tutorial, gonna watch it all the way through - but for the life of me I can't find the icon under all processes. Didn't see any errors in the update log. Ran the reset updates & tried again, still nothing. I'll keep giving it a shot, hopefully it'll work itself out.

I was able to install STB 2 weeks ago on a Windows PC without issue. Great process!. However, in trying to install it on a second PC for portable use, I kept getting a download file error for both the Process and the Process documentation. File name : solarToolboxModuleWindows20240216v0100.tar.gz File name : solarToolboxModule20240216Doc.tar.gz PI Install 1601. Win 11. I HAVE watched the videos. As i noted, I installed it two weeks ago without a problem. Bryan

Thanks so much for this. I finally managed to do a little solar imaging today in preparation for April 8th as we are right in the center of the path. This process made the editing so simple, especially for my first images.

at 04:35 "I already created a starless image". How? With this script, some other script? I want to remove stars from an image with foreground galaxy and background stars. I'm looking at the script GUI and I see in the files section: Starry View, Starless View and Stars view. Can I, and if can, how exactly can I load my xsif file of M106 and background stars in it, remove the stars from it, generate a starless view of the galaxy and a "Stars View" which I assume is only stars? Sorry, I really appreciate your work, but the whole reason I installed this script in PI was to use it. not starnet2 or other star removal plugin, to remove stars from existing image and generate the equivalent of a star mask and a starless image. That information is absent in this tutorial.

The link for the repository is down (404)

I am about to describe something that may make people ask, "Why would you do that" and others just flat out say, "No," but I think there may be a bug. After seeing your application of the sharpening and histogram equalization to planetary images, I wondered how they would work on DSO's. The answer is that they kinda work, but need help. By help, I mean selective masking. What I have run into, however, is that with a mask applied to the target image, the real time preview does not update. I cannot tell what impact my choices are having. My solution has been to work on the unmasked image and get contrast/sharpening where I like them on the structures I'm targeting, apply the mask (the RT Preview updates), then apply the enhancements. Not sure if this is something that you can fix since this really isn't the intended purpose, but I have enjoyed the tool!

Nice one!! So it installs and works on my PC but on mac I get a load error that says the mac repository file isnt available. I'm familiar with the update process and the repository url is correct, restarted PI/etc same error.

Tried the HOO Normalisation this evening on old data and the result was outstanding, much more detail teased out and fabulous colours. Thank you so much for the work you do for the Astro community.

Link is 404 - did you take down the script?

Thank you so much! Genius work.

Ive tried the tool today! Wow! You really made a great tool!!!!

Hi Bill. I am a complete beginner in Pixinsight, although I've been astroimaging for a while now. Your Stretching using PixelMath looks to be a great tool, but unfortunately I can't get it to work. I dragged the .xpsm file onto the PI workspace and got this message: "2 new icon(s) had to be renamed due to conflicting identifiers with previously existing icons. Original identifiers have been suffixed as necessary to make them unique.". This seems to indicate it has done something but there are no icons on the screen and I cannot find where they are in PI. Can you advise? Many thanks

Ok I got it. After downloading the latest version (build 1601) everything works well. I sweat hard after losing all the RC ASTRO's paied hundreds euros tools but I proceeded in some way to recover all of them. Thank you.

My pixinisght is 1.8.9-2 and it's ok but build 1593 not 1597. Is a problem or THE problem?

Amen...this was fantastic. What a tool.

Hi, very interesting toolbox you made. I would like to try it, but the link you provided is dead :( Do you have another link?

I am ABSOLUTLEY BLOWN AWAY. I can't believe what an amazing toolkit you produced. This makes the process so much simpler. Where it's really going to do miracles is with my time lapse clips of the sun. The process I use in Photoshop to boost the prominences doesn't work with their batch processing method, but this solves all of that. Now I will be able to do the movies with lots of surface detail instead of just prom detail. Subbed to your channel and bought you 5 coffees. Thanks again, you are an absolute hero!

Oh, it doesnt' work. Surprise surprise. Anybody give you for free.

An excellent tool which I have just used for the first time with very good results - the tutorial video is a must watch so as to realize the full potential of the script.